I have no sympathy for Spitzer on this one.  

After all, he was the one using the state police to tail his political enemies.  If anyone should have been paranoid in the NY state government, it should have been all the Republicans.

As a Democrat, I consider Spitzer no loss.  He had made so many enemies out of everyone, including the Democrats whom he was pressuring to do what he wanted them to do, that his influence as a governor was over a year into the office.

As a Democrat, I consider Spitzer no loss.  He had made so many enemies out of everyone, including the Democrats whom he was pressuring to do what he wanted them to do, that his influence as a governor was over a year into the office.  

The sad thing is we probably needed somebody like Spitzer to get the job done. NY state spends money like a coke addled hooker who just got a big tip from Client #9. Taxes are insane. Labor unions control everything, and the public sector is bloated and expanding like that Blob in the cheap 70s horror movie. Nobody in Albany gives a shit about the "regular people" who say 'Fuck this noise, I'm out of here' and leave the state.

If Spitzer had not tossed all of his public support away on his bullshit plan to give illegals licenses rather than implementing his campaign promises of cutting spending maybe he could have weathered this. Then again, maybe he should have been smart enough not to go sleep with a $1k an hour hooker repeatedly and use state transportation to get there. Idiot.

Because of this the voters will be weary of the reform message for years to come. Property values will continue to fall as people leave the state. Government handouts to private business will keep happening. Business will go on as usual and I will be forced to read crybaby letters to the editor from union leaders about how it is so unfair that newly hired part time government workers only get 8 paid holidays a year plus vacation.

I agree with you about needing reform in Albany.  And I was excited to have a Democrat in the office, but quickly tired of Spitzer's shenanigans.  It's not the prostitution that bothers me, but his bullying tactics with the legislature.

I don't know if the voters are weary of reform.  If Bloomberg doesn't end up being Obama's VP candidate, he might be running for governor.  Polls indicate that he could win such an election easily.  

I didn't know what category your comment fell under (after all we don't have 1-5 vast rightwing conspiracy or 1-5 venal and corrupt Bush categories to mod with).  So I just tossed you five without comment.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

<quote>Another magic figure that would trigger an FBI investigation is the target being a Democrat anti-Wall Street crusader (throw in the fact it's Hillary's state for icing)...not that this excuses anything of course...just saying.</quote>

I believe you point out the actual reason why he was being spied on by the FBI. It serves as a legal proxy pretext for legitimizing a GOP fishing expedition against an enemy - it happens all the time and now that multiple organizations & 'security contractors' have surveillance/spy operations running in this country who knows for sure what organization was digging dirt and trolling for evidence before some more 'legitimate' seeming agency was put onto the scent of spitzer's fancy hooker habit in order to 'leak' the information in advance of indictment.  I don't see how any politician isn't consumed with paranoia over their dirty dealing and/or law breaking (no matter how crusty and old or selectively enforced the laws might be) now that the 'security boom' has been in full swing for a while - lots of people have technology and a profit motive to spy on targets of opportunity (contracts = $$).

The MSM has gone into full-on circus mode over a story that amounts to: "a Governor paid for sex with a call girl" - last night Anderson Cooper had a number of condemnatory screechers expressing their outrage but I think my favorite was the blonde woman on his panel that felt she had to one up the boys and attack Spitzer's wife for appearing in public support of her husband and Alan Dershowits bellowing about how 'that woman can do whatever she wants! you're just mad that she isn't doing what you demand that she do!'....so on and so forth in a cavalcade of pejorative embellishment and play acted moral indignation.  This sort of hyperventilating continued this morning when my local news station's 'lady standing outside a building with a microphone' intoned in her 'serious' voice that 'this morning we have no word as yet if the DISGRACED Governor Spitzer has resigned <pause> but there are indications that the state Republicans will move to impeach' - she should have just repeated the words 'SEX SCANDAL SEX SEX SCANDAL SEX SEX SEX  - MONEY MONEY MONEY - SEX SEX SCANDAL SEX SEX HOOKER HOOKER SEX SCANDAL - RESIGN ALREADY!!!!"  

