Something is very wrong here.
You have escort services operating pretty much in the open in most (maybe all) large cities in the U.S. The reason, I suppose, is economic. Any business that draws in tourists or gets tourists to spend more while they are in the city is welcome. I suspect eliminating prostitution would be a bigger disaster to a city’s economy than losing a pro sports franchise.
But a particular escort service gets busted. And not by a state or local DA trying to get a cheap headline. But by the Federal government. Oh, and in the process of busting this escort service, the name of one particular customer happens to leak out.
It’s obvious, isn’t it, that the GOP is using the DOJ to destroy a prominent Democratic leader. Isn’t there something wrong with that? Isn’t this what the U.S. Attorney firing scandal was all about? People being fired because they refused to allow their office to be used for partisan bullshit? Well, here is a case where a Democratic official is being destroyed by a partisan prosecution, and nobody is coming to his defense and nobody is outraged at the government for pulling this.
Of course, it’s not just that Spitzer is a Democrat. He was busted for a reason. We have the comforting illusion that there is a corporate Party and a party of the people. Of course, the party of the people lives on corporate money, and there are lines drawn as to how far any party can go in serving the interests of the people once they accept that money. Spitzer crossed that line, and so he had to be destroyed.
I was wondering about what Hillary Clinton must be making of all this. Hillary Clinton knows something about being targeted in a politically motivated prosecution. It was an experience that shaped her, and it may not be an exaggeration to consider it the central motivating force in her political career. Gov. Spitzer was a political ally of hers. I know that in politics a friend ceases to be a friend when he does something embarrassing, but I can’t help feeling that at some level that she isn’t allowed to express, Clinton is feeling some outrage here.
I wish that some Democrat would stand up and cry “Foul!” but I guess that is too much to expect.
