Spitzer

Weighing in on the Top Story of the Day, I must start out by noting that TBogg came up with the best blog post title:

Horton Hires A Ho

Damn. Can't top that one.

"Watertiger" over at Firedoglake expresses what I and, I suspect, many others feel:

That being said, as a resident of New York and someone who voted for Mr. Spitzer, I have a question for him: what the HELL were you thinking? You were the Attorney General, for crissakes, the self-righteous bulldog who chased down white collar criminals and prosecuted them. Successfully. You made yourself a whole lot of enemies on Wall Street who would kick up their well-polished heels if you were publicly scandalized. You won the Governor's mansion running on your record at the AG's office. Oh, did I mention the enemies you made on Wall Street? Buzz was that you were probably going to run for President in the near future, even though your track record of late was taking a beating.

And you threw it away on a high-priced hooker. I don't give a shit if she had a Ph.D. in economics and was counseling you on the hidden pitfalls of NAFTA while she stuck a ball gag in your mouth and flagellated you with a cat o' nine tails. I don't even care that you had sex with a hooker, although your wife is probably a little perturbed to be the last to know about your tryst with one of the Emperors Club's finest and your kids are now a little fuzzy on the whole "personal morality" issue. I just can't believe how stupid you were. If this was a trap set by the Wall Street-financed Republican smear machine, then you walked right into it with your penis leading the way.

Let's consider another angle, too, Mr. Spitzer. Thanks to your testosterone-driven madness, our Lieutenant Governor will have to step up if you decide to step aside. You understand what that means, right? It means that you've just made it that much more difficult for the Democrats to retake the Senate majority, which is tantalizingly within reach for the first time in over 40 years. Because you couldn't keep it in your pants.

What is it with moralistic politicians and sex? How do we differentiate Spitzer from the Dapper Diaperman, David Vitter? Or Larry Craig, Baron of the Bathroom Stall? So the Emperors Club prostitutes have college and graduate degrees -- so do a lot of lobbyists.

I call it a Clinton flashback, because of course this is exactly how I felt upon learning about the Lewinsky episode. Jesus H. Christ-in-a-boat, don't we have our hands full enough trying to cope with the overwhelming shitload of rightwing CRAP in this country, do we have to MAKE IT EASY for them to do what they do? MUST we hand them victories on a silver platter??? That said, there is - naturally, and just like the Clinton impeachment - much that doesn't pass the "smell test" about this investigation and which bears further scrutiny. See this post and this one. In all, I found this post hit just the right note, though I take minor exception to her use of the term "Nixonian hubris". I believe there is a new standard for hubris, set by this guy: