Thursday, March 13, 2008

Spitz-ing

"Spitz"....(Verb)..meaning: to completely out oneself as a red-blooded asshole, complete with visceral desires, after spending a lifetime being a poster child for the squeaky clean. (See...e.g., soon-to-be-ex-NY Governor Eliot Spitzer)

Well, well well. What have we here. A man sleeps with prostitutes, and 'transports them across state lines'. LOL....in this day and age. I feel a lot of sympathy for those who think in relation to our man Eliot seh a nuh nuttn...man want pussy, man buy pussy, so what? Yes, generally, I agree. But not this man. Not Mr. Clean. Not "The Sherriff of Wall Street". He has spectacularly become undone. And most of the world is cheering, notwithstanding the public protestations.

I understand the position of those who feel that Spitzer has become undone only in a personal way, and that it ought not to affect his right to sit as Governor. But I disagree with them, and its not from some Pollyanna-ish sense of morality on my part.The man has done precisely what he said he was not going to do as Governor, and he has utilised the services of prostitutes, having prosecuted those behind similar operations, when he was Attorney-General. It's clearly a thin line, verbal or otherwise, between "prostitution" with "prosecution".

Maybe he thought this was the best way to give them a stiff penalty? Leaders must have the moral authority to lead, and when they drop the ball on those issues, they need to move on.

I distinguish this from Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton. I mean, the hair-splitting (viz., "it depends on what the meaning of "is" is...") wasn't cute, but sleeping with his intern is a little different from utilising the services of a criminal enterprise. Had he been boffing his own intern, I couldn't care less. But, the fact is that (a) transporting women across state lines for 'immoral purposes' is illegal...I know, its an archaic federal statute, but...it is still there.... and (b) this is precisely the same sort of crime that Spitzer would have prosecuted with his trademark glee and fervour in his heyday as a hot shot prosecutor.

Back in the day in 2001/2, when I first heard of him, he was prosecuting anything that moved, for anything vaguely resembling bad conduct in the corporate world. Securities fraud, insider trading etc etc. He had a reputation of zero tolerance, show no mercy, employing all the state's resources avlb to him to run down the criminals. Well, my friend, as I heard one commentator say on CNN, "a halo only needs to slip a few inches to become a noose". Never was a truer word said.

Of course, there are probably Eliot parties all over Wall Street now...I can't blame anyone who was pursued by him enjoying a profound feeling of Schadenfreude at his meeting his political Waterloo. When you present as having an 'un-embargoed moral centre', I think you must simply turn your back, drop your pants and submit to the public ass-whipping that is the natural and ordinary consequence of being a holier than thou.

My final thought is this: In the wake of a bad season for politicians, both local and overseas, what skeletons lurk in the closets of our local politicians? Which prostitutes have serviced them? Who's a queer? Who's taking money on the side for favours? Is Kern Spencer a rare bird, or just a clumsy flightless one, like the now extinct dodo?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm telling you -- you've been eavesdropping on my bizness - please stop it! I fantasize about doing exposes on our politicians -- I currently have enough dirt to screw with this administration, let me tell you -- but such dipping around in the doo-doo world of Jacn politics would only be for accountability and to keep our politicians honest. Seriously, I think this should and can be done along the lines of Jim Hightower and the Nation. For this, you need someone with solid investigative journalism skills AND a fearless sensibility. Any takers? Anyone looking to create a job for themselves -- here's one.