Too bad Spitzer was hounded out by the puritanical feeding frenzy of the media mob.
This moralistic fanaticism - fueled by the media's relentless exploitation of sex for ratings and profits - has happened too much of late and threatens to destroy too many worthwhile public servants for minor personal foibles.
Think of what would have happened had our present day, puritanical standards - enforced by the media's righteous indignation - been applied to some of our great political heroes from the past.
Should we have humiliated and impeached Jack Kennedy for Judith Exner, Angie Dickinson and Marilyn Monroe? Or Frankly D. Roosevelt for his relationship with Eleanor's social secretary Lucy Mercer? Or President Thomas Jefferson for his affair with Sally Hemming?
Almost every Democratic President since the Civil War has been implicated in some kind of sexual scandal. Would we really have wanted to dump General Dwight Eisenhower for his close relationship with his attractive driver, Kay Summersby, during World War II? Commander In Chief, General George Marshal, quashed that idea real fast. We had the Nazis to fight.
Today, driven by a voyeuristic media clamor, the public is being bombarded with salacious pictures of scantily clad women from the Emperor's Club VIP web site, and Kristen's My Space and Facebook pages - in the tabloids, on television and on web sites - which drives ratings, readership, and huge profits. Talk about exploiting prostitutes for money! The media delights in selling sex in the same way that the hookers do - only the women are not getting paid for their images.
Our country has a long history of sexually promiscuous Presidents.
The names of powerful political men who have strayed reels off the tongue: Presidents Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George Bush, Sr. (probably).
Indeed, Historian Stanley K. Schultz argues that the great and active Presidents tended to stray more than the mediocre Presidents: "History records few sexual peccadilloes or large moral lapses among most of the men whom historians regard as caretakers rather than as active law-makers or dynamic leaders in the office."
This instant media indignation, and high tech lynching, is a new phenomenon. Americans didn't used to be so hypocritical. Indeed, the rest of the world doesn't follow our straight-laced standards.
If the media hadn't made a big thing about it, nobody much would have cared. Spitzer could have admitted everything, stayed quiet for a few weeks, been humiliated, and the brouhahas would have blown over, soon to be enveloped in the next "scandal de jour." Bill Clinton's actions were even more sordid and illegal and he hung in there...and survived.
Spitzer would have done American politics a great service if he had refused to resign for the principle of the thing. Too many politicians have been forced out of office for victimless crimes and selective prosecution by an out-of-control law enforcement.
This is the latest effort - in a number of earlier historical attempts - to legislate "vice", and enforce religious dogma. Examples are the hysteria about gay sex, the war on drugs and liquor, the prohibition of abortion, and before that, the war on unmarried sex. These campaigns against victimless crimes have destroyed our Constitutional protections and our respect for law enforcement, without any benefit to society.
The same rules, about laying off victimless crimes, should apply to Republicans and Democrats - to Barney Frank, Larry Craig, and David Vitter. Bill Clinton, to his great credit, stood up to a firestorm of puritanistic, religious zealots. And most of the country applauded.
People said it was because Clinton lied or had relations with an employee (something that Spitzer did not do). But that's a lot of crap. He was persecuted because of the sex.
Spitzer, elected by voters, should have resigned only if he were guilty of "high crimes and misnomers."
What he did certainly does not qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor.
The Mann Act from 1910 is a relic from a bygone era. Johns never get prosecuted federally. They usually get a small fine, like a speeding ticket.
But Spitzer broke the law, the moralists will clamor - of course it's a crime. But so is jaywalking...or playing in a Friday night poker game, or smoking a joint, or public drunkenness, or having gay sex, or speeding at 100 miles per hour and causing a crash (Corzine). Do we want to hound every politician for every moral lapse?
This is the lowest of low crimes.
Some worse things that Spitzer could have done:
He could have dallied with any one of hundreds of attractive lobbyists (think Corzine and McCain and half the Senate) and certainly his position, as governor, would have been compromised by the appearance of trading sex for access and influence.
He could have had relations with a state employee; his enemies could argue that he was exerting undue influence over subordinates.
He could have picked a young volunteer or intern, and the same logic would apply. And this might rise to some kind of sexual harassment crime.
He could have kept a mistress in an apartment in Albany in an ongoing relationship that would certainly reflect more disloyalty to his wife and daughters. Having your husband sharing his life and emotions with another woman is certainly more distressful than having a two-hour sexual relief.
He could have had an affair with one of his wife's friends in her social circle and had it get back to her.
He could have dumped his wife and family of twenty years into the trash bin, "to marry whatever new Twinkie works your male menopausal pink," according to Cindy Adams.
