Patronising a prostitute is just like screwing clients and stockholders on Wall Street?

Is this the dumbest analogy you have seen, or what?

Rape might cover the sexual crime/financial crime comparison, but not prostitution.

I want to know what the terrorism-fighting Bush-led FBI was doing in a sting operation on high-priced call girls in the first place.

I smell a rat here. I think someone tipped off the FBI about Democrat Spitzer and the FBI got busy chasing him down. Who else has been indicted or charged?

Another example of using the JD for political ends.

I agree

I agree that the analogy is weak, but the question you raise is an intereing one. What was a Federal Task Force investigating Government Corruption doing wiring tapping a call girl ring? Your theory may make sense, but based on what I have seen today, I'm skeptical.

Spitzer is a very accomplished attorney, yet he is seen today making a public Mea Culpa, before any charges have been filed against him. Very curious. At the same time, his own Party is giving him the bums rush out of Albany. The Democratic Lt. Governor already looking for a judge to be ready to swear him in. No, I have the feeling that something much bigger is lurking under the murky surface of New York politics.

Also, the thought that the investigation may be politcally motivated has a much stronger analogical connection to Spitzer's rise and fall from power. Spitzer used his positions as prosecutor and attorney general for his own political ambitions, vanquishing his political enemies with the law, and turning a blind eye to the indescretions of his allies. An ironic end to the career of Mr Untouchable.

Yep, Spitzer did overreach. He did some good in ending some selfish Wall Street practices. However, he used prosecutorial black mail as his main weapon to score political points, which I think is very sleazy. So many of his "victories" did not even involve prosecutions - just forced resignations of chief officers on the threat of bringing charges to their firms.

Ordinarily, I do separate personal peccadillos, like addiction to nicotine or sex, as wholly separate from a man's public ethics. The thing that gets me is imagining what kind of abnormal compulsion he must have been feeling to have taken such a huge risk knowing the prostitutes he patronized and the owners of the "business" would recognize him, and could then blackmail him or tip someone off at any time. This is not the same thing as if your NOT-famous next-door neighbor hired some prostitute. It is MUCH more reckless. Once you become a public figure, to do something like that is unbelievable.

The only explanation: I think he is a sex addict, like Bill Clinton in my opinion. Most people don't realize how prevalent it is. I just feel sorry for them and their families.

Oh "sex addict," oh my aunt Fanny. Look, dears, addiction is a problem in and of itself -- it is not the same thing as needing kinky sex, SPEAKING of ridiculous analogies.

So here we have a prosecutor, fairly or not, falling victim to the same techniques that engineered his rise and that's a bad analogy but "sex addiction" is NOT?

Whatever's being hidden will come to light. We were due for a fetish sex scandal, having gotten bored with mere pedophilia and tea-room sex.

Spitzer has the look of a man with strong disciplinary needs. Wherever it goes from there, it's probably not too exotic by NYC standards, or by the standards of Spitzer's peers in New York and Washington, both. Selective prosecution? You betcha. Was this high-end straight sex? I can't believe anybody capable of reading a newspaper believes that.

Clinton, though your basic risk-taker (now there's a compulsion) is by all reports plain vanilla, sexually (and if Ken Starr could have proven otherwise he would have), and no wonder Hillary looks so peevish and drawn. She'd probably like a nice big piece of whatever Spitzer had.

I think you're grossly oversimplifying dhuston. Spitzer wasn't exactly as even and fair in his Wall Street prosecutions as that article would have you believe. The man used some questionable and sleazy tactics, often exposing people's personal business or floating unsubstantiated rumors as a means to personal humiliation.

If you actually read the document, you'd learn that Spitzer wasn't indicted of anything. He wasn't even mentioned in the document.

You jump to some pretty big conclusions based on no evidence. Because a Democrat is caught up in a prostitution ring (mind the irony here with Spitzer and prostitution rings) its automatically politically motivated and some nefarious character at the Justice Department is pulling the stings?

The only person of such a partisan hit job is, well, Spitzer, if you recall the scandal he was involved in last year where he personally slimed the Republican minority leader by planting fake stories in the newspaper. Classy guy.

But even if it was politically motivated, it's pretty easy to see that what goes around comes around.

What's that I hear? The pained yelps of a horribly strained analogy?

"The first and last rule is not to create a paper trail—or, in this age, a digital trail—that can come back to haunt you. But he was reportedly caught on wiretaps discussing bringing a prostitute to Washington to meet him at a hotel."

Yes, speaking on one's tapped personal phone is exactly the same as sending an e-mail.

As details are coming out, it appears his very act of trying to conceal his paper trail, is what clued the IRS to his activity. Looking into possible tax related money laundering activity involving unusual cash transactions may have been what led the government to the door of the Emperors Club. Time will tell.

There is a detail of the case that I find interesting. The Emperors Club identifies Spitzer, the Governor of New York as Client Number Nine. If there is a ranking system involved, one has to wonder who Client Number One is. With the NYC - DC connection, I'm sure Hillary is wondering the same thing.

