When I first saw the headline in the New York Times that Eliot Spitzer had been found to be connected to a prostitution ring, I thought they meant that he was one of the lynchpins of the organization—one of the head guys making big profits off the backs (or wherever) of those high-priced call girls. Shocking, I said to myself; Eliot Spitzer, ferreter-out of corruption has been found to have his hand in the till.
Well, I don't know where he had his hand, but it wasn't in the till. No, the Guv was a client, paying out major bucks for the services of a well-paid "escort." And again, I'm asking, so what? What's the big deal? His wife is humiliated, of course, and whichever other elements of his family are old or aware enough to fathom the sleazy details. But why, when graft and corruption that do real harm cause only tiny waves in the smooth sea of business as usual (Enron, Halliburton, Dick Cheney all by himself), but when it comes to sex, we are appalled! Shocked! Outraged! and above all, Self-Righteous and Judgemental! Off with his head!
Mind you, if Spitzer is a big enough idiot to engage in an activity that he must have known without a doubt would, if discovered, be the end of his political career and possibly his marriage, does he have the common sense to be governor? It does give one serious pause . . . But what gives me even longer pause is the discouraging awareness that this country, this culture, while flaunting sex in every medium imaginable, still reacts with moral outrage when one of its leaders is discovered actually engaging in it. You'd think we'd have better things to do with our time, and better activities at which to direct our outrage. We could start with Iraq.
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Remember Jim Baker, holier-than-anybody husband of Tammy Fay? Remember his downfall? Now fast forward to Sptizer, the crusading DA who was going to make New York pure again, who portrayed himself as so squeaky clean you could hear him breathe. What happened? Hubris. I for one am glad to see him go, am glad to see his come-uppance. And I don't care if it's a sex scandal, money laundering, drug trafficking, or off-site betting. I'm glad he has taken the advice he so smugly doled out to his clients; take responsibility for what you have done.
But if you want to know how I really feel . . .
Spitzer may have deserved to be taken down a peg or two—nobody likes a self-righteous a**hole—but I find it discouraging that we love to see it happen, even (or especially) to someone who primarily was crusading against corporate and Wall Street corruption. But my original point was what I see as the absurdity of sex scandals—whether Spitzer or any other politician feels the need to hire a prostitute should be a concern of his wife's, not of mine. And insofar as he was only a client and not enriching his own back account, I don't really see how it's the business of his constituents. Does availing oneself of a prostitute's services cause one to lose the ability to run an executive branch? Only, I guess, if everyone says it does.
Actually, he probably was enriching his "back" account. It's his bank account that's still safe!
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