Would your wife stand by you at a press conference if you were caught with hookers??

If we take the hypocrisy aspect of the case out of it....and it's most compelling in this case....the only persons this should be a big deal to are Mr. Spitzer, his wife and the rest of his family.

In this country we spend too much time and money worrying about who's getting serviced by whom, when, for what reason and for how much.

yetanotherchick wrote:

Of course I can't know for sure since I've never been the wife of a cheating politician, but my belief is that, politician or not, I'd stand by my husband and forgive him if he were caught in what all evidence pointed to as a one time indiscretion that he seemed truly sorry for. If it were something that he'd done repeatedly over a long time period, or if he started saying that it wasn't really his fault or wasn't really a bad thing to do, his ass would be history. There are a lot of basically decent people who could be tempted and then be sorry and change, but having your own prostitution ring isn't exactly a little mistake of passion.

Spitzer, Stop Torturing Your Wife

By Maggie Gallagher

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

My husband has a collective term for the antics of men like New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer: "stupid monkey tricks."

As in, "Now there's a really stupid monkey trick," as he greeted me with Monday night.

Last week in Boston at a conference sponsored by the Marriage and Abstinence Education Partnership, presenter Rozario Slack explained that he tells each of his own kids, "You are not an animal."

Right. No animal would plan for its mate as exquisite a humiliation as Eliot Spitzer inflicted on his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, Monday afternoon in broad daylight, in front of us all.

I don't have a lot of hope for the public morality. I don't suspect this is the last time a man entrusted with high office will descend into a sex scandal, or even break the law (as Eliot Spitzer did) to get what he wants. (And in his former role as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" -- i.e., a white-collar crime specialist -- Gov. Spitzer was unusually well-versed in the laws that he was breaking: laws against prostitution, against transporting a prostitute across state lines, against "structuring" or moving money to avoid federal reporting requirements, to name just three.)

But can we at least end this barbaric practice of dragging your wife before the cameras while you confess your shameful guilt? If she wasn't there in the hotel room when you did your crime, don't ask her to do your time.

The practice began relatively innocently as something an accused man might do when he denied the allegations . A man's wife at his side showed that she, at least, believed the guy when he said he did not do it.

It was former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, I believe, who began the modern practice (Can we ban it along with waterboarding?) of parading the little wife before the cameras to hold your hand as you confess your guilt. The goal is to get the shell-shocked wife to demonstrate to the public that the offense is forgiveable. If his wife forgives him, how mad can you be?

But the practice requires a man to turn the best instinct of his wife -- to unite behind the family in crisis -- into an instrument of her own public humiliation.

And another thing: Can we end the public practice of trying to shame these wives into divorcing their husbands?

There's a reason we feel impelled to do this these days. Adultery has been redefined as a "private matter," as Spitzer put it in his vain, Clintonian attempt to redirect attention from his crimes to his sin. Because we no longer have any public punishments for adultery, we have turned wives into instruments of the public morality: If she doesn't punish him by divorcing him, he will go unpunished, which is intolerable. (Without some punishment, won't all husbands stray?)

I'm tired of this transference of the sins of the husband onto the wife. Leave the wives alone. Let's forget about standing by the man, but can't we at least agree to stand by the woman?

Look, I'm not a moron. I understand that men will use prostitutes for their own purposes without caring what happens to them, but can't we expect a little higher standard of behavior from an outrageously guilty husband toward the wife he has just embarrassed and betrayed?

Eliot, you are famously one big, tough dude from the Bronx. A "fv

Steamroller wrote:

[quote]yetanotherchick wrote:

Of course I can't know for sure since I've never been the wife of a cheating politician, but my belief is that, politician or not, I'd stand by my husband and forgive him if he were caught in what all evidence pointed to as a one time indiscretion that he seemed truly sorry for. If it were something that he'd done repeatedly over a long time period, or if he started saying that it wasn't really his fault or wasn't really a bad thing to do, his ass would be history. There are a lot of basically decent people who could be tempted and then be sorry and change, but having your own prostitution ring isn't exactly a little mistake of passion.

Spitzer, Stop Torturing Your Wife

By Maggie Gallagher

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

My husband has a collective term for the antics of men like New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer: "stupid monkey tricks."

