That's the first step toward healing!

She's right. Earmark reform is fundamental. It's always easy to imagine that it can be put off, or that "at least our guys aren't as abusive as the Dems" (which isn't true—both parties are horrible about this).

Check your legislators' records on this; Belle links to the list.

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. . . is voting on the FISA bill today; it doesn't look good, even after last night's sooper-secrud session.

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then he must be a Republican. Maybe he just didn't know it. Like, he was a closet Republican or something. I mean, you have to come out to yourself before you can come out to the rest of the world.

Right?

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. . . on the Spitzer scandal.

(So far, there are takeoffs on T.S. Eliot, S.T. Coleridge, and Lewis Carroll. Join the fun!)

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"You're going the wrong way! You're going the wrong way!"

To which John Candy replies, "how do they know which way we're going? They must be drunk."

Steve Martin: "Yeah; how would they know?"

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It isn't like they were the same hookers.

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More insight from Heidi Fleiss:

"It's so easy not to get caught," reformed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss tells Radar, adding that she provided service to many a well-known politician [in] her day. "I saw many famous people—more famous than Eliot Spitzer—and you know what, you pay people right, you treat them right, you don't have a problem." The devil, she says, was in Spitzer's particular freak, which left the gals who are alleged to have serviced him describing the governor as "difficult," with demands that involved "things that, like, you might not think were safe."

"I'm sure he wanted anal sex without condoms," Fleiss says, speculating but strangely confident.

There are worse things, of course. If you're not a hooker. (Hint: tiny women shouldn't date men who are hung like firehoses. Moderation in all things, or you end up with sore ovaries.)

But if Spitzer was as "difficult" in the bedroom as he was in his political life, I'm sure he made just as many enemies in the one realm as in the other. To be fair, however, it was his handling of the financial arrangements that led to his undoing.

Via Dan Collins Karl at Protein Wisdom.

UPDATE: Error fixed; I don't know why I got the Protein Wisdom guys mixed up—maybe because those people all look the same to me.

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. . . like there's a really good White Album joke to be made about the Spitzer situation, if I could only think of it.

No—not that White Album. That White Album.

Via Hackbarth.

(The Beatles! Whatever happened to them? They were so hittable before they became 50% dead.)

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1 Yeah, but don't you have to play the song backwards to hear truth to power? (Paul IS the walrus, you know.) Revolution 9 (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) Lead Vocals: John Lennon, Yoko Ono and George Harrison [Bottle of Claret for you if I had realised... Well, do it next time. I forgot about it, George, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? Yes.] Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number... ...then there's this Welsh Rarebit wearing some brown underpants ...about the shortage of grain in Hertfordshire Everyone of them knew that as time went by they'd get a little bit older and a litter slower but... It's all the same thing, in this case manufactured by someone who's always/umpteen ... Your father's giving it diddly-i-dee/district was leaving... Intended to die ... Ottoman ...long gone through... I've got (FLUFFY)to say, irritably and... ...floors, hard enough to put on ... per day's MD in our district There was not really enough light to get down And ultimately ... slumped down Suddenly... They may stop the funding... Place your bets The original Afraid she'll die ... Great colours for the season Number 9, number 9 Who's to know? Who was to know? Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Number 9, number 9 I sustained nothing worse than ... Also, for example Whatever you're doing A business deal falls through I informed him on the third night, when fortune gives... People ride, people ride Ride, ride, ride, ride, ride Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Ride! Ride! Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 ...I've missed all of that It makes me a few days late Compared with, like, wow! And weird stuff like that... ...taking our sides sometimes ...floral bark Rouge doctors have brought this specimen I have nobody's short-cuts, aha... 9, number 9 ...with the situation They are standing still The plan, the telegram... Number 9, number... A man without terrors from beard to false As the headmaster reported to my son He really can try, as they do, to find function... Tell what he was saying, and his voice was low and his hive high And his eyes were low... Alright! It was on fire and his glasses were the same This thing knows if it was tinted But you know it isn't To me it is... Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Number 9 So the wife called me and we'd better go to see a surgeon to price it ... Yellow underclothes So, any road, we went to see the dentist instead Who gave her a pair of teeth which wasn't any good at all So I said I'd marry, join the fucking navy and went to sea In my broken chair, my wings are broken and so is my hair I'm not in the mood for whirling How? Dogs for dogging, hands for clapping Birds for birding and fish for fishing Them for themming and when for whimming ...only to find the night-watchman unaware of his presence in the building Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9 Number 9 Industry allows financial imbalance Thrusting it between his shoulder blades The Watusi, the twist Eldorado Take this, brother, may it serve you well Maybe it's nothing What? What? Oh... Maybe, even then, impervious in London ...could be difficult thing... It's quick like rush for peace is because it's so much Like being naked It's alright, it's alright It's alright, it's alright It's alright, it's alright It's alright, it's alright It's alright If, you became naked

Posted by: Darrell at March 11, 2008 07:14 PM (H79FJ)

2 Depending, of course, on one's proclivities

Posted by: Attila Girl at March 12, 2008 06:04 PM (hr1i5)

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Bidinotto on the weird myopia of the media; and their refusal to see the Spitzer scandal as being about more than sex.

