I had an amusing conversation with my cubemate this morning:
Me: How ya doin', Ed?
Ed: Happy 'n' horny!
Me: Like Eliot Spitzer?
Ed: Well, it's all those anti-depressants and viagra in the water, y'know?
To his credit, Spitzer didn't try floating that excuse. (No pun intended.) Well, not to my knowledge, anyway.
Of course, you know that all of those sleazeball politicians are doing the same thing Spitzer did. You know that the FBI is nothing more than a political goon squad. Spitzer probably just pissed off somebody higher up the food chain. I can just see the FBI's Public Corruption Unit sitting around, surfing the net, and making paper airplanes, until they get a call from the White House:
FBI: Public Corruption Unit.
Caller: Know who this is?
FBI: Yeah...
Caller: Eliot Spitzer.
FBI: My dentist?
Caller: No, the governor of New York, you idiot!
FBI: Right! We're on it! (Hangs up.) OK, guys! Eliot Spitzer!
Guys: Your dentist?
FBI: No, you idiots, the governor of New York!
Guys: Right, boss! We're on it!
None of the preceding is meant to imply that Spitzer should receive leniency. He should certainly be removed from office, and sent to prison if he was paying his hookers with public money. I can't see anybody spending $4300 of his own money on a hooker. Pardon me, ladies, but there just ain't no pussy that good.
A more alarming aspect of the Wall Street Journal's story on Spitzer, for those of us who can get our heads out of the gutter for just a moment, is that Spitzer's indiscretions were brought to federal attention by a bank's "suspicious activity" report. I remember the public outrage when the Know Your Customer rules were proposed back in the 90s, during the Clinton administration. Foolishly, I had thought that KYC had met its well-deserved demise. According to Wikipedia, KYC is a policy implemented to conform to a customer identification program mandated under the Bank Secrecy Act and USA PATRIOT Act. I should have known that KYC would raise its ugly head again, under the guise of protecting us poor widdle sheeple from terrorism.
But, hey! Why worry? You're just a liberal, politically correct, peace-loving guy, who's always where he's supposed to be, right? You don't own a gun and would never dream of shooting a burglar, although you're ready to fly over to the Middle East to kill Arabs for Israel at a moment's notice, right? You know that if the government wanted you to have an opinion of your own, it would have issued you one, right? So naturally, you're not the least bit worried that Big Brother is watching you, are you?
Postscript: Given its amazing capacity to detect and punish prostitution, why is our beneficent federal government unable to do anything about the illegal alien gangs running loose in our country?
4 comments:
I admit that I went through a libertarian phase yesterday when I first heard the Spitzer story. Theoretically, Spitzer was engaging in an activity between 2 consenting adults. Why should it be illegal?
Without going into the pros and cons on each side of that argument, one thing is clear. Spitzer broke the law as it stands now, but real criminals are getting away with way worse stuff right now. Sadly, Spitzer is the one in the news.
Your closing was excellent. Why so easy to catch a prostitute when we have 20 million immigrant criminals running free...
west coast grrlie,
I see that Spitzer has resigned.
Though I consider myself a libertarian (with a small l), I can think of a couple reasons why prostitution ought to be illegal. Regardless, I'm more concerned about the fedgov's recruitment of your bank and mine as spies, as reported in both the WSJ story and the one linked above.
Trevor,
You sound a lot like Sam Francis.
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