Consumerist
NY Governor and former star Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, has resigned today after his predilection for pricey whores caught up with him.
Since publicly announcing his involvement with a prostitution ring, calls for Spitzer to resign had been growing until it seemed very unlikely that he could avoid impeachment, says the New York Times:
"I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me," he said. "To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize."Things weren't looking good for Eliot, or as he liked the whores to call him, "George Fox.""Over the course of my public life, I have insisted — I believe correctly — that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct," he added. "I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor."
"An impeachment proceeding would force Democrats to either abandon him or defend him," said one leading Democrat. "They would abandon him."Spitzer was caught via wiretap making plans to send a whore to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C.. Whoops.
Spitzer Resigns, Citing Personal Failings [NYT]
(Photo:Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)
Comments
legalize prostitution. just imagine the tax revenue on that.
like drugs, people will do this anyway. might as well make it safe and take some tax revenue on it.
@katylostherart: Drugs too.
Dont you just LOVE it when a public figure's hipocrisy comes to light?!
Especially this guy! Who was hard on crime (that he apparrently was guilty of doing).
The whole draconian enforcement "quality of life" crimes are just messed up IMO.... Like "outstretch" ..taking up more than one space on the subway. OFF TO JAIL WITH YOU!
@forgottenpassword: Oh, he was "hard on crime" all right.
Of course, Crime was a spicy $1k/hr call girl. But still!
What if his predilection had been for mid-range, moderately priced whores?
Why in the world would he choose his alias to be the name of someone he knows? Maybe he had to choose a name on the spur of the moment, and it was like on a sitcom where the easily-confused character looks up, sees a portrait of Abe Lincoln, and says "Uuuhhh, Abraham Lincoln. Yeah! Abe Lincoln is my neame! Whew, doged THAT bullet!"
@DrGirlfriend: What if he saw the main human character from E.T., then a spitting woman?
Elliot Spits-her. D'OH!
Beyond the prostitution, Spitzer's use of the "George Fox" alias shows a lack of character. George Fox was his friend for two decades and election campaign supporter. But now, Spitzer turns around and uses his friend? Shameless.
@DrGirlfriend: Pea.....tear.....Griffin.....Aw crap.
Man is he ugly...
If he only he were like JFK or Clinton, he wouldn't need to spend money on whores, he'd find them anywhere...
@Morton Fox: Thank god he didn't use Morton Fox!
The only (only!) reason why Republican pols aren't snared by $2,000 prostitutes is that, for their "dates", a Schwinn bicycle with a banana seat is the most expensive trinket asked for.
@Trai_Dep: Well done. Excellent use of a completely non-political topic to bash a group of people. I seem to recall a prominent Democrat that had a taste for chubby interns.
@Trai_Dep: no, it's because most republican politicians take their "dates" to the men's room rather than anywhere requiring a receipt for a by-the-hour stay.
couldn't happen to a nicer guy !!!!!
Yet more proof that any politician determined to be the morality police is doing something illegal or something he claims is immoral in his private life. What is WITH these arrogant bastards who want to regulate the rest of us while privately indulging in forbidden fruit?
@forgottenpassword: Of course the crimes he was tough on harmed people whereas what he is being accused of is pretty much a victimless crime. He has problems, yes, and he is a bit of a hypocrite but it should be noted that he was tough on people who actually harmed other people. His crimes here are pretty much malum prohibitum as opposed to malum in se.
indeed, just legalize prostitution already. pay taxes brothels!!!
IMHO, married men who do this kind of thing need to answer to their wives, not anyone else.
for every politician that gets caught like spitzer, there's 1,000 others who don't. now the hypocrites come out yell at the hypocrite.
a former attorney general getting busted for being a john ... now THAT'S IRONY.
Spitzer vowed to bring the whole prostitution industry to it's knees... One prostitute at a time... :)
@Eyebrows McGee: What was he trying to regulate for the rest of us? Most of what he is known for is coming down hard on wall street crooks bilking pensions and the common person. Please, be specific in your comments. He took down people doing real harm whereas his crime is one of stupidity.
Legal prostitution is a great idea. Contrary to what most folks think, it will actually protect the whores from abuse. Now when they are raped they will actually have the right to go to the police and report it. Plus, they will be rid of mischevious pimps.
But what happened here... Well, he still was a damn hypocrite!
@LordieLordie: @m4ximusprim3: lol
@Angryrider: FYI, JFK was paying for it, too.
here's the tough question: where does a public servant get $4000 to blow on hookers? not even hookers & blow...just hookers.
& i agree, using your best friends' name as an alias...probably not one of the wisest decisions a prominent political figure could make.
"You Can't Fire Me, I Quit!"
A line from one of my favorite garage bands of all time: Blotto!
@Javert: He oversaw many prostitution investigations at Atty. Gen. and bragged about them in public, so he is very much the hypocrite on this issue.
@mac-phisto: His personal wealth was pretty significant before getting into politics. (Whose isn't these days?)
@LordieLordie: Stealing Jay Leno jokes? tsk, tsk
This is representative of NY State: No matter what you pay, in the end you just get screwed.