He thought he was an Untouchable; but then, that is the way of those consumed by lust.

Lust for power, that is.

Yup.

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Both Karl and Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom had fun with Harper's's Horton, and his cries of selective prosecution.

Karl:

The law on “structuring" . . . would not be at all obscure to a bank, which was obligated to report suspicious activity to the IRS. Moreover, once this information was reported by ABC News, anyone can Google “structuring” and find it immediately. The feds were not on a politically-motivated fishing expedition—they got a report from a bank of suspicious activity requiring investigation.

Dan Collins explains that not only did the entire thing start with a tip from a bank, but (as he ironically notes): "so anxious was the DOJ to prosecute the guy that theyÂ’ve been driving the US Attorney bonkers," trying to get a signoff on an indictment of a public official.

Selective enforcement always scares me. But I'm not convinced that Spitzer was targeted because he was a Democrat; it seems more like his own arrogance and foolhardiness unraveled his career.

It's as if he were a rather disconnected version of William Jefferson Clinton—without, of course, Clinton's brilliance.

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1 Deposit and withdraw amounts from your bank just under the trigger limit (say $999 . and bad things might happen to you. That's why I stick to $89 or so. That and the fact that I don't see many $9998 checks.

Posted by: Darrell at March 11, 2008 11:31 AM (JW+3p)

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The Wall Street Journal had a nice recap of the Spitzer scandal today:

Mr. Spitzer's recklessness with the state's highest elected office, though, is of a piece with his consistent excesses as Attorney General from 1999 to 2006.

He routinely used the extraordinary threat of indicting entire firms, a financial death sentence, to force the dismissal of executives, such as AIG's Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. He routinely leaked to the press emails obtained with subpoena power to build public animosity against companies and executives. In the case of Mr. Greenberg, he went on national television to accuse the AIG founder of "illegal" behavior. Within the confines of the law itself, though, he never indicted Mr. Greenberg. Nor did he apologize.

In perhaps the incident most suggestive of Mr. Spitzer's lack of self-restraint, the then-Attorney General personally threatened John Whitehead after the former Goldman Sachs chief published an article on this page defending Mr. Greenberg. "I will be coming after you," Mr. Spitzer said, according to Mr. Whitehead's account. "You will pay the price. This is only the beginning, and you will pay dearly for what you have done."

Jack Welch, the former head of GE, said he was told to tell Ken Langone -- embroiled in Mr. Spitzer's investigation of former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso -- that the AG would "put a spike through Langone's heart." New York Congresswoman Sue Kelly, who clashed with Mr. Spitzer in 2003, had her office put out a statement that "the attorney general acted like a thug."

These are not merely acts of routine political rough-and-tumble. They were threats—some rhetorical, some acted upon—by one man with virtually unchecked legal powers.

Eliot Spitzer's self-destructive inability to recognize any limit on his compulsions was never more evident than his staff's enlistment of the New York State Police in a campaign to discredit the state's Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Bruno. On any level, it was nuts. Somehow, Team Spitzer thought they could get by with it. In the wake of that abusive fiasco, his public approval rating plunged.

Mr. Spitzer's dramatic fall yesterday began in the early afternoon with a posting on the Web site of the New York Times about the alleged link to prostitutes. The details in the criminal complaint about "Client-9," who is reported to be Mr. Spitzer, will now be played for titters by the press corps. But one may ask: Where were the media before this? With a few exceptions, the media were happy to prosper from his leaks and even applaud, rather than temper, the manifestly abusive instincts of a public official.

There really is nothing very satisfying about the rough justice being meted out to Eliot Spitzer. He came to embody a system that revels in the entertainment value of roguish figures who rise to power by destroying the careers of others, many of them innocent. Better still, when the targets are as presumably unsympathetic as Wall Street bankers and brokers.

Acts of crime deserve prosecution by the state. The people, in turn, deserve prosecutors and officials who understand the difference between the needs of the public good and the needs of unrestrained personalities who are given the honor of high office.

Read the whole thing.

