Pure Prurient Interest

All right, all right, I'll jump on the Eliot Spitzer bandwagon, too. The obvious question, of course, is What could he possible be thinking? He's the crusading attorney general who busts up prostitution rings, not the stupid john who gets caught with his fingers in the cookie jar (so to speak). I'm not sure he can claim that he's on an undercover mission, either. He copped to the charges of buying prostitutes (or do you just rent them?) pretty quickly, so there was never a chance to question whether the charges are valid or not. But Jane Hamsher has some interesting questions about how and why the investigation was undertaken in the first place. ABC News and The New York Times have some of that back story. And even without that, there's no question that Eliot Spitzer has made a number of powerful enemies over the years. You don't prosecute Wall Street without somebody vowing to take you down. People are going to be watching for a misstep, an error that can make a whole career unravel.

Still, no matter what else might be going on around this investigation, there's no question that Spitzer was just stupid for thinking he could get away with anything like this. He's governor now, but his entire career up until his election was based on catching and prosecuting other people doing exactly this kind of thing! And doing it very successfully. Maybe that's part of it. Could he have figured that nobody out there was as clever as he was? Sure, he can catch others, but who's cunning enough to catch the master? Well, apparently, a number of people.

Is he going to resign? Right now it looks probable, though it's not a done deal yet. It's worth pointing out, though, that Louisiana Senator David Vitter remains in office, as does Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Perhaps Spitzer can likewise surf the wave of shame until it dies down and plays itself out.