Posted on 03/13/2008 6:11:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
Had New York Governor Eliot Spitzer reached out for the Gideon Bible in his fancy Washington, D.C., hotel room instead of, allegedly, a high-priced prostitute, he might have been forewarned of the dangers in such liaisons.
Such as: "A prostitute is a deep pit; an adulterous woman is treacherous. She hides and waits like a robber, looking for another victim who will be unfaithful to his wife." (Proverbs 23:27-28) And: "For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell." (Proverbs 5:3-5)
But who speaks of such things today, a day in which, as C.S. Lewis wrote, "We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst."
Today's "morality" knows none of this. It is best summed up in what Spitzer's brother, Daniel Spitzer, a neurosurgeon, told The Wall Street Journal: "If men never succumbed to the attractions of women, then the human species would have died out a long time ago." Even the most ardent secularist would likely not defend prostitution as the best method of perpetuating the human race, when marriage and fidelity seem to have done a pretty fair job of achieving that objective over several millennia.
If Spitzer is guilty of what has been alleged, he not only broke the laws of man and of God, but also violated a public trust and dishonored his oath of office. In his brief statement, he alluded to failing to live up to a standard he set for himself. But if right and wrong are to be determined solely by an individual's standards for himself - or herself - then the prostitute, who clearly has a much lower standard, would be no more guilty of lawbreaking and immoral behavior than Spitzer. This attitude is reflected at the end of the Book of Judges: "in those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25)
Many commentators are indicting Spitzer mostly for hypocrisy, but aren't we the real hypocrites? We watch and tolerate the most salacious television programs; we produce soft pornography to sell in grocery stores, displaying it on checkout line shelves, we post hardcore porn on the Internet; we feature on magazine covers women who have had babies with sperm donors they call boyfriends, but do not marry them; girls are sexualized at ever-younger ages; we equate shacking up with marriage as equal moral choices and then express shock when members of both political parties behave in ways that emulate what they see the rest of us tacitly approving.
Another thing: shouldn't there be a law against the injured wife appearing with her husband at these media events? She should be telling him, "Look, buster, you have humiliated yourself, you are not humiliating me. Go out there and deal with it on your own."
Did Spitzer think nothing of his wife while allegedly having sex with prostitutes? Did the faces of his three daughters never come to mind? How would he like it if his daughters were prostitutes? The prostitutes are someone's daughters. Did he not think their parents' hearts broke when they learned their daughters were selling their bodies for cash, bodies they used to cradle in their arms?
Culture once produced gobs of shame for people who engaged in such activities, but no more. Now the question becomes whether such laws are outmoded and if it should be considered a private matter between Spitzer and his family. This is the legacy of the Bill Clinton years. "It was only sex," cried Clinton's defenders of his tryst with Monica Lewinsky. It was no one else's business, except his family. Each time such behavior is excused, we ensure we will get more of it.
There's another verse in that hotel Bible that might have served as a warning to Spitzer and anyone else who might think of behaving in a similar fashion: "be sure your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23)
Oh, let's don't pretend he didn't know about the dangers.
It might have been part of the reason for the escapade, or might not, but he can't have been unaware.
Grand Slam, Cal!
i don’t think he’s stupid. I vote for sociopath.
People that behave this way know the consequences, and I believe are secretly HOPING for discovery.
It’s as much an “addiction” as anything else; a psychological flaw in someone’s psyche, if you will.
And this couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, LOL!
I keep picturing his daughters. I really feel sorry for them. Money can’t smooth this over.
And the wife? Hope she’s got a prescription of Thorazine on hand. And she’s as much of an enabler as the wife of any drunk or druggie out there. She’s not stupid, she’s a lawyer fer Pete’s Sake; she liked the lifestyle and she liked the cash and the cache of being his wife.
I was married to a bad man once; it was as much my fault as his that things went the way they did. A flaw in my own psyche if you will, for putting up with it as long as I did.
If she’s smart and strong enough, a clean break with a big payoff would do her a world of good. :)
Probably all three, but the self-destructiveness really seems to jump out. He’s been steam-rollering powerful people for years while engaging is behavior which is risky on many levels. It was only a matter of time before it caught up with him. Hubris, I guess.
Just heard “House of the Rising Sun” on the radio. At least back then the author recognized he was living in sin and misery.