Thanks Democrats! If Democrat policies worked, NY would have an amazing thriving economy. Instead we end up with some of the worst cities and highest taxes.
@Canerican:
Careful there fella, a lot of people on this blog don't care for that sort of talk.
@DrGirlfriend: If he had a predeliction for moderately price whores, he wouldn't have gotten caught making giant bank transfers.
@The Cooler: Seriously, I worked hard to come up with my joke. He just stole it from "the chin".
Speaking of jokes, for two days I haven't been able to get "Spitzer? Nearly killed 'er!" out of my head. Props to whoever said that in the first thread.
@LordieLordie: That is by far the best comment I've seen on the situation /anywhere/.
Hey, this is The Consumerist. What's the angle? Didn't they recorded his call to insure good service and for training purposes? Did he haggle to get a good price? She didn't use the 4 square to jack the price, but keep the monthly payments low, did she? Did he get good "Customer Service"? Well, at least she wasn't too pretty to fly Southwest. If it was Verizon Club VIP, they would have burned his pants down. We should all be taking this VERY seriously.
This is just not something I give two sh!ts about! We have much bigger issues facing this country than who is getting his willie;) wet by whom. That is an issue for his wife, (soon to be ex I would think/hope). Unless it was taxpayer financed who cares?!
@IrisMR: "Legal prostitution is a great idea."
I dunno. I'm generally in favor of legalizing "immoral" but victimless "crimes," but such an ENORMOUS majority of prostitution is related to drug addiction that I'm not sure legalizing it would help very much at all. It'd put the very small percentage of prostitutes who do it as a business in a much safer position, but the ones turning $20 tricks for crack money on dark corners on drug row probably wouldn't be helped or protected at all by legalization.
(And from what I've read about Nevada, at a lot of those brothels, the owners are sometimes nearly as bad as the pimps. Typically not with physical abuse, but sometimes with sexual abuse and sometimes with "rules" that border on slavery.)
(And prostitutes can already go after rapists -- they just tend to face rude and disbelieving officials when they try to because of the stigma. I doubt that would automatically change merely because prostitution was legal.)
@Javert: nah, he busted a bunch of hookers too. He's been full of shit the entire time and I wouldn't be surprised if they found he had a few other vices.
@Morton Fox: Maybe his friend was in the ''coup'' on this one. If he knew all about, and then just played along, so he does not look like helping to ''sin''...
Politics is not a noble profession. You have to be a backstabbing, lying thief to get into high office. I would bet if you told a presidential candidate they would win if only they would push a button that would kill everybody in some third world country, they would do it with no hesitation.
Sorry about the raving, but election times just piss me off.
@mac-phisto: Not only $4,300 for a night's entertainment, he was a regular. Client 9, which means that if the 8 people above him were unable to fufill their duties, he would have been Emperor, or some such.
A salary of $179,000 is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a government employee, but the money does raise more (and more interesting questions) than does the pricey whores.
I couldn't care less about the prostitution, but I'm very happy to see him facing potential federal charges for smurfing. This guy was always a proponant of punishing people for improperly reported financial transactions. Let him pay the price he asked of everyone else.
today, I just don't know to believe political people, athletes, corporate shit faces or anyone it seems just every is double faced and full of themselves or what. I swear it is a crazy world we live in.
why is the government prosecuting him though? this is a fine at best. the media has thrown it into everyone's faces though. why?
because 3 days ago, it was reported that the war in iraq is going to cost us $12 billion per month. that's roughly $4000 a second.
imagine how many whores you could have had by the time you finished reading this comment.
He was just stimulating the "economy" !
Hubris....plain and simple.
This ish right here: The most highly ranked prostitutes cost $5,500 an hour, prosecutors said.
THE HELL! I'm in the wrong line of work!
I'm a Dem and I've already abandoned him.
If it was an intern, I would've waited it out, but call girls?!
@DeafChick: I thought that too at first, but then I decided that, for that amount of money, I don't even want to think about what these girls are probably expected to do.
@DrGirlfriend:
In college, I had a fraternity brother come back from summer vacation and first thing he said to me was, "There's a stripper in North Carolina who thinks you spent the weekend with her a few weeks back."
I said, "Wha-huh?" He said, "She seemed kind of crazy, and her being a stripper kind of confirmed it, so I didn't want to give her _my_ name." I just responded, "Great, so you get the fun and I get the crazy. Thanks a lot."
Spitzer is very wealthy.. Public servant pay not an issue
@cuiusquemodi:
This wouldn't be "news" if:
(a) he were a Republican ;
(b) he weren't so successfully prosecuting CEOs for white collar crimes
If you disagree, kindly remember the "Boys will be boys" attitude in the RightWing Media when a dozen Republicans in Washington were caught using prostitutes, or FAUX Noise's attempts to mislabel the Republican pedophile Mark Foley as a Democrat.
[www.pissedonpolitics.com]
[cache.wonkette.com]
@mac-phisto: He's insanely wealthy. Th