then she added, "It's a good thing that Bill wasn't on that list".

So she has a wait and see attitude about Governors breaking the law?

As a democratic governor, Spitzer is a superdelegate. I assume he is an announced Clinton super.

If he resigns, what will happen to his superdelegate vote?

Lt. Gov. David Paterson becomes governor and sides with Obama, it would be a net +2 for Obama.

What does she have to wait for?

Paterson is a superdelegate for Hillary, already.

Maybe the best thing she could suggest is that they go ahead and impeach him, but bomb Iraq and Serbia right before they vote on the impeachment articles. She has experience in dealing with these things.

From the desk of:

Mark Poison Penn

Re: Spitzer Sex Scandal:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton wants the voters to know that she has the most experience to deal with such a unexpected emergency. Senator Clinton has past the threshold of being qualified to deal with Bimbo Eruptions, from day one. Experience counts. At 3.00am who do you want answering those phone calls from the Red Light Zone.

Hillary Clinton has 35 years of experience dealing with Bimbo Eruptions, and Senator Obama has never even made a speech about them.

Who do you want taking that 3.00AM Red Light call!

She's not denouncing or rejecting yet, apparently.

Now that's a cop-out:

"let's wait and see what comes out of the next few days. Right now I don't have any comment. I think it's appropriate to wish his family well and see how things develop."

The relevant question to Hillary would be: Why is Spitzer suddenly off your website as an endorser?

And why do we have to wait "the next few days" when he has ALREADY admitted he screwed up badly

guys, before you get all worked up, "wait and see" is the new "reject and denounce"

Perhaps Hillary can not reject and denounce Spitzer. He may know too much about similar behavior by you know who.

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!

!!!HILLMENTUM™!!!!

Wow you guys are flying off the handle in response to this.

Spitzer gave a 30 second press conference which did not reveal anything. All she has to go off of is a leaked FBI document with no mention of Spitzer's name. Until something official comes out, I think it would be presumptuous of anyone to denounce someone, especially a personal friend.

Hillary needs to reject and denounce Spitzer as he has endorsed her as Farahkhan endorsed Obama. Spitzer is of dubious ethical character and his support should be REBUKED publically by Clinton.

There should be no equivocating.

This is a dirty campaign and since Senator Barack Obama won't say it, I will. The media has not been unfair to Senator Clinton, they have been extremely soft. There are elephants in the room that need to be addressed. Can anyone say Whitewater? How about impeachment? Let's not forget Osama bin Laden. You can bet Republicans will be talking about these issues. So why aren't Democrats? Clinton's central arguments in the campaign are basically a mirage, and they are dangerous ones both for the party and the country.

Clinton's line is that she is "experienced and ready on Day One" and that she is best poised to fight the Republican attack machine.

Sure, the Clintons have faced the Republican attack machine, and they did such a good job that it resulted in a Constitutional crisis. The scorched earth battle between the Clintons and the GOP over the Clinton's lies about sex, dubious financing and other misdeeds nearly brought down the government and terribly damaged the Democratic Party. Were the Republicans nasty, dirty and all manner of evil? Sure. But it took the Clinton spin and lie machine to spiral the country, the party and the presidency downward into impeachment.

Now the Clinton campaign shouts about "Nafta-Gate," pointing to a supposed conversation between a chief Obama economic advisor and Canadian officials, to assure the Canadians that Obama's opposition to NAFTA was political posturing. The media made a big deal about it. But it was Bill Clinton actually passed the legislation at stake (along with the disaster we know as welfare reform, and deregulation of banking that contributed to the current mortgage meltdown). The Obama campaign should reveal what happened with the Canadians. As it will likely turn out to be more Clintonian back-room escapades during their tenure.

Senator Clinton has also raised the Rezko land deal. At worst it looks as if Obama bought a portion of a vacant lot next door to his home from a dubious character, so he could have a bigger backyard for his kids. Does it really compare with the Whitewater scandal? The phony "Nafta-Gate" and "Rezko-Gate" don't come anywhere close to Monica Gate, Trooper Gate, Whitewater and the persistent trail of sleaze that follows the Clintons.

Senator Clinton knows how to come at the Republican attack machine, but she's also the one who gives it all the fuel it needs to rev up.

As for experience and being poised to fight for Americans, well Hillary Clinton was given one major policy task as first lady, health care reform. She was so effective at "fighting" for it that it went down in defeat and the Democrats lost the Congress as a result.

Legislation is not passed by fighting. Health Care reform will only be achieved through bringing Democrats, and some Republicans, together.

Clinton's claim of experience and readiness is a mirage. Senator Clinton has no true national security experience. Her vote on the Iraq war was cynical, at best. Embattled during the impeachment scandal, the Clinton administration failed to respond decisively to the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden. Bill Clinton's unwillingness to take out bin Laden, fearing it would create a "wag the dog" scenario in the midst of impeachment, showed a disastrous lack of judgment. McCain will hammer home these weaknesses at every opportunity. And the fight will be messy.

