Eliot Spitzer got a perfect score on the LSAT. I'm not making that up. It was in the New York Times. So they probably made it up. No, wait, let me start again.
Eliot Spitzer got a perfect score on the LSAT. He spent six years with the Manhattan District Attorney's office. He was the Attorney General of the State of New York. He has some experience with legal matters.
And yet, to make this last Valentine's Day extra special, he transported a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.
Anyone with a certain amount of gumption and a healthy hatred of women can use a prostitute. The Governor managed to violate the Mann Act.
It can be kind of tricky for a married elected official to hire a hooker, but it's mostly logistics. (Go to the Smoking Gun, and read more about Client #9, the wire transfer, the Amtrak reservation, the envelope, the key at the front desk, the door (ajar or just unlocked?), the question of whether he still had credit from last time. It's like John Grisham meets Feydeau.) Still, with a little luck and the right kind of can-do spirit, the average public servant can find a criminal organization to get him a woman he can treat like a thing.
It takes real work to turn a three-hour assignation into a Federal offense.
It takes a rare and precious combination of arrogance, amorality and shit for brains.
It would be nice to think that even the lawyers who advertise on the bus are smarter than that.
I'm not being judgmental about Eliot Spitzer's home life. And by "home life" I mean, "sex with prostitutes." I'm being judgmental about whether New York State deserves a governor with a rudimentary understanding of the law.
Here's what he said this afternoon:
"I failed to live up to the standards I set up to myself. Now I stand to regain the trust of my family."
And that statement it why he has to go.
The Mann Act is a Federal statute. It pertains to interstate commerce. Whether or not your children approve is immaterial. But thanks for bringing them into it, Gov.
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While Eliot Spitzer is working things through with Silda and the kids, he might want to explain this passage from the FBI's affidavit:
"LEWIS (a/k/a "Rachelle," the defendant) continued that from what she had been told "he" (believed to be a reference to Client-9) "would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe -- you know -- that... very basic things."
An STD is one thing; I just hope he didn't give her any legal advice.