I feel like I am the only person in North America who is not surprised at the fall of Eliot Spitzer. When I first read the story I didn’t give out an ‘ohhh’ or even a slight gasp. If anything, I yawned, and I am still yawning. Politician gets snagged in call-girl sting – geeze where have I heard that before? Eight years of Bill “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” Clinton used up all my supposed outrage at political sexual hi-jinx but there are two things which make Spitzer’s situation case slightly unique.
His appalling hypocrisy in actively prosecuting prostitutes and the absolutely outrageous sum of money he is alleged to have spent pursuing his extra-martial sexual relations. Any man who could throw away at least $80,000 US on getting his member pulled by someone other than his spouse does not ever deserve the public trust - let alone the keys to the public purse for that reason alone.
Egad, I feel like rushing out and telling the women who are currently working the snow banks on the corner in my part of downtown to seriously jack up the going rates. Call it Spitzerflation, and tell them, Eliot made you do it.
A great many people are busy arguing that it does not matter what a man or woman does in their private life and it should have no bearing on their fitness for public office. I don’t buy that argument. In fact, infidelity speaks to character and trustworthiness. Anyone who actively cheats on one’s spouse is capable of great deception. Unless you have an ‘open marriage’ there is an awful lot of lies which need to be told to keep the infidelity secret. If one can expend time and energy deceiving the one person in the world who is suppose to be the closest individual in the world to you, and the one person who is always to be on your side; why wouldn’t you shaft Joe and Jane public?
A question that gets discussed regularly in Canada is; why are so few women running for political office. Take a look at the Spitzer saga and you find your reason. I am not suggesting the vast majority of Canadian women are paying to have sex with prostitutes but women often have secrets. Embarrassing secrets, secrets which would absolutely mortify one - if exposed to the light of newsprint. Women generally don’t do public humiliation well which is also the main reason male political bloggers significantly out number female political bloggers. And for those of us females who can withstand a public flaying ‘n’ flogging – let us just say, most of us over the age of 25, would not be running on a family values platform, and hence, it is extremely unlikely we could carry the vote among anyone other than fellow current or former Libertines.
2 comments:
I find the Spitzer business kind of hilarious.
The amount of money blown doesn't really faze me, but I scratch my head over the whys and hows. His wife is not smacked-in-the-face-with-a-shovel ugly, a la Sandra Oh. She appears to be an attractive woman and, if a year-and-a-half old NYT puff piece is accurate, formerly a corporate go-getter.
Yet the guy self-destructs over the world's oldest profession, while he has fashioned his career in part as a crusader against it.
I can't believe he didn't see this coming. How can you not? It is straight out of the tired old Hollywood Cliché Machine—except that Hollywood would have crafted him as a Republican, not a Democrat.
Happy Thoughts:
Keep in mind that Spitzer was the asshat who signed the ridiculous trans-fat ban, and other odious nannyistic legislation into law. In light of that, it's quite acceptable to savor the delicious odor from the flames he's going down in.
Keep in mind also that, given the amount of time he spent prosecution, it's likely that one of his former co-workers green-lighted the sting operation fully knowing it would sink him. This is solid evidence that the man is a jerk (as if more was needed), and that we are all fully entitled to see him trip over his own hypocrisy and faceplant in the concrete.
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