So since Senator Barack Obama won't say it, I will: The Clintons are reckless, back-alley fighters who are willing to destroy the Democratic Party, the country and the institution of the presidency if it will benefit them. Yes, they are "fighters," but not for you or me. They fight hardest and dirtiest on behalf of themselves, and this campaign has proved it.

What can The Monster do here? She's already enabling one serial philanderer, so she can't exactly pass judgement on another one. And she desperately needs Spitzer as a super delegate. Johns, pimps... whatever they can get at this point.

I never realized that "progressives" shared the Republican platform of criminalizing individuals' sex lives or that they would fault HRC for not immediately joining their little lynching party.
Do progressives believe that people should be prosecuted for medical marijuana?
How about draft resistance?
How about donating money to an Islamic charity?

Is the outrage over Spitzer's sex life really just an excuse to badger HRC? Do progressives hope that the "scandal" will rub off on HRC, so much so that it is worth abandoning what I always thought of as core progressive values?

Now if your outrage is fueled by Spitzer's hypocrisy, well that I understand.
But shall we destroy the life and career of anyone who ever evidences hypocrisy?
Or who ever lies about their sex life?
Really?

Personally I find the Lord of the Flies syndrome in many of these posts to be more hypocritical and vastly more damaging to our polity than Spitzer's illicit sex life.

I just signed up to this, because someone said you can have a more thoughtful discussion here than on Huffington Post. But reading through the comments, I'm realizing that this site nothing more than yet another Clinton-bash Central.

And judging by the depth of thinking in the comments, I have a feeling this is how a bunch of college jocks would talk politics over beer.

I don't think prostitution should be a crime.

But you know what, it is a crime. If Spitzer had spent his time in office trying to legalize prostitution, which would be politicaly very risky and couragous, I would be right there. But he didn't. He tried to profit off of its illegality.

I don't care if he has D next to his name. The law is the law, and I have little sympathy for someone who had enormous power avalaible to change a bad law, but instead chose to leave in place, break it, and profit from it.

Fuck him. Let him burn.

Hard to believe HRC doesn't have more to say on this, given her "35 years of experience" on such matters.

Are we *sure* that the women involved with Spitzer were all prostitutes?!

Maybe they were just trying to lobby his penis.

Even Bill knows that you pay prostitutes in cash.

Call Hillery at 3.00AM on the Red Phone. She will have something to say then. That is the time when she is on top of everything, well..... except Bill!

The phone rang in Mrs. Clinton's office at 3 pm today and she said that she'd have to "wait and see"

Gosh,

Would it really be appropriate at this point for Hillary to say anything outside the tone of what she did say? Jeez, the story isn't 24 hours old, may involve money laundering, and you want her to make a definitive statement about someone who isn't even connected to her campaign? That's quite a bit different from an Obama spokescreature speaking intemperately to a foreign journalist.

The serial Hillary-haters who are just giddy over any reason to echo their tiresome rightwing, Ken Starr talking points re the Clintons, must be just absolutely sure that Barry has no skeletons of like nature in his past that could conceivably come out sometime this year. One wouldn't want to upset the moral compasses of the progressiver-than-thou biddies who post here with their positively Beavis & Butthead-level of humorous insight.

I've always wondered why Europeans laugh at our prudish, Puritan sexual attitudes, until I get a load of some of the posts by the so-called progressives on here.

Again, if you really wanna get a good laugh, just close your eyes and picture the day that Obama's first bimbo eruption comes to light. Of course, we know that couldn't possibly be. Right? Well, for the sake of preserving your self-righteous smugness, one certainly hopes not.

This is a bad thing overall because it will hurt all democrats, obviously worst for Hillary, but it is not good for anyone. But the wait and see approach make me think that may be there is a suspicion that somebody closer to her is involved, and she does not want to condemn the whole thing and then really get burnt. Otherwise it is really hard to explain. I mean, why on earth she would want to stay close to a prostitution ring deal mixed up with allegations of money laundering?

I'm a Billary hater of the first order, but on this one I have to give her a pass. What else should she say or do? Jump to conclusions? That would only make her look silly, and whatever she said now would probably be refuted by the facts later. The only thing she can say is let's wait and see. So relax everybody. And let's let the poor Spitzer family deal with this in their best way. The one I feel most sorry for is his wife - having to stand next to him while he made his statement today. Very sad.

For those new to this site, please pardon our Schadenfreude.

But, dammit, for the next 24 I'm going to enjoy it. God knows the guy has always reminded me of the Democratic version of Rudy Giuliani. Self-rightous, self-absorbed, "crusading" lawywer whose crusades were always all about advancing his own political ambition.

