[quote]Sloth wrote:
Is it wrong to expect a bit more from a husband, father, and a holder of political office? Even if no laws had been broken, he should resign.[/quote]
It’s definitely not too much to expect the chief law enforcement officer in the state, and the former head prosecutor, to follow the law.
Morally, what he did was an affront to the decent - assuming his wife didn’t know/consent, which I think is a fair assumption.
The WSJ weighs in:
[i]Spitzer’s Rise and Fall
March 11, 2008; Page A20
One might call it Shakespearian if there were a shred of nobleness in the story of Eliot Spitzer’s fall. There is none. Governor Spitzer, who made his career by specializing in not just the prosecution, but the ruin, of other men, is himself almost certainly ruined.
Mr. Spitzer’s brief statement yesterday about a “private matter” surely involves what are widely reported to be his activities with an expensive prostitution ring discovered by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Those who believe Eliot Spitzer is getting his just deserts may be entitled to that view, but it misses the greater lesson for our politics.
Mr. Spitzer coasted into the Governorship on the wings of a reputation as a “tough” public prosecutor. Mr. Spitzer, though, was no emperor. He had not merely arrogated to himself the powers he held and used with such aggression. He was elected.
In our system, citizens agree to invest one of their own with the power of public prosecution. We call this a public trust. The ability to bring the full weight of state power against private individuals or entities has been recognized since the Magna Carta as a power with limits. At nearly every turn, Eliot Spitzer has refused to admit that he was subject to those limits.
The stupendously deluded belief that the sitting Governor of New York could purchase the services of prostitutes was merely the last act of a man unable to admit either the existence of, or need for, limits. At the least, he put himself at risk of blackmail, and in turn the possible distortion of his public duties. Mr. Spitzer’s recklessness with the state’s highest elected office, though, is of a piece with his consistent excesses as Attorney General from 1999 to 2006.
He routinely used the extraordinary threat of indicting entire firms, a financial death sentence, to force the dismissal of executives, such as AIG’s Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. He routinely leaked to the press emails obtained with subpoena power to build public animosity against companies and executives. In the case of Mr. Greenberg, he went on national television to accuse the AIG founder of “illegal” behavior. Within the confines of the law itself, though, he never indicted Mr. Greenberg. Nor did he apologize.
In perhaps the incident most suggestive of Mr. Spitzer’s lack of self-restraint, the then-Attorney General personally threatened John Whitehead after the former Goldman Sachs chief published an article on this page defending Mr. Greenberg. “I will be coming after you,” Mr. Spitzer said, according to Mr. Whitehead’s account. “You will pay the price. This is only the beginning, and you will pay dearly for what you have done.”
Jack Welch, the former head of GE, said he was told to tell Ken Langone – embroiled in Mr. Spitzer’s investigation of former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso – that the AG would “put a spike through Langone’s heart.” New York Congresswoman Sue Kelly, who clashed with Mr. Spitzer in 2003, had her office put out a statement that “the attorney general acted like a thug.”
These are not merely acts of routine political rough-and-tumble. They were threats – some rhetorical, some acted upon – by one man with virtually unchecked legal powers.
Eliot Spitzer’s self-destructive inability to recognize any limit on his compulsions was never more evident than his staff’s enlistment of the New York State Police in a campaign to discredit the state’s Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Bruno. On any level, it was nuts. Somehow, Team Spitzer thought they could get by with it. In the wake of that abusive fiasco, his public approval rating plunged.
Mr. Spitzer’s dramatic fall yesterday began in the early afternoon with a posting on the Web site of the New York Times about the alleged link to prostitutes. The details in the criminal complaint about “Client-9,” who is reported to be Mr. Spitzer, will now be played for titters by the press corps. But one may ask: Where were the media before this? With a few exceptions, the media were happy to prosper from his leaks and even applaud, rather than temper, the manifestly abusive instincts of a public official.
There really is nothing very satisfying about the rough justice being meted out to Eliot Spitzer. He came to embody a system that revels in the entertainment value of roguish figures who rise to power by destroying the careers of others, many of them innocent. Better still, when the targets are as presumably unsympathetic as Wall Street bankers and brokers.
Acts of crime deserve prosecution by the state. The people, in turn, deserve prosecutors and officials who understand the difference between the needs of the public good and the needs of unrestrained personalities who are given the honor of high office.
See all of today’s editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.[/i]
Looks like he is thinking of staying in office. What a jackass.
Now they are reporting he is quitting.