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. . . immortalizes the Spitzer scandal:

(Tune: "Love Potion # 9")

I took my troubles to the Emperor's Club,
For understanding and a special rub.
They gave me a form and a questionnaire to sign,
And told me that my title was "Love Client # 9."

I said to Kristen: "I'm a fool for love,
And incidentally, I am not the gov.
I don't like corruption, except, of course, for mine,
And honey, please address me as 'Love Client # 9.'"

More at the link!

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I don't necessarily think the Spitzer prosecution was politically motivated; this is a sociopath's just desserts. But I am curious about Scott Horton's assertion in Harper's that the charges against Spitzer fall under the heading of "white slavery"; isn't that term often used to designate prostitution itself? The fact is, any law that's subject to selective enforcement should be reviewed—that is indeed, one of the problems with prostitution laws in the first place.

A governor of a powerful state, however, cannot be engaging in activity that opens him up to blackmail, and any elected official who doesn't recognize limits to his power is undermining democracy itself—no shit. Spitzer was, from all accounts, a tyrant of the kind that brings out the long knives —no mater what political party he or she belongs to. And thank goodness for those long knives, also known as "checks and balances."

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S.R. writes:

Poor Millard Fillmore. The butt of schoolyard jokes, TV sitcom jokes, and TV advertisement jokes. The thirteenth president of the United States (last prominent member of Whig Party, serving from 1850 until 1853) ascended to the office upon the death of Zachary Taylor. (It's believed Taylor died of gastroenteritis.)


So, what's the truth about President Fillmore? Here are the major points of his three years in office. He pushed five major bills through Congress to:



• Admit California as a free state;

• Settle the Texas boundary and compensate her;

• Grant territorial status to New Mexico;

• Place Federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking fugitives;

• Abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia.



Another important legacy of Fillmore's administration was the sending of Commodore Matthew C. Perry to open Japan to Western trade, though Perry did not reach Japan until Franklin Pierce had replaced Fillmore as President.


And what of that famous story about the bathtub, for which poor President Fillmore is best remembered (and ridiculed)? Well, some biographers credit humorist and national scold H.L. Mencken with starting the hoax that Fillmore was the first president to have a bathtub with running water in the White House. So, now you know.

And so do the rest of you. Thanks, S.R.!

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why?

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"So," he asked me. "Do you drink these days?"

"Like a fish."

"So then you aren't still a gun-nut racist, are you?"

I knew what he meant by that. "Yes," I replied. "Yes, I am."

Silly old rabbit. As Joel Surnow puts it, "if you want to drink, smoke and eat meat these days, you have to hang out with Republicans."

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She was so young. So silly. And her face became the face of a national mess that never should have happened, because the most powerful man in the world wanted to deny Paula Jones her day in court.

The London Times has a roundup of the major players in the scandal(s) that led to the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton.

Ace chimes in:

This is the ten-year anniversary, to me, of the superheating and supercharging of American politics. People became radicalized. I know I did. Until the Impeachment Wars I didn't mind Clinton so much—I didn't particularly like him by that point, mind you, and I preferred the Republican Congress' policies in the main—but I didn't hate him.

But what followed was a year of being lied to, absurdly lied to, by both Clinton and his myriad defenders. Meanwhile those telling the truth about the affair were torn down and slandered by the Clinton Machine and its willing accomplices in the media.

. . . . . . . . . .

Toxic times, and we're all still living with the aftereffects. All because Clinton couldn't—perhaps on the demand of his wife—simply pay Paula Jones a $25,000 nuisance go-away settlement and apologize vaguely for any harm he "may" have caused.

No, he had to "win," and winning meant lying, and lying meant perjury, and perjury meant putting the country through a year of screaming and distraction.

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Looks like Fred got that jump he needed. The NY Times is finally interested in him as a candidate, and the other candidates are starting to insult him.

Yep, it's finally getting serious.

h/t Adler

-CTG

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stop at closing late-night eateries?

Shouldn't they also escort bar-hoppers home, help them into their jammies, and tuck them into bed? And no leaving without a bedtime story, either: hearing Many Moons is a human right, after all.

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Goldstein on media bias and "unnatural" acts.

Via Glenn.

Of course, if one wanted a more neutral example that doesn't involve sexuality (the media rationale being that we are such gay-bashers anyway, it's positively a public service to "out" members of the GOP, and it's much more relevant to assign an "R" than a "D" to those accused of sex acts), one might look at coverage of corruption among public officials. In those particular cases the trend is to either label the miscreant "Republican" or not to mention his/her party affiliation at all.

GPW (also via Insty): "Craig should resign." Yup. We're beyond the "dead girl, live boy" stuff, thank goodness—but I don't think it's too much to ask that elected officials get, you know—a room.

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