I’d rather have a leader lie about getting laid or get caught when he did than someone who would lie or political ends to start wars that cost trillions of dollars and kill not only thousands of my own people but hundreds of thousands of foreigners. I guess that’s just me :P.
Philandering? A solid majority would probably say, “No, we don’t mind all that much.” I certainly wouldn’t mind if Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt or Bill Clinton were my President, despite their amorous trysts. But a philanderer who a) hires prostitutes, and b) does so with state money, has violated more than his personal integrity and his wife’s trust. Spitzer had the audacity to spend <i>public</i> funds to enjoy <i>privately</i> an <i>illegal</i> activity. The crimes here compound on one another, and more resemble a Roman emperor’s abuses of power than the behavior required of a democratically elected official.
Oh shit he used state money for this?
This point aside, I don’t really think having relations with a sex trade worker are grounds for impeachment or resignation. Divorce? Maybe, depending on how kinky the other partner is, but impeachment? No way.
Now if he was using state money, that’s a bit of a different story.
:kissy:
Absolutely priceless picture 
Now, to expose the ones who go to male prostitutes…
So what if he used state money? His job performance is probably increased by these thousand dollar blowjobs and so forth.
Doesn’t this sort of thing happen to most marriages in the US? How do we know he and his wife don’t have some kind of gentleman’s agreement, much like FDR? Maybe this “scandal” is a good reason for Americans (at least New Yorkers and the rest of the urban liberal class) to seriously think about legalizing prostitution to some degree.
‘Phliandering’ is one thing. In that case, the woman has to share equal blame. Seeing a prostitute is another, since it is entirely the politician’s fault. And paying up to $80,000 on prostitution is yet a different thing.
How can he credibly promise to help the poor when he blew $80,000 on high-priced hookers?
Does the name “Bill Clinton” ring a bell? If a guy having completely legal consensual sexual relations with a woman was enough cause for an impeachment, this can serve just as well. By the rules of the political game, what’s legally punisheable and what’s politically damning aren’t the same.
Not directly related, but since the other thread is now closed.
That was… beautiful.
Great, so American society seems to have no problem with someone espousing amorphous and unsubstantive statements about “hope” and “change” over decades of experience. Beautiful, indeed.
Spitzer will be resigning on Monday. He sounded sincere, not that it matters much, he still needs to go to jail for this.
I’m going to guess you were being sarcastic about the first cocuple of statements.
Whether or not it happens in most marriages doesn’t matter, and in fact, if your referring to if most men in marriages use prostitutes NPR recently talked to someone who investigated why people engage in prostitution and a very low percentage of men in the States don’t according to that study. Also, most men in the States don’t fund their philandering through fudns that are supposed to be going to education and infrastructure.
If prostitution was legal he would still have been a thief and criminal because he used public funds. You know, the taxes the citizens of NY pay in order for the state to be run? The fact that he used it for such an enterprise is just icing on the cake in terms of showing his character, but it’s the fact that he used public money that makes it egregious.That’s what sealed his political fate and that’s what’s going to send him to jail.
Do you expect a man to have one of the highest pressure jobs imaginable and not have any outlet for his sexual needs? So what if he used public funds. He’s probably not paid highly enough to begin with. Does a wall street investment firm flip out over its executives paying a little money for sex with a beautiful woman? No, I think they understand. Probably encourage it.
Most men don’t hire prostitutes, sure, but the percentage of men (and women) who “cheat” on their spouses shouldn’t be surprising to anyone these days.
Come on. First off, there are plenty of other ways to fulfill a need than sex. More importantly, if he such a beast and can’t put down his sexual needs, then he can pay for it himself. There’s no possible way this is excusable. You pay taxes right? Would you like to know that the taxes you pay were used so someone could get sexual favors instead of funding education or benefiting the state? Are you seriously okay with that?
The situations you compare are incompatiable. A wall street investor could use his own money to become involved in a prostitution ring, as long as he’s not caught, it’s fine. But if he used the company’s money to do so, he would be fired. That’s what Spitzer did, he used the people’s money for his own “needs”. I just don’t know how you can possibly find a way to make this is acceptable. It’s loathsome to cheat on your wife, and you seem to be using the excuse, “Well, I bet most folks in the States cheat on their wives.” Yeah, see, it doesn’t matter what most people do. Your a Governor, you have a higher standard.
Finally, we need to think about the possibility of blackmail here. If your a public official, you can’t engage in actions like this without putting a target on yourself. Spitzer opened himself up to that and did an even further disserve to his constituents as a result.
That animation was awesome.
More importantly, if he such a beast and can’t put down his sexual needs, then he can pay for it himself.
We have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of men and beasts.
Sil, if you are honestly, honestly saying that you think that it should be part of a government’s budget to pay for a man’s nookie, then I seriously have lost all respect for you.
What seperates man from beast is the ability to reason. A beast may want sex and he goes after it. A man would be able to reason whether or not this is an ethical choice. Spitzer was acting like a man who had lost the ability to reason with ethics.
The big deal is that the guy was a hypocrite. He made a career terrorizing other people for their own corruption, and puffing himself up as a righteous man. Also, from what I’ve read, he was personally an asshole as well.
Come on Sin, war porn is good, whoring is bad. And immoral.
I love how you can apply “Man is by nature a political animal” to this conversation.