And, really, are you blaming Bush for this as well?

Well, if the Washington Monthly post detailing the selective prosecution of Democrats doesn’t convince you, Married Tom, maybe this post describing how Spitzer was a key impediment to Bush channeling $200 billion of the country’s money to the subprime mortgage pushers might carry more weight. (h/t Wolfrum at Shakesville)

Personally, I don’t give a damn whose hands Spitzer allowed into his pants, as long as he was working to keep greedheads’ hands out of the public’s trousers. YMMV.

If, as most of us expect, and I believe a number of us hope, Mr. Spitzer resigns, his lieutenant governor, a man who appears to have overcome a significant disability, will take on the job and have an opportunity to show us what he can do. I wish him and the people of New York all the best.

“Tragic, media-fed cultural inability to distinguish private matters from public ones”? And, really, are you blaming Bush for this as well?

The Clinton scandal “generated by the Republicans”?

Am I missing something here? Could not both Spitzer and Clinton chosen to keep it in their pants. Poor decision-making on their behalf is what led to this, not the media or the Republicans.

This issue seems pretty simple. Cheating on your spouse within marriage is wrong. When you do so as a public figure, you do so with increased peril as the likelihood of getting caught and having it become a public debacle exists (unlike with your garden variety cheating husbands).

Blaming the press or others for doing their job seems to overlook the fact that the issue could have been easily avoided by doing the right thing in the first place.

I guess this is a question of separating the personal and the political (is there a separation?). Even though I believe the way someone lives their life personally has a good deal to do with what they do professionally, a certain level of inconsistency is given as admissible since so few people seem to come close to really living the way they talk, especially politicians. Because of this we often let infidelities or ties or certain business or organization, etc, etc, slide when it comes to politicians. Sometimes, especially faced with “lesser or two evils” choices, we try to choose someone who will lead outwardly as much as possible based on their front, despite their private life. However, I suppose we have decide how much we’re willing to put up with out of politicians with policies we like.

What Hugo says is true about how young people look up to those in power to see how it is acceptable to act. I became a teenager as the Clinton administration ended, and the scandal generated by the Republicans affected my generation’s sexual politics. Since I don’t believe that prostitution is a victimless crime, that it hurts everyone, just like pornography, sending out the message that it is okay to purchase women’s bodies for sex is not progressive. How can we hope to have more progressive citizens on specific issues when their minds are still stuck in patriarchal notions of women as property?

It’s also a bad example for young feminist men, who probably have so few good role models, to see things are business-as-usual with men in power despite someone having a strong record on women’s issues. What good is legislation on women’s issues if the people in the society don’t respect women on a personal level?

I’ve got an anthropology midterm Wednesday and I’ve said too much…

As for the incident at hand, I can’t see why anyone other than Spitzer’s family should give a damn about it. I think the notion that this incident “vitiates” his feminist principles is absurd, though I’m sure there will be many heated claims to the contrary. If there’s been a coherent reconciliation of the principle of women’s sexual empowerment with anti-prostitution strictures, I haven’t seen it. (Emphasis on the word, “coherent”.)

I will say this, though: I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were a connection between the Bush administration’s criminal “anti-terrorist” domestic wiretapping and Congressional Democrats’ puppet-like behavior at crucial junctions over the past couple of years. Actually, on second thought, it would be more accurate to say that I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a connection between those two things.

The most destructively sexist man I’ve ever met was also one of the most vocally progressive, egalitarian ones. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I’m quite sure it’s not particular to (pro-)feminist men, though. There are hypocrites everywhere. If current events are any guide, they are far more plentiful in conservative circles than progressive ones. How many anti-gay conservative leaders have been outed in one way or another lately? I can’t keep track any more.