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A politician who has sex outside of marriage... Why is this news?

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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:10 PM
Original message
A politician who has sex outside of marriage... Why is this news?
I guess we want the French to have more laughs at us at our own expense
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MrCoffee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:11 PM
Response to Original message
1. Because he paid for it, and prostitution is still illegal in New York.
Regardless of what anyone *thinks* of the law, it does, in fact, exist.
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Xenotime Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #1
20. But now we are not focused on the issues and that is what pugs want
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Oleladylib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:11 PM
Response to Original message
2. Hey John McCain hooked up with Cindy while still married to 1st wife.
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BlueJac Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:13 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. Call a cop then
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ScreamingMeemie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:11 PM
Response to Original message
3. A hypocrite who prosecuted (with visible,audible disgust) prostitution
rings, gets caught doing that which he rails against. That's why it's news. That's why it makes me want to vomit.
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WinkyDink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:13 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Apparently, he liked some of the goods, and there went his career.
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Big Blue Marble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:14 PM
Response to Reply #6
11. Isn't it objectification to call women goods? n/t
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theboss Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:51 PM
Response to Reply #11
36. If I'm paying, it's a good
Just sayin'.
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Not the Only One Donating Member (617 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #3
13. Hypocrisy is too delicious for the media to ever pass up
They love gotchas like this, like with Foley and Craig being against gay rights and having sexual relations with other men/older teen boys.
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ScreamingMeemie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:20 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. And Foley, Craig and Spitzer are all the same class.
Worms. Actually worse than worms because at least worms perform a valuable and honorable service.
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Not the Only One Donating Member (617 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:28 PM
Response to Reply #16
29. Ha.
Good point.
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apnu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:53 PM
Response to Reply #16
40. At least spitzer was doint it with a woman of age.
Not much of a silver lining, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paterson">this is.
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ScreamingMeemie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #40
42. Exactly. Spitzer resigns in disgrace, as he should...and we move
on to something better.
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Zynx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:12 PM
Response to Original message
4. I suppose the French don't think anything about illegal activity?
I'm pretty sure they do.
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supernova Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:12 PM
Response to Original message
5. I don't know
other than the fact that I don't have to be married to Spitzer, nor any public individual who gets caught with his pants around his ankles, I don't see it as any of my business. If it affected his job, then it might be news. But just the act? No.
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MrCoffee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:14 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. Hiring a prostitute doesn't affect his job as governor?
How do you figure?
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supernova Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:24 PM
Response to Reply #10
24. No more so than
any other social engagement would. :shrug:

Like I said, I don't have kids with him and I don't have to live with him or be sexually intimate with him, so it is none of my business.

However, if it were the case that he used state funds to purchase sex, or used state resources or locations to have sex, or was being blackmailed (certainly possible), and the stress of it all were affecting his job as Gov, then I could see the point of it becoming a public scandal.

If not, it's none of our business.
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Lance_Boyle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:32 PM
Response to Reply #24
32. Governor is top executive - executing the law
As a private sex matter, this Spitzer thing is uninteresting. But it's not private - he's a public figure paid by the public to execute the laws he and his administration would prosecute any member of the public for breaking.

Screw Spitzer and the whores he rode in on.

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Big Blue Marble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:13 PM
Response to Original message
8. Why can you not see that it is the hypocrisy that hurts him?
As attorney general, he investigated prostitution rings. And now
he participates in one. How can that not hurt him? He made his reputation
on fighting crime. Whether or not you think prostitution should be a crime,
it is. And he knew it better than anyone.
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ScreamingMeemie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:14 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. I think a lot of people jumped into this one without reading the whole
story...like the parts about how he became such a household name in the first place.
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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. What bothers me is how people are hung up about sex in this country
Let's shoot ourselves in the foot, shall we?
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ScreamingMeemie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:19 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. How about you read up on his hypocritical actions?
I couldn't care less about the sex of it all. I care about the fact that this man publicly prosecuted prostitution rings, vocalizing his disgust with them, and then went ahead and violated the very laws he upheld so boisterously. Forget the sex. It's a stupid thing to hide behind.
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Seeking Serenity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:22 PM
Response to Reply #12
19. I don't think it's the sex, per se
as in "Oooh, he was having sex. Shocking!" It's more of the fact that his (or anyone else in a similar situation) acts affect other people, say, his wife and daughters. Whether we like it or not, that is a betrayal of trust that still cuts deep.

Maybe you think it shouldn't, that cheated-upon wives or husbands should just take it with a "la-ti-da, so he or she was screwing someone else, big deal" atitude, but we're nowhere near that as a culture.
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Big Blue Marble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #12
21. Some of us are hung up on ethics.
We expect our leaders to be ethical about sex and crime and money and stuff like that.
Spitzer built his career fighting crime and now he is participating in the very crime that he fought.
His behavior speaks to his character and judgment.

