NEW YORK TIMES: “Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.” So much for Mr. Clean.
UPDATE: Reader Chuck Pelto emails: “Why should YOU ‘care’? You support prostitution.”
Well, I support legalizing prostitution. Spitzer’s support was, ahem, more direct. I understand that some people are suggesting he may try to brazen things out, but being the Democratic governor of Hillary’s home state, I think the Clintons will be encouraging him to get out as soon as possible lest this bring up memories. And yes, that’s ironic.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Best headline: From Troopergate to Shtupergate. And various readers are saying it’s a name that party story at the NYT. But when I linked to it they mentioned that Spitzer was a Democrat prominently in the third paragraph. That’s disappeared sometime in the past hour or two and there’s now a much less prominent mention, much further down, but it is there.
MORE: Lots of further links at Hot Air, including a report that Hillary has scrubbed her website of Spitzer references.
Complaint is here. And, from the NYT story:
Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.
In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.
The hypocrisy. And Michael Gebert emails:
Even if you’re all for legalizing prostitution, and consequently think that Spitzer didn’t really do anything wrong sex-wise, the issue remains that he delivered himself as the highest elected official in New York state into the power of an international crime ring with, it seems safe to assume, connections to other crime organizations which New York prosecutors have been battling for decades. I realize the truth of the Clinton-era line “whenever they say it’s not about the sex, it’s about the sex,” but really, the biggest betrayal of public trust in this is who the governor of New York got into bed with, not what he did there.
Yes, he certainly made himself blackmailable, at the very least.