Brian Kirwin, over at Bearing Drift, asked earlier today, "what does it take for a Democrat to resign?"
He is, of course, referring to Eliot Spitzer. Everybody knows by now that "Eliot Ness" was Client 9 in an indictment and that he had a tryst with a high priced call girl in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.
I happen to agree with Brian that Spitzer should step down. This is not a private sin. Spitzer was a prosecutor whose whole career rested on having fought corruption. He prosecuted places like the Emperors Club and put their owners in jail.
Well, as it turns out, we know what it takes for a Democrat to resign. Getting caught, meeting with supporters and legal advisers, the threat of impeachment from state Republicans, and getting a transition team in place before announcing so that New York state isn't thrown into total chaos.
Eliot Spitzer is expected to step down according to FOX News.
The next question, though, is what does it take to get Republicans to resign? I believe we are still waiting for those wild and crazy family values guys, David Vitter and Larry Craig. Last time I checked, prostitution was as illegal in New Orleans as it is in New York. And surely soliciting a man in a public restroom in the Minneapolis-St Paul Airport constitutes lewd and indecent behavior, a misdeamor at least.
Personally, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for them to also do the right thing. I don't want to die of asphyxiation
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Great post! I couldn't agree with you more.
Resigning as part of a deal with prosecutors to avoid a felony conviction isn't exactly the badge of morality it would've been if he did it when the story broke.
Um, I'm still waiting for Larry Craig and David Vitter to resign.
People in glass houses Brian :)
I'm waiting for them to resign, too.
Fair enough!
Why have they not resigned?
Well, a lack of shame and an overload of ambition, to start.
Also, Vitter is from Louisana, which has for years enjoyed a certain-how shall we say-more relaxed moral perspective for its public servants.
But Sptizer's conduct puts him in a special situation.
1. His conduct potentially a federal offense as a violation of the Mann Act
2. He ran for office based in part on his efforts to crack prostitution rings in NY-at the same time he was frequenting one. It not only goes to integrity, it makes one wonder who he was carrying water for-NY or someone else...
3. Most important, I don't know that legislators can be removed from office once elected. Craig and Vitter can hang on until the next election and see if they can rehab their reps. Spitzer can be impeached, and in the face of the #1 and #2 would have been removed from office by the legislature.
Not that this paints Vitter and Craig as better than they are, but like all humans who have fought long to get to where they are, they are loath to give it up if there is any chance to stay in place.
Does that make it right? Nope...but that is how it is.
Well, Spitzer came to see things you're way, AIAW.
(Not that it really matters, by the way, but the Federal Gov't as a rule doesn't prosecute on soliciting a prostitute unless there are exceptional circumstances, and by "exceptional" I don't mean "someone's famous." I mean the prostitute is under the age of consent and/or participating against her will. Spitzer undoubtedly broke the law, but resignation isn't a tool for getting out of prosecution because he wasn't going to be prosecuted anyway).
I suspect that once they had him, they too were using it as a bargaining chip to get him to resign.
Vitter should resign, but he never will.
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