Statement at 11:30 EDT - my money is on a resignation. People have been speculating that he is plea bargaining - there may be IRS involvement.
*Edited to fix typo - multitasking leads to bad typing…
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Statement at 11:30 EDT - my money is on a resignation. People have been speculating that he is plea bargaining - their may be IRS involvement.[/quote]
Does this really look like a surprise to the wife?
And he’s stepped down. So far, the federal prosecutor has said there’s not a deal (but he didn’t say they haven’t been negotiating a deal).
I caught a little bit of Fox News after the press conference was over and him and his wife were back at the apartment. His wife bolted out of the Suburban, and hauled ass into the building - didn’t wait on Spitzer, just left him in the dust.
He won’t have a wife much longer.
I will admit that this guy is a hypocrite of the worst kind, but come on, there is some funny stuff in this. I like the prostitute who upon being informed that Spitzer might no want to use a condom said, I’ll just ask him, “Do you want to have the sex?”. The use of that article “the” gives us a clue: the prostitute was either a gypsy or hispanic. Definitely not slavic.
[quote]100meters wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Statement at 11:30 EDT - my money is on a resignation. People have been speculating that he is plea bargaining - their may be IRS involvement.
Does this really look like a surprise to the wife?
[/quote]
I noticed that too. The few clips I have seen, she seems to be very calm, almost serene.
My pure speculation is that she is now glad to have a public reason to be done with him.
She is a very beautiful lady and by what accounts I have read, very well liked. His loss.
Photos of the hooker:
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Photos of the hooker:
Photos Of Eliot Spitzer's Hooker | The Smoking Gun [/quote]
damn you beat me to it.
wifey never had a chance.
Of course the main part of the story that the media won’t touch…
Israeli at center of Spitzer scandal
A federal magistrate in New York ordered Mark “Michael” Brener held without bail after his arrest March 6 related to allegations that he headed the Emperors VIP Club, described by police as a high-priced prostitution ring.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/107452.html
Sex, Israeli connection familiar themes in Spitzer controversy
WASHINGTON (JTA) – A fast-rising Democratic governor, an out-of-control sex drive and an Israeli enabler – it feels like deja vu all over again on the Hudson.
Just four years after the then-governor of New Jersey, James McGreevey, resigned amid revelations of an affair with his Israeli-born ex-homeland security chief, Golan Cipel, Americans again were treated to the spectacle of the governor of a large northeastern state standing alongside a grim-looking wife and admitting he had erred.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2008031020080310cipelspitzerisrael.html
5G/HR. HOOKERS
Mark Brener, the 62-year-old alleged ring leader from Monmouth Junction, NJ, along with his girlfriend and alleged top madam, 23-year-old Cecil “Katie” Suwal, , from Cliffside Park, NJ, both face up to five years in prison on prostitution charges and 20 years behind bars for money laundering.
Authorities raided Brener’s home early yesterday and found $600,000 in cash and 19,000 in Euros in various safes, prosecutors said.
Brener, they said, had two Israeli passports in addition to his US passport…
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03072008/news/regionalnews/5g_hr__hookers_100827.htm
Apparently the ring leader of the major prostitution ring at the very center of a huge scandal isn’t worthy of any mention in all of the extensive TV news coverage… in other words the FBI rolled up another Israeli intelligence gathering operation and Spitzer just happened to get caught up in it.
So one of the guys I work with from NY comes up to me yesterday.
“Listen, we were trying to outdo you guys… but at least our governor likes chicks.”
There’s not much I can say except we still had McGreevey, so don’t pity NY too much.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Photos of the hooker:
Photos Of Eliot Spitzer's Hooker | The Smoking Gun [/quote]
Holy shit she’s smokin’. Wow.
If he didn’t have to pay for it, then I’d actually say “Good for him.”
Ahhhh! And there’s a picture of her passed out on the bar!
Man, I think I’m in love.
Move over beyonce.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Photos of the hooker:
Holy shit she’s smokin’. Wow.
If he didn’t have to pay for it, then I’d actually say “Good for him.”
[/quote]
So…do you think she is a swallower or a spitzer?
Doc,
Luckily I wasn’t drinking anything, or I think it may have come out of my nose when I read that…
Some speculation on Spitzer’s legal miscreance:
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Photos of the hooker:
Holy shit she’s smokin’. Wow.
If he didn’t have to pay for it, then I’d actually say “Good for him.”
So…do you think she is a swallower or a spitzer?[/quote]
That’s a real nice turn of phrase there, but need we ask the question? If you’re going to pay the dough, she better not let it go.