I think Spitzer should hang tough and tell the fat lady to cool her jets. He shouldn't commit seppeku just yet.  I think the 'outrage' circus will simmer down and be confined to the usual righty media squwakers and IF he has to, he'll resign to avoid indictment.

"...when theft and high crime becomes obscenely obvious to even the blindest beer sucking idiot, it is always the Republicans who are in office." -- Joe Bageant

Why not?  After all, it's not every day that someone looks like they're headed for an all expenses paid vacation at either a federal or state prison by essentially doing almost the exact same things that those he sent to the clinker were doing.  And, to think he was undone by essentially the same methods that his office used when he was practicing as the Lord High Inquisitor on Wall Street.  It's not every day someone goes from being the governor of one of this country's major states to planning for an early retirement (after a brief visit to those federal or state prisons).  It's not every day that a person can go from the middle of a meteoric political career to becoming grist for the comic mill of Leno and Letterman.  And it wasn't a slow, graceful descent from on high to the pits -- it was a crash landing like someone flew a 767 into the twin towers of his career.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

It's not every day that a person can go from the middle of a meteoric political career to becoming grist for the comic mill of Leno and Letterman.  

Actually, I thought the whole point of our politicians was to become grist for the comic mill of late night tv.

How many johns did Spitzer lock up?

From what I see here, neither johns nor prostitutes were prosecuted, only the various operators of the ring.

It appears the other case involved sex tours to Southeast Asia.  No mention there of arresting johns or prostitutes.

I'm sorry, I missed the part where I castigated Spitzer for persecuting Johns.  Yeah, as far as I know, his previous cases involving prostitution was aimed at operators of prostitution rings and, I believe, they were involved in human trafficking.  What I did comment on was the fact that he ended up getting nailed due to acts he committed which were similar to the acts of various white collar criminals he prosecuted -- structuring bank transactions to hide the true nature of the transactions (which is a crime) -- and he was brought low by wiretaps similar to the type of evidence he would present in those cases he successfully prosecuted.  Like it or not, prostitution is illegal in every state in the US and most of the local jurisdictions (save for some in Nevada).  Like it or not, he was the highest elected official in the state of New York and before that the Attorney General of the state, sworn by oath to uphold all those laws which include the ones about financial transactions and soliticitation.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I missed the part where I castigated Spitzer for persecuting Johns.

Here, let me help:

it's not every day that someone looks like they're headed for an all expenses paid vacation at either a federal or state prison by essentially doing almost the exact same things that those he sent to the clinker were doing.

structuring bank transactions to hide the true nature of the transactions (which is a crime)

Oooh, nice save.  You'd think he was committing securities fraud when you put it that way.  But is that what he's being indicted for?  The stories I found make is sound more like it's a Mann Act charge.

The answer to one of your questions, what charges other than soliticing a prostitute might he be charged with was provided lower down in this thread by thefadd.  I'll go to the source and, if you scroll down the bottom of this link you'll see the litany of charges, federal and state, Spitzer could be charged with.

I noticed you failed to address the fact that Spitzer was an elected official duty-bound to uphold and enforce the laws he was breaking, rather choosing to "help me out" with what I posted.  The thing is that Spitzer went beyond merely breaking some state law on purchasing the services of a hooker.  By structuring his financial transactions and wittingly moving them into shell accounts set up by the prostitution ring, he was in essence part of the criminal enterprise himself.  I wouldn't be surprised to find out that an eager beaver prosecutor tries to throw violation of the RICO act into the mix.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I was chiding you for your ebullient schadenfreude.  You'd think the man had stolen your puppy.

