Generally speaking, gambling is i;;egal, the drinking age is 21 (although that has rarely stopped anyone), and, uh...Well, give it a bit more time, and we'll at least have the last one.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Generally speaking, gambling is i;;egal, the drinking age is 21 (although that has rarely stopped anyone), and, uh...Well, give it a bit more time, and we'll at least have the last one.

I feel so sorry for your businessmen. Imagine one being stuck in some luxury penthouse or hotel knowing that, for all his millions, he can't put a bet on the horses, buy a Havana cigar nor have some classy call girl (sorry 'escort') come over ! Must be a tough life for them , when all that's impossible No wonder they work such long hours away from home: there's nothing else to do

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:
What is it that Americans find so distasteful about this story?

Many Americans are rather uptight about life in general and sex in particular so it's going to be "F, all of the above" for them. For me, personally, I couldn't care less about his personal life. It is the illegality of his actions that are the problem. Honestly, I don't care if he uses prostitutes or not, whether it is illegal or not. I care about the hypocrisy and the potential use of public funds to engage in that hypocrisy.

quote:

Originally posted by Elexina:
I care about the hypocrisy and the potential use of public funds to engage in that hypocrisy.

Now that would resonate here , and in France.On the face of it you have a Governor and former prosecutor who has been covertly using prostitutes for at least 8 years yet who urges higher penalties for men who use prostitutes and talks of the need for high standards in, inter alia, public office.It could hardly be worse.

I forgot our great sex scandal (of sorts). It concerned Lord Archer, the novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer.A tabloid newspaper ran a story that he'd used a prostitute. That could not affect his public life here but he saw money in it. He , arrogant and repulsive bully that he was, sued the newspaper for libel. The paper called the prostitute. He called his wife, as to his character and the manifest unlikelihood of his so acting, and put in a diary to show he was elsewhere on the night in question. He won substantial damages.Later his secretary, in a fit of guilt, told the paper that the diary was false and she'd been told by him to make an entry which turned out to be the basis of his alibi. There was another, genuine diary, which she produced. He was then prosecuted for perjury in the libel action and was jailed.

His mistake was greed.Nobody cared about his using a prostitute, quite legally.However, the dishonesty was quite another matter.

I completely agree with you Elexina.

What bugs me is that the man used offshore accounts and passed the money to pay for his indiscretions through several of them. In other words he illegally laundered money apparently. (It was the reason he was looked into and caught)

The Governor has resigned effective Monday. Supposedly he has made no deals prosecutors.

If the man used his own money and paid for hookers and his family was “good” with it,, good for him. I really could care less about the man’s sex life.

I will pose a hypothetical situation...

Let's say the President of the United States has an affair with a college intern, lies about it in court, and encourages others to lie about it as well, should he have to resign his office & be impeached for any illegal actions he took???

quote:

I forgot our great sex scandal (of sorts). It concerned Lord Archer, the novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer.A tabloid newspaper ran a story that he'd used a prostitute. That could not affect his public life here but he saw money in it. He , arrogant and repulsive bully that he was, sued the newspaper for libel.

I agree with your description of him, Fred. But after his stint in prison, didn't he go on to write a series of books about those experiences and make more money fo himself? The guy landed on his feet again, because we idiots bought them.
I wondered at the time how such an intelligent and well respected scientist as Mary Archer could stay with such an arrogant b@*@*@*d.

quote:

Originally posted by Lighteningrodd:
I will pose a hypothetical situation...

Let's say the President of the United States has an affair with a college intern, lies about it in court, and encourages others to lie about it as well, should he have to resign his office & be impeached for any illegal actions he took???

No, because the only reason he has to lie about such an irrelevant matter is that there are people in America who are foolish enough to think that his sexual activity has any bearing at all on his abilities as, or fitness to be, a leader. Some countries take a different view.


Now, did the illegal acts stem from the same cause?If they did, they should be excused.

OK Fred, in my hypothetical(?) situation, you say, "Now, did the illegal acts stem from the same cause?If they did, they should be excused."

It is not unheard of for people in the U.S. to serve jail time for perjury. So why should the POTUS be any different???

Granted we are talking two different situations, but illegal acts took place in both instances. Yet one is forced to step down from his elected position & the other is not.

Another thought I have. Granted prostitution is illegal. Should this alone be just cause for Elliott Spitzer to step down??? Did he use public money to pay for the services provided??? Then yes, should be forced to step down. Did he use his own personal money to pay for these services. And if this is the situation, couldn't the case be made this is strictly his personal business and shouldn't be made to resign his position... Of course when he was State Attorney General, he did prosecute cases where prostitution was involved, but couldn't this be attributed to mere hyprocacy...