When he was taking down Wall Street pigs who'd stuck their noses too far down into the trough, I was willing to ignore it and deem him a net benefit to society. When he waxed all indignant over cracking a high end prostitution ring--I actually saw that one in real time by sheer coincidence because I was in the office of a guy who kept a TV tuned to CNBC--I remember making a sneering comment about how obviously he ws manufacturing outrage for political purposes, but, hell, its not like it was my state so I didn't give it much more thought. .

Then he became Governor and, boom, before you know it, there's a nasty scandal involving him using the state police as his own personal Stasi to spy on political opponents. Immediately, my Rudy Giuilaini "I can do anything I want and get away with it" asshole detector started beeping. I found myself hoping he wouldn't go any higher. Then this bolt of self destructive hypocricy came down from the blue as if in answer to that hope.

Mmmm, boy. Serve me up a heaping helping of that Schadenfreude and put some ice cream on it. Sure it's fattening and bad for the heart, but surely it can't hurt to indulde in it occaisionally, right?

And no, obviously there's no link to Hillary, but it is fun to watch her sliming campaign derailed for a few days by a good old hypocritical American sex scandal involving a Governor who supports her. And I'm really not seeing where the Hillaroids who've making all those ominous rumblings about the Rezko trial, which they know full well has nothing to do with Obama, have any room to wax indignant if we gig her with it, especially when she temporizes when she should just say what she effing thinks. It once again creates the impression that she's stalling while Penn focus groups possible answers drafted up by the staff.

Clinton:

..let's wait and see what comes out of the next few days...

Wait.

Samantha Power calls her a monster, apologizes for it, but that's not good enough, and Camp Clinton immediately calls for her resignation.

Spitzer breaks the law and the best Clinton can do is parse it in a too-cute-by-half way like Bill?

Wow. Just wow.

Thanks liberal historian. I was about to write exactly the same. She is without shame.

Yet another Hillary-related scandal.

Bill and Eliot are good friends. They have the same hobbies.

The comment that trashing Power while asking for a hold on judging Spitzer is astute. So let's get some perspective here -- it's not like Spitzer did something _really_ offensive, like use Newsday's accurate paraphrase of HRC's position about NAFTA in a campaign mailer . . . then we'd be saying "Shame on you, Eliot Spitzer." This is obviously a lesser transgression.

As a lifelong Dem, I thought in 1998 that Bill should have resigned then. Still think so. Expecting Al Gore, somewhere, agrees with this. Spitzer calls that to mind, and from a Hillary-backing superdelegate, no less.

The comment that it is censorious or hypocritical for Dems to judge Spitzer harshly is badly mistaken. He's not just a politician, he's a prosecutor. Prosecutors don't patronize hookers.

That's why the impeachment was worse, coming from certain Republicans who had unclean hands. Thie issue is and should be hypocrisy. I'm a lawyer, have been since the early 90s. Law is a force for good, but hypocrisy of this magnitude (perjuring Presidents, sanctimonious impeachers, Spitzer hitting it with a ho) from any quarter hurts our respect for the rule of law and hurts us all. Seriously.

Nothing to take delight in, but something to be condemned. Obviously.

Clinton's "let's wait and see," is merely another Machiavellian political tactic. She doesn't want to lose another Superdelegate.

And round and round we go. But I will leave you with this. Schumer's reaction (or lack thereof) has been noted and is newsworthy.

New York’s other senator, Charles E. Schumer, struck a similar chord. “I feel bad for him and his family,” Mr. Schumer said, “but until he makes a more complete statement, I have nothing more to say.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/nyregion/11reax.html

Spitzer, a Democrat, was already at odds with the Republican-led Senate, and even on shaky ground with some Democrats, many of whom have remained uncharacteristically silent in the aftermath of the governor's statement Monday afternoon. Speaker Sheldon Silver and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer both released brief statements indicating, essentially, that they have no comment.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=3&aid=79282

His party allies, including Senator Schumer and Speaker Sheldon Silver, refused to stand behind him but said they awaited further word from him.

http://www.nysun.com/article/72640?page_no=2

Schumer Issues Brief, Unsupportive Statement About Spitzer

http://www.observer.com/2008/schumer-makes-brief-statement

Which reminds me, New York's Senator Chuck Schumer has been heard from on the question of what is to be done about Eliot Spitzer. He has gone out on a limb to say he is sad for Spitzer's family but he isn't going to comment until Spitzer is more forthcoming. I can only suggest that Schumer has not read the indictment, since there's no way to do so without hoping that there will be nothing more forthcoming.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nora-ephron/eliot-spitzer-what-is-to_b_90869.html

I assume that Obama has already spoken out forcefully against Spitzer, rather than waiting to see what develops. Anyone know?

I thought Hillary was ready on DAY ONE?