And speaking of money how does a governor earn enough income to regularly afford to pay a
multi-thousand dollar prostitute? I would like to know the source of that money.
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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:29 PM
Response to Reply #21
31. I guess you figured out that I generally object to prostitution laws
Sure, those laws are on the books... Which I attribute to the rampant puritanism that runs this society.

His problem, however that he painted outside of the lines that he so rigorously drew
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:19 PM
Response to Original message
15. It's news because he's a Democrat
And everyone knows all Democrats are as pure as the driven snow.
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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. Frankly, I don't give a damn about any sex between consenting adults
Any one of those stories, regardless of party affiliation, rubs me raw.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:26 PM
Response to Reply #18
27. Same here
I think I've been very consistent about that.
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walldude Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:27 PM
Response to Reply #18
28. Me neither, but the people he put in jail for doing
the very thing he just got caught at, well, they might feel a bit differently. This isn't about sneaking a little on the side, this is about the judgment and hypocrisy of one of our own. Oh and before anyone gets on me for sneaking a little on the side, I'm not for that either, it's just none of my business...
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theboss Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:52 PM
Response to Reply #18
38. He commited a crime. It's not just cheating.
If he was boinking his secretary, I don't give a damn.

He was importing hookers from another state.
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apnu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:20 PM
Response to Original message
17. It is news because he's the 'moral crusader' and the Media loves a hypocrite (nt)
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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #17
22. Then he set himself up for a fall
BTW, I'm not defending him. Clearly, he fucked up.

It's just the whole attitude towards sex in America that I have a problem with
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apnu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:32 PM
Response to Reply #22
34. Yes, our disfunction with sex is appalling and stupid.
Instead of taking the opportunity, this scandal hands us, to open a discussion about sex, what's legal and what's not. Instead of taking the opportunity to confront the mail-order-brides and sex slaves that prostitution normally is (not this high priced stuff that Spitzer is involved in), what will we do?

Some will point and laugh, others will shout about how evil Spitzer is, and some will piss and moan about how this 'hurts our chances in 2008' All of which ignores the opportunity that we have right now.

Boy, oh boy, our culture sucks.
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Medusa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:24 PM
Response to Original message
23. Sex + Politics=Ratings Gold for the News Networks
It's better than a celeb o'ding. It's better than a financial scandal. Extra bonus points if the poly involved is a "reformer" like Spitzer was. We'll be hearing about this for at least a week.
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nancyr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:24 PM
Response to Original message
25. Takes peoples' minds off more important things.
While the media has a field day with this, the powers that be can carry on their skullduggery in private. Just another circus.
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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:32 PM
Response to Reply #25
33. Bingo
There are a hundred more important stories out there that won't even get half the attention
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blues90 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:52 PM
Response to Reply #25
37. That's exactly all it does , tune to msm
and get out the snack food and forget .
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LanternWaste Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:25 PM
Response to Original message
26. I think it's because we hold figures in the limelight to very different standards
I think it's because we hold figures in the limelight to very different standards than we hold ourselves to. Some the standards are greater (as in the case of an elected official), sometimes, we hold them to much lower standards (entertainers, pop stars, etc.).

If that person steps out of the mold we've put them into, they become an oddity-- in other words, 'news'.
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Elspeth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:29 PM
Response to Original message
30. The French are laughing at us...again. NT
NT
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peacetalksforall Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:50 PM
Response to Original message
35. I saw Taxi to the Dark Side this weekend - ES is certainly not
torturing, authorizing torture, defending torture, changing the law about torture, propagandizing for torture, ordering silence from the media, imprisoning the most lowliest on the ladder and rewarding their young female higher officer and he's not 'persuading' Congress to shut up about it.

He didn't order anyone to pummel someone to death.
He didn't order a rendtion flight.
He didn't snort with pleasure at killing.

But, to keep it fair, he was a hypocrite about keeping the law and breaking the law.

Then, he honorably acknowledged and resigned - without denials and game playing.
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travelingtypist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:53 PM
Response to Original message
39. It's news because,...
...Spitzer is a Democrat. If he were a Republican, this would
rate a yawn.
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Seeking Serenity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 03:55 PM
Response to Reply #39
41. Untrue and you know it.
The media had a good long run on Larry Craig.
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travelingtypist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-10-08 05:38 PM
Response to Reply #41
43. You have no idea what I know.
Let's start with that.

Oh, and ever heard of "dead girl, live boy"? Unless you're
a Democrat.

:eyes:
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