He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew the dangers, to himself, his wife and children. He chose to ignore those dangers, apparently many times. He actively pursued, and manipulated his schedule and finances to satisfy, his lusts and self gratification. Hypocrisy doesn’t even begin to describe his actions. In politics, hypocrisy is expected. In behavior of this sort, from a man who crusaded against such things is absolutely stunning......
LET”S See if the EX Governor will NOW blow the whistle on all of the people he had to work with to get to the hotel in Washington. I think there is a lot of evidence he could hand over to help really enforce these laws that he so vigorously enforced when he was Guv.
“...Spitzer’s brother, Daniel Spitzer, a neurosurgeon, told The Wall Street Journal: “If men never succumbed to the attractions of women, then the human species would have died out a long time ago.”
Sounds like the Spitzer brothers had a very poor moral upbringing. Wonder if their father taught them so poorly by his example, as happened with the Kennedy brothers.
If Daniel is married, I hope his wife is checking their bank records...if she even cares what he is up to.
Or as some of the old-timers used to say, “book-smart, but not a lick of common sense.” He had plenty of “book smarts” but lacked the common sense to understand, let alone know, that what he was doing would eventually be his undoing.
At first, I felt sorry for his wife, but when she “stood by her man,” I lost all sympathy for her. If you’re willing to “stand by” sleaze, you’re going to get sleazed.
And his honey is a real winner too--Jersey-accented, bad-boob-jobbed, someone-else's-yacht-riding, gum-cracking, pucker-n-pout-posing mall girl with hooker hands.
Claaaaasy pair.
"Just once, I'd like to see a politician caught with his pants down (so to speak) not trot out his wronged wife to stand beside him as he issues his mea culpa... I guess the point of the exercise is to show voters that Spitzer is not such a creep that his wife won't stand by him. Problem is, by dragging his wife before the public, Client-9 shows himself to be an even bigger creep." -Debra Saunders
"Many in the media refer to Eliot Spitzer as some moral hero who fell from grace. Spitzer was never a moral hero. He was an unscrupulous prosecutor who threw his power around to ruin people, even when he didn't have any case with which to convict them of anything." -Thomas Sowell
What a stupid statement.
Welcome to capitalism, Cal. Adam Smith's invisible hand at work.
You don't have to like everything, I don't have to like everything, but the hallmark of a free society is that people have the right to make choices we hate. And the free market will provide those choices for them.
There is no other option.
Mrs. Spitzer is no better (a parent or) a person than Lizard-man Spitzer.
By her actions, she cares NOTHING for her daughters or for their honor and direction. In fact, by making the overt statement of going out there, TWICE, (rather than even staying privately neutral for now,) to stand by Mr. Sleaze, she is pro-ACTIVEly slapping her daughters.
This woman..."mother"...could feed and water her daughters on her own--starting yesterday--for the rest of their upbringings. But instead, "mommy" has chosen to whack them upside the head before blindly waving to them over her shoulder as she runs to catch the Dirth Money Express.
What is even more disgusting than what Spitzer did, is that he is using his wife again to try and soften the effect of the dirty deeds he committed. He used his wife all these years to create a fraud - making it seem he had a wonderful, normal, healthy marriage that no one would question and that would be adventageous to his career. He lived two lives, and the one he wanted people to see - he created with his wife and family. It was a front to hide the real life/sickness/perversions of this man. Now he is using his wife again to elicit a sense of forgiveness - if she appears to forgive him, then others should, that is his reasoning. It is disgusting and she is probably so torn up that she cannot see that yet. But, in time, she will. We can condem him, but give Mrs. Spitzer sympathy during this time.
This is not like Hillary and Bill (as some people have compared Mrs. Spitzer now to Hillary's standing by her man stance) - because Hillary had a keen awareness for years of her husband's philanderings, and obviously facilitated his behavior, or considered remaining at his side a necessity for her own goals. Whatever, she had no real shock when his escapade with Monica became public. It was just another in a long line of unfaithful acts that she never really objected to, but only continually covered-up for him. Mrs. Spitzer's situation, it appears from what we know, is totally different. I am sure she is trying to figure out what is most important for her children and her...and initially is just doing what is/was routine and familiar. Stepping out into the unknown is frightening, and takes a bit of preparation, professional help, strength, and healing of the heart.
I think it is a power thing. I think they get so much power and start to feel invincible. They begin to feel like the priveleged class who don’t have to follow the rules, only the peasants need to follow the law or be punished.
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