No, I just checked and my puppy is still taking a snooze by the fireplace.  "Ebullient schadenfreude" -- is that German for "I was merely noting what a stunning fall from grace and story this was and thefadd asked me why and so I responded by elaborating on why it was so stunning?"  If that's what that means, then yeah I was full of ebullient schadenfreude.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

If that's what that means

Look it up.

Those "laws" are all rather spurious and I doubt any of them could have been made to stick under the pressure of the high end law firm Spitzer hired. Now that he's brokered his way out with his resignation, there'll be a tiny plea. It's all rather sick really.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Are you saying they aren't laws or that they would just be weak sauce to cook Spitzer's goose?  Because, if it's the former I'd have to disagree and if it's the latter, I'd sort of agree seeing as how Spitzer would likely be willing to spend a whole bunch to avoid jail time.  However, nailing the hide of a disgraced former White Avenger would be an absolute plus to put in the resume of the federal prosecutor of record.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I'm saying they are spurious: of illegitimate birth; bastardized; outwardly similar or corresponding to something without having its genuine qualities; of a deceitful nature or quality.

MONEY LAUNDERING If he knew his money was going to "shell companies," often used in financial crimes.

I doubt he had any idea where the money was going other than that it was getting him laid. Besides, he's not the one laundering the money, the recipients are.

STRUCTURING If he tried to keep a bank from reporting large transactions to the government by dividing, or structuring, them into smaller transactions.

A coercive law that attempts to regulate private business on the grounds that individuals might possibly be circumventing a law that is itself overly intrusive and burdensome on the free market. Besides, this obviously wasn't the case since it was just such reported transactions that tipped the feds in the first place making this entry nothing more than egregiously bad reporting.

FRAUD If he knew the QAT Consulting Group was a front for a prostitution ring.

The only even vaguely legitimate charge on this list but nonetheless a wholly victimless crime.

MANN ACT If he paid for the prostitute's transportation across state lines.

An ancillary law made up simply to add more charges on top of an already morally questionable government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens. Not a federal concern at all unless your end game is to push the guy out of office.

Spurious.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Has anyone ever been convicted of money laundering?  Yes.  Has anyone ever been convicted of structuring?  Likewise, that would be a yes.  Curious, how violating these spurious laws have led to people spending real time behind bars.  And, if the government can prove the money laundering and structuring charges, the fraud charge sort of follows.

Now, I'm not arguing that the federal and state prosecutors might not take the path of least resistance and go for a fine and probation on all counts.  But, I wouldn't call laws, the breaking of which can cost you years in prison, spurious.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

The fact that the government can put you behind bars for "structuring" and victimless "fraud" or "conspiracy" charges doesn't make it any less spurious of a law. Quite the contrary. I'm addressing the merit of the law here not debating the clear fact that Spitzer got squeezed by them.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

I see, then it's your opinion that the laws are spurious.  I guess we'll have await your appointment to the federal bench and, following that, the Supreme Court so that you can overturn them.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

lol, I can't have an opinion on the nature of the over-zealous nanny state? lol...

I guess we'll have await your appointment to the federal bench and, following that, the Supreme Court so that you can overturn them.

I could still go that route but it'd probably be easier just to fund politicians to take care of it.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Of course you can have an opinion; that's what TnT is all about.  But, you seemed so forceful and all that these laws were spurious that I thought you had something like a legal basis for overturning them is all.

Lotsa luck on buying the political support to get those laws overturned.  If politicians are really up to paying $5,500 an hour to get their ashes hauled, you'd better hurry up and start working on your first $100 million.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Of course you can have an opinion; that's what TnT is all about. But, you seemed so forceful and all that these laws were spurious that I thought you had something like a legal basis for overturning them is all.

I appreciate the compliment, backhanded as it may be.

Lotsa luck on buying the political support to get those laws overturned. If politicians are really up to paying $5,500 an hour to get their ashes hauled, you'd better hurry up and start working on your first $100 million.

