Good news for Republicans: It's not only their guys who are hypocrites, as well as venal.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.
An affidavit in the federal investigation into a prostitution ring said that a wiretap recording captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.
Mr. Spitzer today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.” (NYT)
Yeah, he wishes. Sadly for him, the you'd-think-by-now-obsolete Mann Act makes it a federal crime to transport a woman across state lines for the purposes of prostitution.(NYT) I guess women still aren't seen as having any volition in the matter. "The four defendants charged in the case unsealed last week were all charged with that crime, along with several others."(NYT)
Like certain Republicans I could mention but won't, Mr. Spitzer can be charged with the---to my mind---far more serious moral transgression of hypocrisy.
Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.
In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.
“This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. “It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”(NYT)
He wouldn't say whether he was going to resign or not, and both he and his wife had "glassy, tear-filled eyes," but, the NYT assures us, they "did not cry." (NYT)
I just find it so off-putting when a politician who has made a john of himself (or been caught behaving inconveniently in one) cries out in anguish that he has betrayed his own moral values, etc., etc. You can't claim to hold moral values you don't practice. Just admit that you don't see anything wrong with prostitution and be done with it. I mean, Christ, it happened LAST MONTH. Does he want me to believe he underwent some sort of moral turnaround before he realized he'd been inconveniently caught on tape?
Democrat or Republican, hypocrites deserve whatever scorn they earn. I'll leave it to other bloggers to find excuses for them, if any.
Here's the commentary I found worth while.
The Fix, Matthew Yglesias, Open Left, Gawker, TalkLeft, The Swamp, The Carpetbagger Report, Salon, Wonkette, Hullabaloo, Taylor Marsh, The Agonist, Shakesville, Balloon Juice, Amygdala, Attytood, Prairie Weather, Crooks and Liars, Firedoglake, TPMMuckraker, Marc Ambinder, Liberal Values,
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