As in, "Now there's a really stupid monkey trick," as he greeted me with Monday night.

Last week in Boston at a conference sponsored by the Marriage and Abstinence Education Partnership, presenter Rozario Slack explained that he tells each of his own kids, "You are not an animal."

Right. No animal would plan for its mate as exquisite a humiliation as Eliot Spitzer inflicted on his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, Monday afternoon in broad daylight, in front of us all.

I don't have a lot of hope for the public morality. I don't suspect this is the last time a man entrusted with high office will descend into a sex scandal, or even break the law (as Eliot Spitzer did) to get what he wants. (And in his former role as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" -- i.e., a white-collar crime specialist -- Gov. Spitzer was unusually well-versed in the laws that he was breaking: laws against prostitution, against transporting a prostitute across state lines, against "structuring" or moving money to avoid federal reporting requirements, to name just three.)

But can we at least end this barbaric practice of dragging your wife before the cameras while you confess your shameful guilt? If she wasn't there in the hotel room when you did your crime, don't ask her to do your time.

The practice began relatively innocently as something an accused man might do when he denied the allegations . A man's wife at his side showed that she, at least, believed the guy when he said he did not do it.

It was former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, I believe, who began the modern practice (Can we ban it along with waterboarding?) of parading the little wife before the cameras to hold your hand as you confess your guilt. The goal is to get the shell-shocked wife to demonstrate to the public that the offense is forgiveable. If his wife forgives him, how mad can you be?

But the practice requires a man to turn the best instinct of his wife -- to unite behind the family in crisis -- into an instrument of her own public humiliation.

And another thing: Can we end the public practice of trying to shame these wives into divorcing their husbands?

There's a reason we feel impelled to do this these days. Adultery has been redefined as a "private matter," as Spitzer put it in his vain, Clintonian attempt to redirect attention from his crimes to his sin. Because we no longer have any public punishments for adultery, we have turned wives into instruments of the public morality: If she doesn't punish him by divorcing him, he will go unpunished, which is intolerable. (Without some punishment, won't all husbands stray?)

I'm tired of this transference of the sins of the husband onto the wife. Leave the wives alone. Let's forget about standing by the man, but can't we at least agree to stand by the woman?

Look, I'm not a moron. I understand that men will use prostitutes for their own purposes without caring what happens to them, but can't we expect a little higher standard of behavior from an outrageously guilty husband toward the wife he has just embarrassed and betrayed?

Eliot, you are famously one big, tough dude from the Bronx. A "fv

Steamroller wrote:

[quote]yetanotherchick wrote:

Of course I can't know for sure since I've never been the wife of a cheating politician, but my belief is that, politician or not, I'd stand by my husband and forgive him if he were caught in what all evidence pointed to as a one time indiscretion that he seemed truly sorry for. If it were something that he'd done repeatedly over a long time period, or if he started saying that it wasn't really his fault or wasn't really a bad thing to do, his ass would be history. There are a lot of basically decent people who could be tempted and then be sorry and change, but having your own prostitution ring isn't exactly a little mistake of passion.

Spitzer, Stop Torturing Your Wife

By Maggie Gallagher

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

My husband has a collective term for the antics of men like New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer: "stupid monkey tricks."

As in, "Now there's a really stupid monkey trick," as he greeted me with Monday night.

Last week in Boston at a conference sponsored by the Marriage and Abstinence Education Partnership, presenter Rozario Slack explained that he tells each of his own kids, "You are not an animal."

Right. No animal would plan for its mate as exquisite a humiliation as Eliot Spitzer inflicted on his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, Monday afternoon in broad daylight, in front of us all.

I don't have a lot of hope for the public morality. I don't suspect this is the last time a man entrusted with high office will descend into a sex scandal, or even break the law (as Eliot Spitzer did) to get what he wants. (And in his former role as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" -- i.e., a white-collar crime specialist -- Gov. Spitzer was unusually well-versed in the laws that he was breaking: laws against prostitution, against transporting a prostitute across state lines, against "structuring" or moving money to avoid federal reporting requirements, to name just three.)