Spitzer didn't lie about it to a bunch of busybody policemen or a Congressional committee or an investigating committee.
So out of all the possibilities of moral deprivation, Spitzer picked the one with the least possibility of compromising his government position or threatening his marriage.
He did it out of town and clearly was not intending a continued relationship. Perhaps he turned to prostitutes precisely to avoid any marriage-threatening, romantic entanglements and stayed away from women in government ....who could have demanded a quid pro quo.
If any crime is a victimless crime, this one is it. The hooker was a willing adult getting highly paid for her charms. If she didn't want to do it, nobody was forcing her.
A caveat...of course Spitzer exhibited the narcissistic, arrogant hubris of a conflicted and self-destructive man. Sex addiction is a serious disease and millions of men...and women...suffer from it and need treatment, akin to the kind of rehab treatment that drug and alcohol addicts receive.
But bottom line, Spitzer, and other public servants, should be shown more mercy than he allowed those he excessively prosecuted, convicted and sentenced under his regime.
"Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue," according to Molière.
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And while I agree that Spitzer shouldn't have had to resign, the practical fact is that he had to, because this "scandal" would not have gone away, and he would not have been able to conduct the business of Governor, and other Democrats would have been affected by the continuing fallout.
As Attorney General, he had some discretion as to what he chose to prosecute. You can't prosecute everything, and he should have maintained focus on real criminal activity, like Wall Street and political corruption, and left the prostitutes alone. Then he wouldn't look like such a hypocrite today.
Clinton was able to stand and fight because he was not impeached for having sex. He was ensnared by a Republican trick. The public understood that, and supported him. Spitzer was caught red-handed, a hypocritical scofflaw. Given the puritanical environment, even his supporters agree he had to go.
Vitter is a corrupt Republican ... nobody expects much as far as being a lying weasel ... and remains in office.
One imperfect Dem out; one corrupt weasel still in.
It's a war of attrition, in ways, and their side doesn't have the "honour" to resign.
Which means, over time, they'll likely hang on to more power than they deserve.
I actually agree that Clinton did something important by not resigning in the face of pressure. It would have been very bad for the country for presidents to be forced out of office over personal scandals. But I am not convinced it is as important at the state level as it is with the President. And the legal issues and hypocrisy issues do seem significantly different in these cases.
Your apologia ignores the issue of whether or not prostitution is a victimless crime. Most experts who have examined the issue have concluded that it is not victimless. By and large, those who are in the sex trades are there because of a complex of dysfunctional treatment while young, low self-esteem, fear, intimidation and desperation. I don't think it's too much to ask of a public official that they refrain from encouraging people in their own self-abasement and self-destructive behavior.
Apples and oranges. If Judith, Angie, and the rest had been hookers, then yes, yes, yes we should prosecute. Prostitution is against the LAW, and Spitzer was hired to uphold the law. Never once did I hear him say "Maybe we should legalize prostitution." I think it should be legal, but it's not up to me. It's up to people like Spitzer.
If I get caught with a hooker, I get in trouble. Government officials should be the least among us, and never above the law. They should be prosecuted, and if found guilty, should serve twice the time and pay twice the fine. Any crime committed by a politician, even parking illegally, should involve jail time. If you want to represent me, and want to speak for me, you should be at least as moral as I am. And I don't get hookers or park illegally.
It's that he made his name prosecuting such vice. The issue at hand is hypocrisy. That's the difference between Mr. Spitzer and the average John.
Kinda like a Democrat who wields superdelegate status, that undemocratically powerful vote.
We can't have leaders practicing a double standard in this country, breaking the laws they prosecute. If he hadn't been state attorney general this would be less of an issue. They'd still be devouring it in the press, mind you, ( I saw Burt and Ernie discussing Spitzer on Sesame Street yesterday ), but the irony of such behaviour coming from someone entrusted to enforce the laws against such acts is too much.
And remember Blake, public officials take an oath to uphold the laws, even the archaic ones, and if they don't, then they are stripped of their public service status. Unless their liberals of course! Remember Barney Frank?
As far as I can tell it was only liberals who objected to the law under which Craig was prosecuted. Of course there was also days of jokes at his expense. But Spitzer is hardly getting a pass on the jokes. So is there actual evidence of this hypocrisy? When do democrats demand prosecution under similar laws? (Demanding impeachment over getting us into a war over lies while objecting to impeachment about lies involving a blow job is an example of something that would not count as hypocrisy. That is why I am curious what you have that is supposed to count.)
it's a shame Spitzer resigned, and his resignation is yet another sign of his basic decency, in contrast to so many others who deny, transfer, etc....