I appreciate the encouragement, backhanded as it may be ;-)

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

I'm not the only one who thinks use of the Mann Act in this case is spurious. At best.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Strange as it might seem to you, I actually agree about the Mann Act.  It's only modern utility might be to prosecute human traffickers.  But using it to throw into the hopper against someone who is just looking to have a little paid sex does seem to be, well, wrong.

I'm hoping you appreciate the concurrence no matter how non-backhanded it was.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

No, I certainly get your point as well. There are a great many laws put in place to bury people who are obviously doing wrong but who we have difficulty proving what they've done, the most well known of course being the RICO statute as relates to the mafia. Law enforcement will always utilize those the fullest expect for better or worse.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Well, Spitzer might be able to use your argument as a defense if he was a libertarian private citizen.

But he chose to be an ambitious politician, so looks like the charges will stick.

And given that he had no problem aggressively prosecuting people under New York laws when he was Attorney General, he's well deserving of the same.  

You know Jimmy, if I thought you were trying to be helpful with that, I'd believe in the fucking Easter Bunny.  Frankly at this point, it's unclear what the government is going to throw at him.  Structuring will likely figure in the possible charges as his intent was clearly to prevent anyone from knowing his real purpose was to promote prostitution.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I wondered about that myself, whether the really expensive prostitutes are less likely to transmit diseases than the cheaper ones are.  If a client is paying $1000/hr or more, it would be difficult to tell him that he is required to use a condom, if he doesn't want to.  I don't know that wealth per se protects people from sexually transmitted disease.  In any event, as a critique of prostitution in general, disease transmission seems to be the most difficult problem.  Of course, there is also the problem of abusive pimps who effectively enslave their stable of girls, however, since involuntary servitude is already illegal, this practice can be prosecuted even without recourse to anti-prostitution laws.

In principle, prostitution does not have to be immoral.  Even without abusive pimps, some people choose this line of work.  And it is possible to take all due precautions to avoid spreading disease.  Under those circumstances, sex for pay seems like a victimless crime.  Although if the client is a married man, the wife may feel victimized.  Men should not take marriage vows unless they mean them.  But even then, marital fidelity is a matter between the two spouses, which I don't think is really the business of the state to enforce.

"I don't know that wealth per se protects people from sexually transmitted disease."

Speaking as microbiologist and registered medical technologist, no, it doesn't.  You can pick up a STD from anyone and spread it to anyone.

Spitzer's problems (like Bill Clinton's) are moral issues, not microbiological ones.  He came into office and strong-armed a lot of people and failed realize that he, too, is fallible.  Let's face it, he fucked-up, literally.  

If he doesn't resign, there's plenty of sentiment that he's going to be impeached.  I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.  I feel only some sympathy for his wife and family.  Why were they standing up with him after he did something so heinously stupid?  If I were his wife, I'd have already filed for divorce.  She could get out of it with at least half the family assets and a bit of dignity.

[/end of rant]

there's only one way to find out...

Why do the wives of misbehaving politicians show such excessive loyalty to their husbands?  I believe that it must be the influence of Tammy Wynette and her inspiring anthem, "Stand By Your Man".  

How do I ever know about him being vulnerable to blackmail?  If I know about something he did, it's public knowledge and he can't be blackmailed for it.  And if it's blackmail for something he already did before, the information will have much less effect, and it will be harder to blackmail him for it.

Yes, to the extent that I actually believe it increases his chance of abusing his office due to blackmail, it is relevant, but I find the emphasis we put on finding politicians whom the church could point to as good role models to be misplaced.  If anything, our money driven political system is set up to corrupt anyone who follows the normal practice of going along with the crowd, and only someone somewhat antisocial can survive it uncorrupted.

Because Silda Spitzer is hardly a "trophy" wife but rather a successful person in her own right.

Two things come to mind: Arianna Huffington who was at one time married to a guy running for governor --who later came out as gay. I'm going to say that this was clearly a business manager: Ariana provided the beard, and in turn she got access to power.