But can we at least end this barbaric practice of dragging your wife before the cameras while you confess your shameful guilt? If she wasn't there in the hotel room when you did your crime, don't ask her to do your time.

The practice began relatively innocently as something an accused man might do when he denied the allegations . A man's wife at his side showed that she, at least, believed the guy when he said he did not do it.

It was former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, I believe, who began the modern practice (Can we ban it along with waterboarding?) of parading the little wife before the cameras to hold your hand as you confess your guilt. The goal is to get the shell-shocked wife to demonstrate to the public that the offense is forgiveable. If his wife forgives him, how mad can you be?

But the practice requires a man to turn the best instinct of his wife -- to unite behind the family in crisis -- into an instrument of her own public humiliation.

And another thing: Can we end the public practice of trying to shame these wives into divorcing their husbands?

There's a reason we feel impelled to do this these days. Adultery has been redefined as a "private matter," as Spitzer put it in his vain, Clintonian attempt to redirect attention from his crimes to his sin. Because we no longer have any public punishments for adultery, we have turned wives into instruments of the public morality: If she doesn't punish him by divorcing him, he will go unpunished, which is intolerable. (Without some punishment, won't all husbands stray?)

I'm tired of this transference of the sins of the husband onto the wife. Leave the wives alone. Let's forget about standing by the man, but can't we at least agree to stand by the woman?

Look, I'm not a moron. I understand that men will use prostitutes for their own purposes without caring what happens to them, but can't we expect a little higher standard of behavior from an outrageously guilty husband toward the wife he has just embarrassed and betrayed?

Eliot, you are famously one big, tough dude from the Bronx. A "fv

It seems that many people including himself want to overlook one little aspect of all of this. He broke the f***ing law!!!! He's a sitting Governor and an ex AG. Has everyone forgotten that soliciting a protitute is ILLEGAL!!!! This isn't simply another woman or a case of hypocracy as bad as that is, it's against the law. But you don't have to worry because he will be charged, found guilty and sentenced. All good things take time.

Right on, Searching. My thoughts exactly. The only 2 people who know what was going on (or NOT going on) between the Spitzers are the Spitzers. Maybe she's refused to sleep with him for the last decade. Or much longer. I feel badly for the 3 daughters, they don't deserve any of this. As for the wife, I don't know where she's been at or what she's been up to for sure, so I'm holding back the sympathy there. Who knows, she may have had a boatload of affairs herself and he stayed married to her for the daughters and his political career. You just don't know....

No disrespect to you, please understand, but I'm calling Bullshit on that. It's very difficult for me to believe that there's any love there...sorry.

money talks

bullshit walks

I've reached the maximum level of cynicism. Maybe they both used each other? Supposedly she was Ivy League, too.

I still suspect a deal was cut. She sort'a looked out of it during the 'TV event' today.

I've stopped watching the TV and am just web 'surfing for the rest of the week.

I can't wait for November to vote and am hoping that ANY candidate's campaign calls with a real live person, because I'm going to ask them to put the candidate on the phone personally. Not that anything will happend but I am just so damned fed up with the lot of them...and their PR people and money people and all that...did you hear today that someone said Obama's not really "black" but "african american" or some such bullshit?...that I want to lay out a polictican personally and not by email or on a website.

I'm sick of the whole lot of them.

Sorry.

divorced wrote:

Are you kidding me? My wife wouldn't even stand by me, and chose to end our marriage, when I did nothing wrong. Kinda makes me wish I had gone to a hooker, and at least got something out of the deal.

Me too.

Gutless governor hangs wife on line

John Kass

March 12, 2008

Did New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer have to drag his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, up there, in her pearls and powder blue Chanel jacket like some prop to be shamed?

Did he have to parade her before the cameras, so lovely and tired, disgraced and betrayed, for all to see?

No. And he's a coward for doing so, and for betraying his wife again in public, for compromising all of us who watched the two of them on TV the other day at that terrible news conference.

He was cool, seemingly forceful, making one of those weasel statements that befits lawyers, a vague apology but nothing in his words admitting he broke the law. So he had things together, he was under control, drawing it all out, teasing federal prosecutors into offering him a deal: Spitzer resigns, they don't press charges on his money transfers to the high priced online whorehouse.

