you know what would be cool? a context.

Have you turned on a television today? Spitzer.

I only watch cartoons and porno.

Perspective: Spitzer hired hookers. FIVE GRAND AN HOUR HOOKERS. Gotta love the free market. You know there's talent behind that rate. OTOH Larry Craig tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up anonymous guys in an airport boys' room.

Five grand an hour hookers... in an "of course I would never do that myself" kind of way, I can respect their clients and I certainly respect them. It's only that he's married that makes me think him a louse.

But from Airport Larry (also married) we have the uncleaned toilets, used TP rolls and mystery-moistened paper towels lying wadded on the floor.

Ick. What a loser.

3: Hence the name, right?

Among them many reasons why I can't cheat is the price tag - at five grand a pop I can't afford it. Spitz was a regular, as a few of the prostitutes knew he was the Gov, so the overall price tag seems pretty asstronomical. Who's got that kind of bread to burn on the sly? Besides Spitz and Clients 1-8, that is.

I wish I did...mmmmm, expensive

For $5500/hr, they sure as hell better be the ones to take the Grimace suit to the dry cleaners.

7: You owe me a new keyboard.

Quaint?

The WSJ's article sheds some light on one of the important ways that we are gradually becoming a police state out to control our money and behavior, in an effort originally intended to focus on the vast illegal underground economy created by outlawing drugs . Spitzer was snagged simply because the prostitution ring wasn't declaring its revenues and paying taxes:

"The account of Client-9's appointment is part of a larger case that broke last week when federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged four people with organizing and managing an international prostitution ring, known as the Emperors Club VIP.

"According to the complaint and the sworn statement, the Emperors Club arranged connections between wealthy male clients and more than 50 prostitutes in locations from New York and Washington to Paris and London. ...

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation's inquiry began in October 2007, when it was triggered at least in part by a bank that filed "suspicious activity" reports on the New York governor with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, according to a federal law-enforcement official and a lawyer involved in the matter. Suspicious activity reports are filed with the Internal Revenue Service when banks detect something unusual either through their tellers or software, including transfers of large amounts of cash, unknown counterparties, or the use of known tax havens and money-laundering centers.

"The bank was concerned that Mr. Spitzer might have been engaged in "structuring," a money-laundering technique in which transactions are kept beneath $10,000 to avoid federal reporting rules, the official said. There has been a massive federal crackdown on money laundering in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and banks have been extremely diligent in filing such reports. Those reports often include details of transactions done by innocent people.

"The suspicious transactions by Mr. Spitzer are a major part of the investigation, the federal official said, confirming a report by ABC News. It isn't clear if federal investigators were engaged in a crackdown on the prostitution ring when Mr. Spitzer entered their sights as an alleged client of the ring, or whether Mr. Spitzer's transactions helped trigger a probe of the prostitution operation.

"Prosecutors handling the case also relied on information from a prostitute who worked for the ring, numerous telephone calls, text messages and emails that were intercepted through court-authorized wiretaps and search warrants, and an undercover agent who posed as a potential client, according to the FBI agent's affidavit."

This system simply continues to snowball. Ironies abound when a "law and order" guy like Spitzer is caught up in it, but let's not fail to notice the bigger issues.

Actually, rather than this being something that just "happened" to catch Spitzer, Glenn Greenwald points to the apparent political motivations of this "quite unusual, massive federal law enforcement effort directed at a small prostitution ring that just so happens to have had Democratic New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer as a client".

Thus we also see a glimpse of how insiders use the law - to benefit themselves and to eliminate competitors.

Yeah, Jane Hamsher has a similar post. I've no doubt this was a rat-fucking, like the one the Bush Administration pulled on Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama. However, I think this is less about the general behavior of "insiders" and more about the specific behavior of this administration. I don't know of any (modern) equivalent done by the Democratic Party.

Though, I do find TPM's theory plausible: the feds thought they had found evidence of Spitzer trying to hide bribes, and happened across the prostitution involvement instead.

12: I thought bribes were where you got paid by someone else.

Like the Clenis, Spitzer was Stupid.
bushturd operatives never sleep.

Now we know why lawyers charge such high hourly rates. It would demean their professional standing to be cheaper than that other kind of whore.

Spitzer commits the very act (illegal) that he used to prosecute other people for and somehow it's the Bush administration's fault? If the Bushites were framing the Gov I could empathize; even if they were targeting him (I'd need more info) the stupid putz served them a fat one. Spitzer didn't selectively enforce the anti-prostitution statutes when he had the chance, one shouldn't expect leniency in this case.

Oh, I hold no brief for Spitzer. He got caught dead to rights, it is what it is and he's got nobody to blame but Little Spitzer. But federal prosecution of prostitution cases is practically unheard of, absent smuggling people from other countries. I totally agree he served them a fat one. I suspect they were targeting him for whatever they could dig up and stumbled onto this.

The politicization of the Justice Department over the past seven years, though, is a pretty difficult thing to deny.

Also, I do take some pleasure in seeing someone who targeted prostitution rings as a prosecutor get popped for soliciting, just like I do when the family values warriors get caught trolling for anonymous gay sex. Watching hypocrites get hoisted by their own petards is a bipartisan pleasure.

Still, I'm convinced that the massive expansion in surveillance powers the current administration claims is as much or more about Nixonian targeting of political opponents as it is about anything related to national security. I mean, it's an awful lot of the same people as last time.

Anyhow, the most interesting part of this to me is that the guy who is likely to be governor of New York in a few days is blind. Has there been a totally blind or deaf governor in the US before?

So CNN is reporting that records indicate Spitzer may have spent as much as $80,000 on prostitutes. Eighty thousand dollars! Maybe that's just a reflection of the comparative net worths of the governor and myself, but holy moly.

Some might say Bush is diplomatically blind and Clinton seemed morally tone deaf........

"may have spent as much as $80,000"

at $5500 per, that's 4 BJ's, three nookies, a couple of handies in the bath and six conversations about how clever and tough he was...

As for taking his wife to the press conference, Biiiiig Stoopid. Fucking politicians; they're all the smartest guys in the room 'til the truth comes out.

#4: Spitzer hired hookers. FIVE GRAND AN HOUR HOOKERS. Gotta love the free market. You know there's talent behind that rate. OTOH Larry Craig tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up anonymous guys in an airport boys' room.

See, Republicans really are the more fiscally prudent party.

wtf do you get for $5k an hour?

18: I believe he's legally blind, not totally blind. Still, I've never even heard of a legally blind governor.

Bumper sticker idea: "Spitzer? I don't even know her!"*

*Alternate: "Spitzer swallow?"