I agree with dhuston53 that there could be partisan interference here. What with the US attorneys scandal, the wiretapping liberties of W etc. We're all distracted by the salacious nature but meanwhile. . .

I do wonder if he's not a sex addict with that kind of money and what not going into the call girls (which, let's not forget, is a whole hell of a lot less newsworthy than the above).

Entire governments have embezzled billions and slaughtered political dissenters and more while their electorates were distracted by Maury Povich-style sex scandals (e.g., Fujimori did it in Peru).

There does seem to be a common trait amongst powerful men with a lot to lose, which is their need for the kinds of sex which is hazardous to their careers.

Darling Billy is the obvious example of this, as you pointed out.

But there have been high profile preachers, countless politicians and political top dogs, chief executive officers, etc., who have found themselves in the same situation which Spitzer has put himself in. There are some pretty famous adult affairs amongst presidents too (I mean to separate actual adult relationships from the blow-jobs of a gushing young acolyte which Billy Boy engaged in).

There seems to be a need for these powerful men to be needy, like "I really need to get laid" and be put in a dangerous position where they can be caught out.

Is this actually a deep desire to be less powerful than they are? There is clearly a sense of entitlement and arrogance about it, the idea that the rules do not apply to them. But they are clearly putting themselves in a very dangerous position. Why?

I don't know whether or not Billy Boy is a sex addict; I tend to believe he is an adoration addict. I've always said that he'd have been just as happy being a famous rock n' roller, actor or news anchor as president. He was always in it for the adulation, power and celebrity.

I don't know whether or not Sptizer is a sex addict either. I think he has this deep down need to be needy and perhaps it's a thrill that he may get caught that makes it so compelling.

the bill clinton idea came to me immediately. how is it that they think they won't get caught, hello...security detail, i know you in a restaurant, you have a face lots of people know...the arrogance, the power catches up with everybody...which is why we elect our officials regularly and have the option of removing them...

Powerful men hiring prostitutes has much less to do with an addiction to sex, and much more to a prediliction for demeaning and degrading women. The article hints at some sexual requests of an unsafe nature that would indicate Spitzer was more interested in the domination and sodomy of these women, rather then simple sexual gratification. Playing out the role of abuser, without the possibility of legal retribution. Or so he thought.

Yeah, 30 days of rehab ain't gonna fix this dude.

I heard on the radio this morning he didn't want to use a condom.

I don't know if I buy the prediliction for "demeaning and degrading women," thing. I'm sure there is a lot about the objectification of women, for sure.

But other than a rape situation, who has the most power here? Think about a strip show. The women are in complete control, with guys drooling over them at their tables, like cats following a bird in flight, putting their hard earned money on the table.

The same with most prostitutes, and I would say particularly with these high priced prostitutes who look like models. They are getting paid enormous amounts of money by men who have fantasized about that moment for God knows how long. They have a lot of power over those men.

It reminds me a bit of why some very powerful men like S&M where they play the "slave" being dominated by a woman.

Before we get too wrapped up in the image of Powerful Men with Certain Needs (an old story; generally what they need is a spanking), let's look at the particulars of Spitzer's situation: was he so powerful at the time he started looking for comfort sex with escorts? Maybe he didn't feel that way.

Look at Spitzer's career arc. Leaving aside the shitty things he did to a lot of people to HAVE such an impressive career arc, you can't deny that he looked like a rising god in New York and National politics. He had every reason to look himself in the mirror, the way most Senators do, and think "...PRESIDENT Spitzer..." But something happened. He got to Albany and his arc flattened out. He got into this hideous war with Bruno. His reform plan turned into a bunch of legislation that got messed with endlessly by the leggies, and remember, Spitzer is a guy with a reputation as a screamer. He likes to yell and make people do what he wants, NOW.

In spite of what the IQ cultists think, there's such a thing as emotional intelligence, and Spitzer doesn't appear to have any. So any little setback is crushing, and the last couple of years have been full of little setbacks for Spitzer. When men with his clearly limited emotional reserves experience career closure, or what feels like it, they go into moral free fall. It's not the same as Bill Clinton at all. Bill gets horny when he gets bored. Gennifer Flowers, who was not stupid about men, figured that out instantly.

Spitzer went for commodity sex (the high end of it to be sure) because he was frightened and consequently demoralized. There's a reason why Congressmen are so likely to screw around. The reason he's going to resign now, even though this is a scandal he could wait out if he had the guts to do , is it confirms his fears.

I think we're overanalyzing this.

I think he just wanted to bang something hot, young, and willing to do things his 40 year old wife wouldn't.

In patriarchal societies, it wasn't uncommon for men to keep concubines for this purpose; women far younger and more submissive to "alternate" sexual activity than the wife or primary wife ( who was often married solely for political reasons) that the man could sate his lusts on.

At risk of sounding vulgar, yeah, we've all seen the pics of women from the Emperor's club and they are hot. A lot of guys, if they could, would want one in the sack, it's that simple.

He's not a sex addict; the notion that's he's some sort of victim is laughable. He did what most men do when they screw up, he put his penis before his convictions (if he ever had any), he thought with the wrong head, he was selfish.