These are simply thoughts that come to mind, there is probaably a lot more complications to this than what we are aware of.

There are no laws against hypocrisy that I know of. Apparantly Spitzer used his own money, just moved it around to keep his wife from knowing about it. He stepped down on his own and we'll never know how much behind the scenes pressure was brought against him. He had enemies enough and the entrepreneur behind the Emperor's Club appears to have some FBI hackground, and the hooker involved has agreed to testify ???? What should be done against Clients 1 through 8 ?? The more you stir this stuff the fishier it smells. I think it's strictly a private and personal matter, between Eliot and his family.
He isn't the POTUS and not subject to be impeached by the US Senate.

quote:

Originally posted by Lighteningrodd:

Granted we are talking two different situations, but illegal acts took place in both instances. Yet one is forced to step down from his elected position & the other is not.

A hypothetical Bill Clinton would have been acquitted or perjury, just as the real one was

The Governor is unfit for office because , in his political past, he actively pursued men and businesses for an activity which he himself was guilty of, as I read it,and was demanding higher penalties for such men. I'd not want to have a police officer who was a thief being employed to catch and testify against suspected thieves,let alone putting himself forward for promotion on the grounds that he was against stealing and was a thoroughly honest man, nor have an Archbishop who was sworn to celibacy and who preached it,who was having sex with man, woman, child or beast.

So far as I'm aware a hypothetical Bill Clinton would not try to pursue people for committing adultery.

Frankly, illegal or not, I'd not be fussed to remove a Governor who did no more than have sex with a prostitute. The only factor that would concern me would be that which did for John Profumo, in Britain many years ago. He wasn't just having sex with a society call girl or courtesan, he was the Cabinet Minister for our national defence and the woman was sharing her favours with a Russian spy (strictly he was a military attache at the Soviet Embassy, but that amounts to the same).That alters the case somewhat If the Governor was provenly exposing himself to blackmail or organised crime and thereby compromising the good order and governance of the State, then patently he'd have to go, whether he had the sex once or a hundred times. Such is the nature of your law that someone in government who does what is a perfectly legal activity in Britain or mainland Europe, could in some circumstances, be blackmailed.

OK Fred, you draw out another point which is this. The fact Elliott Spitzer used prostitutes, did this in any way affect his job, performance & decision making as Governor??? You certainly provided a good example with John Profumo.

In my hypothetical POTUS, I will no linger use a hypothetical situation but rather go with the real President, Bill Clinton. When Bill Clinton was impeached, if the Senate would have properly done their job, they would and they should have voted to remove him from office. But there were enough Democrats in the Senate to prevent this from happening.

Now why do I feel this way...because the Monica scandal, his personal life, directly affected his job & his decision making. Here is an exerpt from Wikipedia explaining what I am referring to.

Distraction from Clinton Impeachment Vote/Monica Lewinsky Scandal

Some critics of the Clinton administration expressed concern over the timing of Operation Desert Fox. Hitchens, Christopher (1999). No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton. Verso, 21. ISBN 1-85984-736-6. The four-day bombing campaign occurred at the same time the U.S. House of Representatives was conducting the impeachment hearing of President Clinton. Clinton was impeached on December 19, the last day of the bombing campaign. A few months earlier, similar criticism was leveled during Operation Infinite Reach, wherein missile strikes were ordered against suspected terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan, on August 20. The missile strikes began three days after Clinton was called to testify before a grand jury during the Lewinsky scandal and his subsequent nationally televised address later that evening in which Clinton admitted having an inappropriate relationship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Desert_Fox

LR bases his conclusion on his opinion that Clinton should have been convicted. But if you use the facts (something LR is not wont to do at times), Clinton was not convicted. Since he wasn't convicted, and since a conviction was unlikely (not even all Republicans voted for conviction on both the counts), the entire situation was a huge waste of time and taxpayer money. If Clinton was distracted by the House hearings, then who is to blame?
--------
I always get a laugh out of the Right's use of Clinton's missile strikes. First, they were a case of the Tail Wagging the Dog, then, they were proof that he didn't do enough about terrorism. Now, they are proof that he was distracted while he should have been convicted and removed from office. LR, you guys get more mileage out of that than soap opera writers do with the Evil Twin plot.

