The American Mind

Just to let you know that technically, Spitzer hasn’t admitted to anything. You should probably hold off on “has admitted to being a client of a prostitution ring” until he actually confesses.

It is ironic that he came to office promising to clean up politics and then this happens.

Elliot Spitzer Resigns in Prostitution Ring Scandal…

New York Governor Elliot Spitzer is “involved” in a prostitution ring. Details are still sketchy.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administr…

Jason, I’m going with what the Times is reporting along with an assumption that by being “involved” means hiring hookers not being the pimp.

FoxNews.con reports Spitzer will be indicted and will resign.

Oops! Guess he should have said he had the forgiveness of God and his wife.

Or does that only allow you to escape indictment if you’re a Republican?

Chet, it does surprise me Sen. Vitter survived his hooker scandal. Must be the weird world of Louisiana politics.

Must be the weird world of Louisiana politics.

It doesn’t have anything to do with “Louisiana politics”, and everything to do with the moral double standard Republicans have always benefited from. IOKIYAR!

Chet, do you know anything about the wild world of Louisiana politics? Ever hear of Edwin Edwards?

Yeesh. And you have the gall to call me a knee-jerk partisan.

Chet, do you know anything about the wild world of Louisiana politics?

What’s the relevance of Louisiana, Sean? Vitter works in Washington DC, lives there, and admitted to soliciting sex in that jurisdiction.

Unless there’s some reason to believe that the Federal government and Capitol police take their enforcement cues all the way from Baton Rouge, we can confidently dismiss “Louisiana politics” as having anything to do with it. The truth is that Vitter and Spitzer are in the same exact situation, only Spitzer is looking at charges, for God’s sake, and nobody seemed to remember that Vitter confessed to a felony on national TV. The precise sort of forgetfulness that only manifests when people are looking at a Republican. IOKIYAR!

Are charges being contemplated? I have seen a couple of early reports talking about an indictment but later reports deny Spitzer is being indicted for anything.

A Fox News story speculates the possibility of charges related to money laundering and prostitution.

More reading indicates this guy has few friends on either side of the aisle. My guess is unless the Feds decide to press charges he hangs tough and remains in office until the next election when he loses.

Chet, i have to admit that you seem to be trolling a little bit here. After all, it was Sean who, in this very blog, kept calling on Larry Craig to resign.

Also, with Spitzer being a guy who was hard core on persecuting the financial industry why should he get off when caught playing financial hanky-panky?

After all, it was Sean who, in this very blog, kept calling on Larry Craig to resign.

Sure, because it was men instead of women.

Color me not impressed. Craig, after all, did not resign. Vitter never even voiced the possibility. But when it’s a Democrat dipping his wick, all of a sudden the rules are different. Not only is his resignation a forgone conclusion, but he’s looking at Federal charges. Federal charges! For solicitation!

Nobody else finds that significant? Nobody else finds it significant that the first Federal investigators learned of Spitzer’s proclivities was when they were wiretapping his phone? No, I’m not “trolling.” I’m simply filling in the missing facts from Sean’s piecemeal analysis. Spitzer was targeted for being a Democrat in office. The facts support no other conclusion.

Prove me wrong.

Spitzer was targeted for being a Democrat in office. The facts support no other conclusion.

Waaaait a minute. Help me out here. A radio report i heard yesterday suggested that he was being investigated for possible corruption because records showed he was moving money around constantly–like, in large sums. It just so happened that he was moving it around to hide his hooker bills. Is there more i’m missing? I admit, i haven’t looked into it in much detail because, hey, politician hires hookers, *snore*–but i haven’t read anything anywhere that suggests he was wiretapped without good reason. Point me in the right direction, dude.

Chet,

You are being obtuse. Spitzer was transferring large amounts of money offshore for no discernible purpose and this is hardly earthshaking crim investigative procedure. People who play with large sums of money for no obvious reason (coming or going) attract attention.

A cousin of my mother got caught up in a similar way. He was transferring large amounts of cash to some chicks in California and the bank became suspicious. In the end it was because any woman could talk cousin Al out of money and cousin Al was put on an allowance. Mostly harmless, no one was going to get extort cousin Al into anything serious.

Seems to me Larry Craig was convicted and there have been lots of call for him to step down, but you conveniently exclude it from your dataset. How nice, anything contrary to your beliefs is automatically an aberration. Believe whatever you want but don’t think you impress anyone else.

Spitzer was transferring large amounts of money offshore for no discernible purpose and this is hardly earthshaking crim investigative procedure.

And… is he going to be charged with that? No?

Seems to me Larry Craig was convicted and there have been lots of call for him to step down,

Did he? No?

Was he recalled by the people of Idaho, or impeached? No?

So, in fact, I do include it in my dataset – it’s just another example of IOKIYAR.

Spitzer was transferring large amounts of money offshore for no discernible purpose and this is hardly earthshaking crim investigative procedure.

And… is he going to be charged with that? No?