Second, if you dig deep into the Spitzer case - one of the salient points that comes out is that he arranged his most recent hooker hook up (hah I pun) in DC on Valentines day. Now personally my wife/I don't really acknowledge Valentine's day and the same might be true of the spitzers -- however we do take every opportunity to celebrate our lives and I find it rather odd that the lady in question would not have taken the opportunity to do a romantic getaway in DC with her husband.

The evidence says that Spitzer has been doing this for years -- as you point out the lady is no dim bulb. My bet is she knew and was fine with it.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

I agree, but it still doesn't answer the question of why it is that, every time one of these politicos gets caught in one form of infidelity or another, one of the first things you have is a totally contrite and remorseful politico spewing on about how he's failed his family and friends and political supporters and voters and god knows what else he can conjure up and how totally sorry he is for the shame it has brought down upon him.  And each time, there is that stunned wife at his shoulder looking poleaxed by the whole thing.

I have a sense the reason they play it this way is because they cynically believe if they drag the wife in on the self-mortification, they'll gain some sort of pity points and they'll be able to go into rehab and be back on their games in a month or two.  Worked for Bill Clinton and apparently those worms Vitter and Craig.  Didn't work for long with McGreevey (Dina divorced him -- but then he's suing her for support -- gender rights, I guess).  I'd at least have my bile level settle down a bit if, for once, the next politico who gets caught screwing around (and betraying his public trust as Spitzer apparently was doing) would have the gumption to just get up there to the podium and take his medicine all by himself and shed the pity points.  If the media asks him why his wife isn't there, it would be refreshing if he would say something like "well, you know my crimes and philanderings have already put her through enough -- she's not responsible for what I did, I am, and I didn't ask her to go through the charade of standing there looking shocked."  Yeah, I have a vivid imagination.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I guess I wasn't so concerned with the wife on the podium as with the idea that somehow she probably is neither surprised nor particularly bothered by it all. My reaction would be that this marriage is no different than most and that even if it's not a total surprise (apparently from the log, he has been at this hobby for a while, which would increase the chances of her possible suspicion), it is a temblor of great magnitude for the relationship.

I do agree that it seems almost sadistic to include the wife in all this -- deer in the headlights hardly begins to describe how she looked. But I'm sure she was not forcibly dragged up there.

I don't know whether you caught this op-ed piece in today's LAT. It includes some of the more well-known "apologies." Check out the title of the author's book. :-)

deer in the headlights hardly begins to describe how she looked.

It looked to me like she was reading the statement over his shoulder...perhaps she wrote it for him and wanted to make sure he didn't miss a line?

It looked to me like she was reading the statement over his shoulder...perhaps she wrote it for him and wanted to make sure he didn't miss a line?

Heh. I'd love to see the first draft.

I didn't realize that there were two threads on this subject.

Yeah, that's my fault. I checked the Q early last night to see if anyone had submitted a story on what was then a breaking news piece, and when I didn't see anything there, I went ahead and did a quickie w/up which Ace posted shortly thereafter.  At the time it never occurred to me to check the diary entries, hence 2 threads on the topic.

Somewhere in my soul, there's always Rock -n- Roll... Joe Strummer

I wasn't complaining, pal.

I know you weren't, but I figured I'd throw an explanation out there just in case anybody else stumbled across both threads and was scratching their noggins in wonderment....
Enjoyed the link to the LA Times piece with all the quotes, BTW. Found it quite amusing, so I did.

Somewhere in my soul, there's always Rock -n- Roll... Joe Strummer

I'm glad you filed your piece on this.  As port mentioned at the head of the story, editors don't have the ability to promote stories from the diaries to the front page yet.  I didn't file my diary entry as a story because I already had two or three stories in the subqueue, I felt it needed to be reported somewhere on TnT ASAP and the way I composed my diary entry had a bit more POV in it than I usually layer into my stories.

