Jesus, 32% say he should stay? The hard-ass prosecutor who gleefully shut down prostitution rings as if he were leading the charge at Antietam should get a pass for soliciting a hooker from a prostitution ring?

Throw him out by his ear.

That's interesting. Where was their poll when Vitter was going through the same thing? I've noticed SurveyUSA releasing these Republican-leaning quick polls quite a bit recently. Suspicious.

It's not a "victimless crime." It's gross exploitation. And if you're not convinced, I remind you that some of the women he saw apparently felt compelled to perform acts they did not believe were safe.

But regardless, it is a crime and Spitzer knows it is a crime. He should resign, but stay out of jail. That's more mercy than he probably would have given a target in the same situation.

Laws are laws. And nobody is above them. Bye.

cswartout...As the governor, he cannot allow himself to get away with this because he is powerful and rich (that much is true judging by the prices). It would be hypocrisy for every prostitute or john charged with those crimes.

I'm not arguing that he should 'get away with' anything. The laws are what they are and let the US attorneys make their big bust. Whoopeeee! The US attorneys can make their case and get a conviction of a guv soliciting a prostitute. BFD.

Is your problem just a moral one?

So now that we have some polling, does this mean Clinton's "let's wait and see" period may be drawing to an end soon?

Ironically, one Eliot Spitzer's latest issues, is taking on sex slavery. It's estimated that there are between 10,000 and 20,000 women and children who are forced into prostitution, in the US alone.

The relaxation of attitudes around prostitution, is fueling a demand at unprecedented levels for sex workers, making trafficking of human beings, a world wide problem.

Most people have a need to be able to respect their leaders. There needs to be, at least an illusion, that those elected to high office, represent one's highest aspirations and ideals. Cheating on one's wife by spending thousands of dollars on call girls, doesn't work for a lot people, especially since he broke both State and Federal laws and was NY State Attorney General, in the past.

billysumday wrote, "Jesus, 32% say he should stay?"

It's worth adding that the poll didn't mention the day's news. Some of these people who thought he should stay probably hadn't heard about the prostitution ring. If they were to do another poll today, the number wanting him to stay would probably be considerably lower.

This really isn't fair trying to tar clinton with this spitzer garbage. It's really pathetic. I was listening to insanity on my commute, because I couldn't get anything else, and he was falling all over himself raising the lewinski garbage and mr. bill. Over and over and over again. He probably talked more about mr. bill than spitzer. It really was pathetic.

I am not a fan of the clintons, but spitzer's problem is his and has nothing to do with the clintons. By the way, spitzer is a gd IDIOT!!!! He should resign because is so gd stupid. He doesn't deserve to be governor. It's priceless, he may even be facing jail time for transporting over state lines. He couldn't find a call girl in dc????? What a gd moron!

From "Head of State"

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/03/client-9.html

"Monday, March 10, 2008, 5:14pm

Client 9

Or, as is likely to be said in the coming media Schadenfreude, Emperor's Club R. I. P.

The question will be asked repeatedly: How could someone of such seeming moral recititude, who seemed not only to base his career on such rectitude but to be driven to it, commit such an act?

In such a question, people make a simple but understandable error--they look at the fact that someone has embraced the mantle of morality--rather than the reasons for it.

There are many reasons why people adopt a particularly moral stance. For some, morality is method of controlling an otherwise fearful world, allowing one to keep a sense of predictability and control over what would otherwise be a rush of panic in the face of life's unpredictability and chaos. For others, morality serves a kind of tribal purpose, a tie to family and origins, maintaining a sense of stability and permanence through clansmanship. For others, it is a weapon of sheer opportunism, a way, among the human weapons seen across millenia, to evince power and dominion over others.

None of these are, of course, mutually exclusive, and people will often display several of these forms and bases for morality.

For Spitzer, however, morality appears to have had a particular been powerfully yoked to twin and inextricably tied purposes: competition and ambition.

Driven from an early age, morality seems to have been inextricably yoked to Spritzers remarkable drive to indicate that he was stronger, better than his competitors. Spitzer went after morality with a relish--and a tendency, which he struggled to fight down over the years, to rub victories in the face of those he had vanquished --that suggests a drive to morality as a form of competitive victory and evidence of personal superiority--the relish of a perfect score against those who would do lesser--of winning.

This is not to say that Spitzer did not see his targets as morally wrong--indeed, their moral flaws provided the spark and impetus for battle-- nor that he did not wish to correct moral wrongs. However, it is to say that the most powerful and persistent motivation driving this each day, was Spizters drive to compete, to emerge perfectly victorious over those who were thus proven as lesser, and the division of people into rather simplistic and binary forms of good and evil to serve the sense ones own victorious perfection.

Such a moral stance--of victory and defeat, of good (Spitzer) and bad (his vanquished enemies)-- can lead to a particular (and likely rapid) form of inner moral accounting and comparison: One can feel that they are so far "ahead" in moral victories as compared to the vastly less moral and vanquished others, that they are allowed a structured, narrow, and quiet deviation. After all--they are still far ahead in the moral contest, with so many victories, as compared to those that they have turned out as far less moral. Given such a margin, one can be allowed a flaw--and still be winning. It is no wonder that many of Spitzer's enemies viewed him as, at times, embracing a double standard.

Regardless of how one may view such a standard, it is different than a morality that views moral failure as human flaw; where one recognizes that there are not good people who win (Spitzer) and bad people (others) who, in a rush of competitive self-enhancement, must be defeated, but that all people must fight against human flaw. In such a moral scheme, one includes themselves. As a reformer embracing this moral approach, one would work to expose immorality for its social harms, rather than as a route to personal and professional competition and victory--and would also recognize the tendency to such flaw within themselves.

This will burn like a brushfire. Spitzer, despite the desire to fight to the last, will, in the crush of revelations, and in the unending march of human hubris, irony, and folly, likely have to resign."

Cite:

Head of State

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/03/client-9.html