Opposed Sortie
columnist: Random Outlier

Topic: Libertarianism
Eliot Spitzer: The Emperor's Club Dip

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by Random Outlier
(Libertarian)
Monday, March 10, 2008

Eliot Spitzer.  Love Client No. 9.  What a guy.

To dispose quickly of the customary disclaimer: Where, when, in whom, and for how much the imperial Spitzer dip occured is a matter of monumental unconcern to me and should be to everyone other than Mrs. Spitzer. 

As a narrow and discrete proposition, his alleged $4,300 hotel-room romp illustrates nothing much beyond what we all know. Moral turpitude can be  fun,  and  some guys can afford it on a large scale.

Of course if you want to bash him as as a geek who has to pay, it's okay by me. I just figure he's maladroit at procurement for paying so much.  

But nobody's perfect, so just  three  immediate concerns are apparent:

1. Was the arrangement structured as a strictly private affair, that is, were the privates brought into play without recourse to to the privy purse?

2.  Was Kristen -- as the media identify her -- properly tipped? I speak only in financial terms, of course. Was any added honorarium tendered from the governor's private resources rather than as, say, an offer of future government employment as one its few $4,300 per hour typists?  

3. Was the room equipped with a Red Phone against the possiblity of  a 3 a.m. call requiring immediate gubernatorial decision on the need of an undocumented Honduran in the Bronx  for an emergency driver' license? Hillary and Obama have made us all keenly aware of the wee-hours,  red-phone imperative. 

If the answers are proper (yes, yes, and yes from an unimpeachable libertarian perspective), then we must depart the accusatory field, No harm was done to the apparatus which Gov. Spitzer was hired to administer, so citizens of that state may resume debate on the important problems facing the Empire State. 

The compassionate among them might even show some understanding for back-stairs guv love.  Running New York must be stressful, and for all we know he returned to work refreshed and with renewed zeal for helping the poor insurance giants.

(You didn't know Governor Spitzer, the former "Sheriff of Wall Street" has found great political fortune in becoming the pimp of Wall Street in his quest to rescue the conglomeration of bond insurers who made a few miscalculations?)  

With the three yes answers we can safely leave the salacious fallout to Fox News and Nancy Grace who will get more giggling or aghast  program hours of the Room 879 caper than they did out of the poor girl who went astray in Aruba. (For which excess they should be publicly horse whipped, but that's another topic.)

It does occur to me that Bill O'Reilly may himself suffer a bit of stress in castigating the Democrat Spitzer, fearing it may awake memories of supposed romantic indescretions  of his own. 

Bill. if so perhaps spiritual counsel  would aid you,  and  I believe the Rev. Mr. Jimmy Swaggert could make himself available.  

Unfortunately we can't leave the subject entirely. It has prickly poliical dimensions, and I commend to Dr. Ron Paul a certain solution.

His first act in the new congressional session should be legislative proposals to define the crime of and create severe penalties for felonious hypocisy while in or seeking public office. 

Even if it passes, Governor Spitzer would be off the hook but for one thing.

It would be tempting to make the hypocrisy bust on grounds that he presented himself to the people as a man of rare moral rectitude, employing the finest speech writers to illustrate his universal virtue. But we expect and discount that sort of generalized claptrap from our leaders. We've become accustomed to their two faces, so such prattle is a simple misdemeanor, at worst.

If he'd stopped there, I'd personally vote to nolle prosse the whole thing. 

But in 2004 the good DA Eliot Spitzer happened to bust a couple of cathouse rings and appear before the gentlemen of the press for a victory lap, calling them degrading, unrightous, immoral, and probably several other things  to get the electorate's family-value glands flowing. 

Worse, he said, some of those dastardly slap-and-tickle favors sold for thousands of dollars, and, by golly, the FBI and IRS think some of the ladies and their pimps back there in 2004 might have cheated a wee bit on their 1040EZs. 

Oh well. Maybe I make too much of all this. Maybe we should just settle for kicking in to a fund to buy Mrs. Spitzer a horse whip. She could charge admission. 

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2008 Random Outlier, all rights reserved.
Published: Monday, March 10, 2008
Last modified: Monday, March 10, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of Random Outlier only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Random Outlier is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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