I am appalled by the Spitzer thread a ways down this board.

[jsmirman]

Come on folks, please. You can't be the law and order governor and get caught having a longstanding practice of paying prostitutes for sex. You sure as hell can't be involved in transporting women across state lines for purposes related to prostitution.

This is not pearl clutching, and this is not ankle grabbing - in another world, or another time, perhaps we're better off with legal prostitution. I'm not sure if that would be a better thing or a worse thing.

But he was our freaking governor. You can't hold that office and show brazen, continuous, repeated disregard for the law.

I don't doubt that the percentage of New Yorkers in favor of his resignation was very high. I was one of them. It was over. He was cooked. Any attempt to disregard the political reality would just lead to further damage. Do you think it's a good thing, for ANYONE, that Sanford is hanging on like a bloody lunatic? Please be serious.

Spitzer is an enigma - probably a troubled man with certain motives that were good and valuable. He's always been a man of contradictions, though - the man's career was bankrolled by his father's rapacious real estate practices, and this guy was supposed to be the people's champion of New York? I was involved on the tenant side of a rough real estate battle in New York City, and let me tell you, we had hopes for what Spitzer might intend, but we were sure as hell wary.

My brother-in-law went to high school with Spitzer. He says that the guy brought a briefcase to class every day for four years. Relevance? The guy is a weird cat. A smart guy, a very able prosecutor, and a guy with some demons.

Really though, I made this post because of dem. underground. This place is in serious trouble. You want to turn on me for this sort of post? You want to turn on someone who has sacrificed a significant portion of his life for the right part of the Democratic Party and for social justice? Someone who is an actual New Yorker, an actual former constituent of Spitzer's, and someone who just might know a thing or two about Spitzer and how he was perceived by those of us in New York CIty? Keeping in mind that if you are Spitzer and you've lost NYC, you have for damn sure lost the state.

I could list more reasons that I'm on the side of being educated, and being sane, and telling the truth, and being fair, and not insulting our collective intelligence and all those things we fought so hard for over eight years - and now we're indulging in this crap?

Sure you can point out why certain interests would have wanted to see him fall, but when you're walking into political fire, do we really think that holding a house account with an illegal prostitution ring isn't reckless and irresponsible, and doesn't ultimately show selfish disregard for the causes you claim to champion?

There is way too much rationalization around here these days. And I understand why. We're under siege in almost every way. The opposition is terrifically dishonest and will play this game with no guilt whatsoever about playing dirty and immorally.

But we have to own our shit. I didn't go into living rooms many hundreds of miles away from my home so that I could look people in the eye and tell them that we could promise a new way of politics, knowing that we were going to pull the same bullshit that the other side pulls, crying bloody murder when one of our own is shown to be deeply flawed, in essence, pretending we don't notice the empty cup of hemlock that has tumbled from the "victim's" hand.

There's so much more to say, but it's late, or it's early, and I've yet to go to sleep. But I had to post, because I'se regusted.

I'm embarrassed by stuff like this on this site. What's the big announcement? That politics is a rough business and that when Spitzer opened his veins, his enemies were more than happy to help him bleed out?

If we don't own our shit, then we're full of it.