The Rude Pundit: A Few Lessons and Observations Related To Eliot Spitzer

[meegbear]

1. Anyone who knows anything about recent New York politics knew that hell was gonna break loose the moment that Governor Eliot Spitzer (or his "aides") had Republican Senate President Joseph Bruno followed by state troopers in an attempt to discredit the longtime state politico. You knew that Bruno, who has accumulated an almost absurd amount of power over his thirty years in Albany, was gonna rip apart Spitzer with all the force of a crazed wolverine tearing into a limping moose.

Republican Senator Marty Golden said last year about Spitzer, in a remark that was foreshadowing in that scary "shit, they knew something" way, "There is a seedy side to this governor." Or as Baruch College Professor Doug Muzzio commented after Spitzer fired the aides who had Bruno followed, "Now that the proverbial blood is in the water, people are going to be looking for things."

So, yeah, this whole thing stinks of selective prosecution through the Edwardian-era Mann Act and political games and all that bullshit, but, at the end of the day, Spitzer does seem to have been paying prostitutes to fuck him.

The lesson here: If you're gonna lay small animal traps in the forest, you better make damn sure there's no bear traps in your backyard.

2. Nobody ought to give a fuck about why Spitzer fucked whores or what he did with them. After all, the hooker did say that Spitzer wanted to do things that might not be "safe."

But it seems that if you have, you know, used your office when you were attorney general to go after tour operators who arrange for people to go to countries where they can easily get laid by hookers, as well as a prostitution ring fronted as an escort service, then there's not a whole lot of wiggle room on whether or not it's cool that you like the ladies of the evening, no matter how much cleaner or more expensive they may be than the whores of Staten Island or Thailand. Call this the Vitter Rule of Sexual Hypocrisy.

Lesson: If you really think prostitution should be legal and you happen to be in a position where you can do something about it, then maybe you ought to, you know, do something about it so you can fuck all the hookers you want. But until the law's changed, it's against the law.

3. None of this is a statement on whether or not Spitzer should stay in office. He has officially fucked the goat. But many a goatfucker has stayed around. Call this the Vitter Rule of Short-Term Memory.

4. To answer a question he had, the Rude Pundit called a prostitute friend. Is there a qualitative difference between a three-diamond whore, who, at the Emperor Club, went for $1000 an hour, and a seven-diamond whore, who goes for $5500 an hour? The hooker equivalent of space flight? Her answer was, "The same reason people buy ugly paintings by famous artists or stay in penthouse hotel rooms for a night. Because they can. Status, you know."

And she assured me that, for only a couple hundred bucks, she could make the Rude Pundit experience weightlessness. Time will tell.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[acmavm]

1. Nails it.

[gatorboy]

3. And at half the price!

[gaspee]

2. I will never understand

Why men just can't keep it in their damn pants. How many dudes have been brought down by sex scandals?

It's utterly stupid, the things these guys did to get their rocks off.

Like I said, I will never understand.

[Warpy]

4. Entitlement

and the richer and more powerful they are, the more they feel entitled to.

It's the reason for all that marble in Newport.

[selador]

6. yup

also, people who are attracted to politics tend to be the type A, high testosterone (studies have shown that type A personalities do havehigher endogenous T levels), competitive, arrogant personality types

just a fact

also, spitzer is a former very aggressive and successful trial lawyer. similar things are true about trial lawyers (and test pilots, etc.)

i've known a lot of trial lawyers - type a, aggressive, assertive, self-confident, egotistical

not a criticism, just the kind of personality traits you find in people who are attracted to trial law (vs. corporate, tax, etc. law)

so, it surprises exactly this much {} that spitzer (or any other # of politicians) do this kind of stuff.

i'd be surprised if they DIDN'T

[Sal Minella]

8. I think it stems from fondness for the aura of power -- It's the same impetus that causes * to use

a 20-car motorcade to drive down the street two blocks.

The gorgeous women are just part of the trappings of power, and the testosterone-impaired half of humanity is innately helpless to resist.

[boobooday]

5. Gotta love the Rude Pundit

:toast:

[Tom Joad]

7. the real scandal is that Spitzer fucked up by supporting the Iraq war

To hell with his political career, he never deserved one. No one as extreme as that does.

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. No mention of how "Wall Street affiliated politicians" targeted Spitzer for FBI wiretaps

Escort services like these service 1000s of politicians in Washington and
Albany, yet the sheeple on the liberal blogs do not demand them to be fired
any more than they want Rush to be fired for saying worse things than Imus.

It is called learned helplessness, DUers. Get over it.

It is very difficult for people suffering from learned helplessness,
such as liberal internet geeks, to ascertain when they are being made
a fool of by an organized blackmail/sting operation directed at all
political enemies of Wall Street using honeytraps and wiretaps.

Spitzer is merely the fall guy for this operation.

Remember the "Velvet Mafia" that kept the House Republicans in check?