Almost the same thing happened last week when I submitted my Brett Favre write up to the subqueue without realizing that port had posted a diary entry about it.  Front page stories usually attract more attention and comments than diary entries -- certainly the case with this story.  

Illegitimi non carborundum.

My comment implies nothing about the Spitzers' intentions when they got married over 20 years ago, nor that Silda Spitzer is a trophy wife. It was intended to point out a situation that frequently develops in marriages involving a great deal of money and power.

The sexual opportunities available to people with status and wealth are plentiful. Whether it's a married basketball player fucking (or possibly getting away with raping) a hotel employee, a propagandist windbag rhapsodizing about his falafel to an uninterested subordinate, or a governor soliciting expensive prostitutes, powerful people's (particularly men's) sexual desires usually get satisfied.

It's possible that Mrs Spitzer was unaware of her husband's pecadilloes. It's also possible that she was aware of them and was continually devastated by them, but chose to stick by his side anyway (although that would conform to the cliche of the longsuffering wife with the philandering husband, wouldn't it?). I just doubt it.

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.

How is escaping the drudgery and insane hours of working at a big law firm to marry some guy whose daddy is worth half a billion dollars "giving up" anything?

Personally, not having some form of meaningful work is drudgery for me.  

When she worked at Skadden Arps She recalled her share of successive all-nighters, and trying to catch an hour's sleep underneath a conference room table, "because you couldn't turn out the lights in the office."  

You failed to include this part of what Silda said about her time at Skadden Arps:

Wall, who worked at Chase bank, and then at Skadden, told the NYT about her time at the law firm: "It was a very exciting time to be doing mergers and acquisitions, the whole poison pill era."

I've worked in jobs in my industry that required roughly 4 weeks of working from 7 in the morning until midnight.  I've also worked one job that required travelling on the road every day of the week driving early in the morning until late at night and filling in reports on the weekends. It was a crazy job but necessary to get to the next position in my career.  

Does all this mean that I don't love my career?  Not by any means.  

Does loving my career mean I won't complain when I am having a frustrating time?  Not by any means.

Dude,

"I've worked in jobs in my industry that required roughly 4 weeks of working from 7 in the morning until midnight.  I've also worked one job that required travelling on the road every day of the week driving early in the morning until late at night and filling in reports on the weekends. It was a crazy job but necessary to get to the next position in my career."

Lots of us have had to eat our peck of shit in the workplace.  Mine was being on 24/7 pager call when I was a systems analyst.  Talk about a lack of sleep, that will do it to you.  As long as you can keep up with the pace, more power to you.

I'm retired now, wouldn't carry a pager for the world, and disconnected the phone in the bedroom.  Is life better?  Hell, yes!  

there's only one way to find out...

I wasn't complaining about what I do.

I was replying to Steve Urkel's post to say that occasional rough hours does not mean that someone doesn't appreciate their career, such as Silda Spitzer who expressed enthusiasm for her job as a lawyer even while she might have ruefully noted the hours it required.

You seem awfully sure that Spitzer ordered the New York State Police to run surveillance on Bruno.  As a matter of fact, what was done was quite different from that:

Under the pretext of responding to a Freedom of Information Law ("FOIL") request, the Governor's liaison caused the Acting Superintendent of the State Police to (1) create documents detailing where the State Police had driven Senator Bruno, and (2) report details of Senator Bruno's requests for ground transportation, upcoming schedules, and changes to those schedules. This conduct deviated from State Police standard operating procedures and past practices, and was not required by FOIL.

The upshot of the investigation was that on the one hand, the state police must avoid even the appearance of being used for partisan purposes, but on the other hand, New York State's aircraft use policy is overly lenient and prone to abuse, and should be modified to prevent the sort abuses that Bruno was committing, that is to say, flying around the state on the taxpayer dime and justifying it with token legislative activities.

You seem to be drawing your information about the situation solely from Joseph Bruno's press releases.