Ho No! The Governor and the Hooker

I refer, of course, to the Governor of the great state of New York, my state, Mr. Eliot Spitzer.

Mr. Spitzer, in his gunslinging lawyer days, was known as the Sheriff of Wall Street, for his clean 'em up toss 'em out ways with corrupt types. In 2006, we voted him in as our governor. Because he seemed like a rootin' tootin' straight-shooter, and we liked him, and we thought that if anyone could clean up the Augean stables that is Albany politics he would be the one.

Alas for our naive hopes. No sooner had he taken office than he fell afoul of a state trooper scandal, and then there were some dust-ups with the vile Joe Bruno, who REALLY runs New York State, and that fiasco about driving licenses for illegal aliens, and it all seemed politics as usual, and we were sad.

So now we find out he's been employing the services of a pricey call girl ring, and even arranging for his favorite ho to come down from NYC to DC to, well, service him. And we're surprised, not because he's a lying cheating politician, because we expect that, but because he'd been such a Boy Scout.

And it turns out he's just another sanctimonious prig, cheating on his wife, his children and his constituency. Why the HELL can't they keep it in their pants? Are they really that stoooopid to think they won't get caught, that arrogant to think they're above the law?

Yeesh. Here's Nora Ephron in The Huffington Post:

Meanwhile, Spitzer, who a year ago had a shot at national office, is today a laughingstock because of his reckless involvement in ... what? Let's just say this right out: in nothing. He arranged for a date with a hooker and she crossed a state line. This violates something called the Mann Act, which was passed in 1910, before women could vote. It's the legal equivalent of an old chestnut, it seems barely constitutional, and no one with half a brain could possibly think of it as anything worth prosecuting anyone for. Although Eliot Spitzer might. This is the problem these guys get into: they're so morally rigid and puritanical in real life (and on some level, so responsible for this priggish world we now live in) that when they get caught committing victimless crimes, everyone thinks they should be punished for sheer hypocrisy.

But they shouldn't really. It's one of the things you have to admire about Senator Larry Craig: he's still there. And who can say he's doing a better or worse job than he was before? And compared to whom in the United States Senate?

Which I kind of tend to agree with. But Craig is one of a hundred, most of whom are probably as guilty as he is. The Governor of a state stands alone, and for Spitzer to think he can now govern effectively with this on everybody's mind every time they look at him...well, I hope he can. But he wasn't the most effective governor, NOTHING like what we'd hoped we were getting with him. And the Lieutenant-Governor, David Paterson, is very well liked: he'd be the first black governor NYState ever had, and he's legally blind, which he handles with grace and humor...the son of our respected legislator Basil Paterson. So that wouldn't be terrible.

Though Eliot is a Democratic superdelegate, which touches on the presidential campaign, and I bet Hillary's reeeeeally pissed off, since he's a big supporter of her bid.

Frankly, though I hate what he's done to his family, I hope he DOES hang on like grim death to his governorship, and not cave in like gay Governor McGreevey of NJ. I'd like for once to see someone cock a snook at everybody baying for his head on a platter and say, "Know what? SCREW YOU! I'm not going ANYwhere! Okay, I messed up, but it's my business and my family's, and none of yours. If you don't like it, TOO DAMN BAD!"

Just pull a Henry VIII on all the whited sepulchers who think they're holier than thou, me and Eliot Spitzer together. Yes, I'd quite like that.