GOVERNOR SPITZER AND HIS RENT-A-SHIKSE

-by Woid (moved from Comments)



Yes, the deaths and misery in Iraq are infinitely more important than Governor Spitzer and his Rent-a-Shikse. But it's still worth looking at the story.

There are lots of questions to be asked about the Spitzer mishegoss (other than "what did he GET for $4000?). Of course the usual suspects are chomping on the red meat parts of the story, while ignoring WHY it's happening.

Jane Hamsher had a good roundup of loose ends at FDL yesterday and Christy has more today. Here's my own list:

Why was there a federal investigation going on to begin with? Early reports said the prostitution ring was being investigated, and that Spitzer got caught in a wiretap. Then the story changed. It was supposedly touched off by suspicious wire transfers made by Spitzer.

So the next question is, why were the feds looking at Spitzer's transactions? Is this normal? And why isn't this mentioned in the documents released today (and online at thesmokinggun)? The many, many tapped calls with "Client 9" are all about whether an envelope full of cash arrived in time, because this client always deals in cash.

Next, Client 9 is Eliot Spitzer. Why exactly do we know this? Was it leaked? If so, whodunit?

Maybe there are reasonable answers to all the questions (and all the others), but there's also reasonable grounds for suspicion. Suspect the Bush administration? How could we?

Spitzer is the THIRD Democratic governor to be brought down in the past few years. First was the bullshit recall of Gray Davis in California, to make way for Ahnolt. Next was the corrupt prosecution and jailing in shackles of Don Siegelman in Alabama. Now this. The Bush DOJ, doing Rove's work.

And yet, Spitzer is a fucking idiot. Fucking, yes, but what an idiot. Because he's a Democrat, the media will be all over this for months, tying it in with the "disarray we're supposedly in. And pimping this story will of course be in place of investigating the real scandals and disasters that are ongoing.

So yes, it's an important story, for a lot of reasons. (Another reason is bringing up the discussion of whether whoring, and other "victimless" acts, should be crimes at all.)

Unfortunately, Spitzer's crime isn't that easy to forgive, because he's as big a hypocrite as Craig, Vitter, and the many more. You say "Spitzer didn't prosecute victimless crimes," and that's not true. This is from the NYT story on the web:

When he was attorney general, Mr. Spitzer’s signature issue was pursuing Wall Street misdeeds. But he also oversaw the prosecution of at least two prostitution rings by the state’s organized crime task force, which reports to the attorney general.

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.”

Nice going, shithead.


UPDATE: WALL STREET CRIMINAL CLASS BREAKS OUT THE CHAMPAGNE

The worst and, in many cases the most destructive criminals, in America aren't in federal prisons and many of them are neither on K Street nor in the Bush Regime per se. They're on Wall Street... and Eliot Spitzer is the man who held them accountible like no one else has in decades. According to their own little far right newspaper, they are whooping it up today.

It's Schadenfreude time on Wall Street.

Eliot Spitzer, the New York governor who made his name taking on the titans of finance, apologized yesterday in vague terms following reports that he used the services of a prostitute in a case being investigated by federal prosecutors.

The news stunned traders on Wall Street, where Mr. Spitzer long has been viewed with fear and contempt. Some view the revelations as a huge hypocrisy for a man, who as New York's attorney general, had aggressively pushed for ethics and fair play on Wall Street earlier this decade. People who clashed hardest with Mr. Spitzer are among those crowing the loudest.

UPDATE: FOX IMMEDIATELY ANNOUNCED SPITZER WAS RESIGNING. BUT HE DIDN'T. MAYBE HE WON'T

Is there a rule somewhere that says only Democrats have to resign when they caught in these situations? Market Watch, of all places, has 5 reasons why Spitzer may hang on. And as Tom Bemis says in his close, "for as feisty and power hungry a guy as Spitzer has been, giving it all up without a fight just because of one little slip seems entirely out of character.'"