Another sex scandal!
This time they caught a Democrat! And with a woman! An adult woman too!
Seriously, no matter the party, I like seeing ANY hypocrite get hoisted.
"NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Elliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal came just over a year since he stormed into the governor's office, vowing to root out corruption.
...The first-term Democrat was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet a prostitute from a call-girl business...
...The governor has not been charged, and prosecutors would not comment on the case Monday. A spokesman for Spitzer said the governor has retained a large Manhattan law firm.
At a Manhattan news conference, a glassy-eyed Spitzer, his shellshocked wife Silda at his side, apologized to his family and the people of New York.[...]"
Well hell, Mr. Clean of all people. And doncha know that Fox News broke its neck digging out every video clip they could find of Spritzer and Hillary Clinton campaigning together....
Ah well, no one can claim that corruption or hypocrisy is the exclusive province of one party or the other.
It's always the ones who rail hardest against ethics violations that end up getting caught for ethics violations...and if he can be hypocritical about prostitution, he can be hypocritical about other things.
As they say--live by the sword, die by the sword. Prostitution is not legal in DC or NY. Against the law. In the normal course of things, big deal, men pay for hookers all over the world, but here in super-puritanical America it can set you up for blackmail, big time.
And when you set yourself up as the Chief Moral Officer, as the second-coming of prosecutor Elliot Ness...and you go around busting up prostitution rings, sending people to jail...and probably getting elected governor because of it...
I'd put his survival odds at nil, nada. But wait...isn't David Vitter (who admitted only to sinning with hookers) still a senator...isn't restroom toe-tapper Sen. Larry Craig still in the senate?
Some people say it's a victimless crime. Maybe so, IF it's an average Joe on the street who got caught engaging in this behavior. BUT, it's a different story when it's an elected official, a Governor and former Attorney General no less, someone who has a security clearance, who has access to classified material, who can have people investigated and indicted, who controls public money. ALL of that makes him vulnerable to blackmail.
Think how The Mob could play hell with this if the FBI hadn't found it first.
But then, people can be blackmailed because they are having an affair, even if the affair itself doesn't break any laws.
Anyway, Spitzer shouldn't be given any different treatment than we've given Vitter or Larry Craig or any of the others who have been caught in sex scandals. But please, if your judgement is that crappy, get a job in the private sector and have a ball.
I guess the focus is not so much on prostitution, but on how he paid for it... whether the payments were made in a way "to conceal their purpose and source." That's a crime called "Structuring"...money laundering in plain talk, and carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
If it's all just hookers, then it will be a quick death. But the FBI were originally investigating financial irregularities, so who knows what's on down the road.
Maybe the real story here is that the FBI, with its unmonitored wiretapping and surveillance programs, is reading EVERYONE'S e-mail....
