This should be interesting: our governor, former prosecutor Eliot Spitzer, has been identified as a client of a high-end prostitution ring.
The New York Times reports the news on its website:
ALBANY – Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.
The wiretap recording, made during an investigation of a prostitution ring called Emperors Club VIP, captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.
The governor learned that he had been implicated in the prostitution probe when a federal official contacted his staff last Friday, according to the person briefed on the case.
The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement. He canceled his public events today and scheduled an announcement for this afternoon after inquiries from the Times.
The governor’s aides appeared shaken, and one of them began to weep as they waited for him to make his statement at his Manhattan office. Mr. Spitzer was seen leaving his Fifth Avenue apartment just before 3 p.m. with his wife of 21 years, Silda, heading to the news conference.
“Emperor’s Club”: priceless. Gee, who would ever have imagined that a smart, powerful politician could show such bad judgment as to let his goatish carnal appetites wreck his career? I could bore you with a Darwinian exegesis about dominant male primates, but it would spoil the fun. Read the breaking story here.
15 Comments
Few things are more enjoyable than seeing a sanctimonious prig — whether it is Larry Craig, David Vitter, Jimmy Swaggart, or Eliot Spitzer — get caught with, uh, his hand in the cookie jar. Schadenfreude is so much fun.
Also it looks like his lady friend had to go from New York to Washington DC — a violation of the Mann Act — what a fool. Eliot Spitzer is the Billy Buckner of New York State politics.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0310082spitzer1.html
Gee, Pete, I don’t know if that’s really fair. Bill Buckner was a great player and longtime fan favorite who made a simple fielding error, whereas in Eliot Spitzer we have a self-righteous, philandering hypocrite.
Well, that’s all true. Maybe the Joe Isuzu of New York politics.
I’m finding it quite difficult to muster any symptathy for Spitzer — but every picture of his wife that I’ve seen in the past couple days produces a lump in my throat. I watched from afar as this bully built his reputation — and it seemed obvious from my vantage point that he was all about accumulating power rather than promoting justice. He didn’t care who he hurt as he played to the cameras. Why New Yorkers didn’t see straight through him from day one is a mystery to me.
Hi Bob,
I’ve never liked Spitzer; I’m always leery of these swaggering, holier-than-thou, crusading blowhards (Rudy had some liabilities in this department also, I’ll admit). And I feel terribly sorry for his wife, who has always seemed to me to be such a decent, intelligent, attractive woman. This brutal public humiliation must be very painful for her.
What I can’t figure out is what you get for $5500. As Keith Olbermann said: for that kind of money, I hope she at least voted for the guy.
What was the headline on the Post today?
The headline was “Ho, No!”
Not their best ever.
At least they could have done “love gov spurns love glove”
Their best ever: “headless body in topless bar”
“Come-uppance!” might have worked…
From today’s Borowitz Report:
In a parting shot, Gov. Spitzer lashed out at the New York Post for serving up “an embarrassingly unimaginative headline” the morning after the sex scandal broke.
“I gave you a juicy story like this, and the best you could come up with was ‘Ho, No’?” the governor said.
How about “Harlot’s Web”?
I missed my true calling…
That Borowitz Report had not escaped my attention either, as a glance at my front page will confirm…
I’m just waiting for his lady friend to appear on Howard Stern.