It is a regrettable requirement of the PATRIOT ACT that any suspiciously large, unusual money transfers must be reported to the feds for investigation. I dunno how many people know that, but i used to work in a bank and that’s part of the law that we were made aware of. Obviously i’m not going to endorse its use for matters like this, since, um i don’t think Spitzer is a terrorist?

Still, dude earned himself a ton of enemies fighting Wall Street corruption, i’m sure. For him to do something like this is monumentally stupid. Should we care about a politicians sex life? No. Should prostitution be illegal? I think not. But it is, and that’s the unfortunate reality, so dude should have realized that if he’s gonna move huge sums of money around to pay for hookers, his enemies were gonna pounce. Does that make it right? Hmmmm. It DOES point to a possible abuse of the law (the PATRIOT ACT thing is just me speculating, but i know monitoring odd money transfers was part of the law) in order to play “gotcha” with a political foe, but that doesn’t absolve Spitzer from being phenomenally stupid either.

Has there been anything about whose money he used to pay for his play? Was this all his own personal accounts, or was he embezzling?

The monitoring of large cash transfers was in place well before the Patriot Act. As I said, if you play with large amounts of cash and have no good reason to do so then further investigation may be required. Drug dealers who work at the McDonald’s driving Porsches or mid level intelligence or law enforcement functionaries with multiple swank homes are often the targets of these sorts of things (leaving out terror related funding).

As far as Larry Craig stepping down, that is for him and the people of Idaho to deal with. We can all scream for it but if he chooses not to listen little can be done. If you want to move to Idaho and lead the charge to impeach him, go for it, I’ll support you in that as far as my position as a Wisconsin resident allows.

As far as charges against Mr. Spitzer, I would be surprised if any are lodged against him. I certainly don’t expect him to be charged for being a john. If any charges are forthcoming it would be on account of violating laws against money laundering. AIDFUA

DJ,

It sounds like Mr. Spitzer was using his own funds, just playing shell games probably so his family couldn’t detect what was going on with it. I have not read anything out there suggesting he was abusing public funds. AIDFUA

Yeah, it makes sense that moving large amounts of money would have raised red flags before the PATRIOT ACT; i’m pretty sure the Act added additional levels to the monitoring, though. In any case, i suppose it’s irrelevant to the discussion.

If the dude didn’t spend public funds on hooers, then i don’t care. He broke the law on his own time, and i suppose by some people’s standards that means he’s unfit for office, but whatever. It’s evidence of our overly-puritanical society if nothing else. In a perfect world Larry Craig would feel comfortable with his identity as a gay man and not feel so ashamed of it that he had to troll for sex in a men’s bathroom, but here we are.

At the end of the day, sex scandals distract everyone from real issues, and that’s the real crime. It’s partly our fault for buying into it all the damn time and actually caring about other people’s sex lives, but you can’t absolve a politician of their stupidity when they should realize what a puritanical nosy cult of celebrity they operate in.

>> Yeah, it makes sense that moving large amounts of money would have raised red flags before the PATRIOT ACT;

As alluded to, the $10,000 limit/single transaction stems from the original law was that installed many many years ago to nab drug dealers.

What Spitzer was doing was moving smaller amounts in rapid succession in order fly under the $10k radar. It has been reported that he, worried, then asked the bank to remove his name from those transactions. That is when the bank contacted the feds.

And that is what he will be charged with; something along the lines of conspiracy to commit bank fraud or criminal enterprise. Along with interstate trafficking for the purposes of prostitution, and not simple solicitation as chester whimpers on about (usually handled by state/municipal statutes until it crosses state lines).

>>At the end of the day, sex scandals distract everyone from real issues, and that’s the real crime.

This isn’t an “affair” or “married with mistress” situation. Sex scandals of this nature, as you can see, always have criminal underpinnings. Some more than others.

>>> If the dude didn’t spend public funds on hooers, then i don’t care.

Aside from finding that to be a morally deficient stance, if the Luv Guv was on state time (Feb 13 was a Wed), or if his aids spent a second covering for him, or if the Lt. Gov had to step in during his absences for any reason, or if aids or body guards traveled with him, or if he used office resources to set up travel plans, then yes, he used public funds.

I suspect such is the case.

I suspect we’ll hear a lot more of a lot more of Mr. Spitzer’s “travels”.

Aside from finding that to be a morally deficient stance, if the Luv Guv was on state time (Feb 13 was a Wed), or if his aids spent a second covering for him, or if the Lt. Gov had to step in during his absences for any reason, or if aids or body guards traveled with him, or if he used office resources to set up travel plans, then yes, he used public funds.

I don’t really care if you find it “morally deficient.” I don’t think prostitution or drug use should be illegal. That being said, the rest of that paragraph makes valid points.

>> I don’t really care…

Goes without say’n.

fwiw, it has been reported Spitzer signed up two rooms on the 13th under a false name – one for him one for the whore – and with state security forces in tow.

Happy F’n St. Valentine’s Day, Silda!