Since you are so current on the facts, let me ask you this question DG...With what we know about Elliot Spitzer, do uou think he should have resigned as Governor of New York or should he have tried to hang in there??? As Governor, did using prostitutes compromise his position as Governor in any way??? Or was he railroaded out as pay back for past prosecutions as AG???

"this question..."

Funny. I see three questions (with 9 question marks). But I'll answer them anyway, as best I can.

"With what we know about Elliot Spitzer, do uou think he should have resigned as Governor of New York or should he have tried to hang in there???" - I don't necessarily know what you know about this, so all I can really say is basically what I said earlier. If he used his money, and violated no other laws except prostitution, It should be his decision whether to stay or not. His wife may have some input in his decision, but that is between them. (She may be glad that he is no longer in politics. JohnGalt's opinion to the contrary, some political wives do not like their husbands' jobs. Nixon's didn't.) If the voters in New York want him out, I assume that he is subject to recall. If enough legislators want him out, I assume he is subject to impeachment.

"As Governor, did using prostitutes compromise his position as Governor in any way???" - Not in my opinion, but then, I don't think prostitution should be a crime. But in the unlikely event he has state secrets (plans to invade Canada or Rhode Island, the secret recipe for New York Cheesecake, etc.), then it is possible he could be blackmailed or tricked into revealing those secrets, which would, then, present a problem.

"Or was he railroaded out as pay back for past prosecutions as AG???" - Railroading someone requires an engine and some fuel. Who did he cause problems for, and do they have enough juice to sway either public opinion or enough politicians to pressure him? It takes more than just money, but it takes a lot of that, and prostitution isn't a huge money-making enterprise (Tom Dewey's prosecution of Lucky Luciano notwithstanding. I don't know about New York state politics, but in Illinois, you'd need really big money to drive out a governor by bribing state legislators. That kind of money only comes from dope and state contracts. You may have something here, but at this point, it is just guessing.

If I had to pick one reason why he is dropping out, I'd say he had a choice between his job and his family. Politics is ugly at any level, and, generally speaking, wives really don't like it.

Fair enough DG.

And being an IL resident myself, having seen a few Governor's come & go, what I find is scandal will drive out a Governor. Of course big money is always involved.

As for Elliott Spitzer, from what I've come across, his wife thought he should wait before resigning. That maybe there was a chance the situation might blow over. Then he had what I may refer to as the "Richard Nixon Syndrome." That his own party wouldn't even stand behind him. If you want to talk about big money, let's remember he PO'd a lot of Wall Street when he was the state AG.

But all in all, he done the right thing. Considering his past record as a prosecutor & now getting caught doing what he had prosecuted against, how could he be effective in his position as New York's Governor...

quote:

Originally posted by Lighteningrodd:
I will pose a hypothetical situation...

Let's say the President of the United States has an affair with a college intern, lies about it in court, and encourages others to lie about it as well, should he have to resign his office & be impeached for any illegal actions he took???

No, because he didn’t launder any money illegally to have his extramarital affair.

Then again hypothetically speaking maybe he should have pulled a few bucks out of petty cash for a dry cleaner, or better yet another dress .

Ok, this is a few days old now. Time for a little levity :

From the David Letterman Show:

Top Ten Messages Left On Eliot Spitzer's Answering Machine

10. Hey, what's new?

9. It's Barack Obama. Remember our conversation about being my running mate? Nevermind.

8. Ralph Nader here, glad to hear I'm not the only politician who has to pay for it

7. I'm calling from the 'New York Post.' Would you rather be known as 'Disgraced Gov Perv' or 'Humiliated Whore Fiend'?

6. This is John McCain, if it makes you feel better, I once got caught having sex with Lincoln's wife

5. It's Dr. Phil, call me if you need any horse**** advice

4. This is Senator Larry Craig. Do you ever go through the Minneapolis airport?

3. It's Wolf Blitzer. Call me if you ever want a hot Spitzer-Blitzer three-way

2. Paris Hilton here. I would have done it for free

1. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thanks, I'm no longer America's creepiest governor

quote:

Originally posted by Lighteningrodd:
Let's say the President of the United States has an affair with a college intern, lies about it in court, and encourages others to lie about it as well, should he have to resign his office & be impeached for any illegal actions he took???

Not to nitpick, but you really can't be impeached if you've resigned.

Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both impeached. Johnson was impeached for replacing his Secretary of War without Senate approval in violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Clinton was impeached for lying under oath to Congress, charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Neither were convicted.

Richard Nixon resigned under the threat of impeachment. Spitzer did the same. I personally think both would have been removed from office.