The former prosecutor who attacked, among other things, prostitution rings, has been hoisted on some whore's petard.

And Silda stood beside him mute, like one of those people who crawl out of burning cars, make it to the side of the road and stare at what brought them there.

"My heart just broke for her," said Dina Matos McGreevey, estranged wife of the former governor of New Jersey, who herself was trotted out the same way, the faithful, supportive wife standing next to her husband, after Jim McGreevey was revealed to have had a homosexual affair with his homeland security adviser.

"To learn that the person you love has betrayed your trust in such a public manner ... she's ridiculed and shamed in front of virtually the entire world," she said on CNN.

At one point in the news conference, Mrs. Spitzer looked toward the ceiling to the back of the room -- and it seemed she saw infinity, perhaps remembering in a flash, all the little betrayals of a life together, some of them quite loud and fantastic, some silent and unspoken.

Eliot Spitzer made powerful enemies, on Wall Street, in organized crime, in both political parties, in the music business. His appetites were no doubt understood by those enemies, and refined, and offered up for that final stab that left him on the dung heap this week, as those of us in the chattering classes rose in the air above him like some mob of crows to pronounce him dead.

President Clinton waved a Bible at reporters after he'd entertained himself with an intern in the Oval Office -- while on the phone with a member of Congress about sending American troops into the Balkans -- and he was saved.

Hillary Clinton stood by her husband, and she got her payoff, a New York Senate seat and now a presidential campaign. Bill travels the world and has fortunes bestowed upon him from those who make uranium deals in Kazakhstan.

As president, Clinton had many people in his debt. Spitzer has made many enemies. He won't get the Clinton treatment. Hillary quickly wiped Spitzer's endorsement from her Web site like a stain, this Spitzer who got a perfect LSAT score but wasn't smart enough to stay away from prostitutes.

"I think the press needs to look into why we are sitting here going crazy on this about a man hooking up with a prostitute. It's not the first time it has happened. I know it shocks people in the press," said Clinton defender James Carville on that same CNN program with John King.

"Being from Louisiana, it's happened once or twice before, down there," he said.

I think it's happened once or twice in Arkansas, too. And Washington and Chicago.

What bothers most people about Spitzer aren't the prostitutes. If a politician wants to chase prostitutes, it seems to me that's his or her business. There are similarities in the cut of mind; some sell their principles and bend into fantastic shapes; and those who make it look easy are often praised by the pundits for their subtlety and grace -- the politicians I mean.

Spitzer wasn't one of the benders. That's no sin, either. The political sin is in using his powers as a prosecutor, and as New York attorney general, to bring charges against prostitution rings, and others, brokers, politicians, music promoters, and point his finger at them. This from Client 9 of the Emperors Club VIP service.

So he cracked down on New York crime families, and the music industry, and unscrupulous Wall Street types, and on and on, and somebody heard or saw or was told something -- ask any cop and they'll tell you hookers aren't good at keeping secrets -- and a phone call was made and Spitzer was history.

"I would say you could walk through the deepest sympathy for Eliot Spitzer on Wall Street and you would not get your ankles wet," said The Wall Street Journal's John Fund, in one of the better lines of the day.

But there is the deepest sympathy for Silda Spitzer from those of us who know virtually nothing about them. She's the latest in a line of political women, humiliated by cowardly political men who don't have the guts to stand alone when it's time.

SCENE: The bedroom. Wife is packing a suitcase.

HUSBAND: Where are you going?

WIFE: I'm leaving you. I found out I can go to Vegas and make $1,000 a pop doing the same thing I do with you for free.

(Husband starts packing his own suitcase)

WIFE: Where are you going?

HUSBAND: I'm going to Vegas too. I want to see you live on $2,000 a year.

d'oh!

Vegas wrote:

Would this story be as big if, say, the governor of Nevada were caught utilizing the services of a prostitute and he was unmarried?

Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas, too.

Tobias Funke wrote:

Forget his wife. She's a Harvard educated lawyer. I think she'll be fine.

It's his kids. Man are they going to have to put up with a ton of sh-t. Kids are ruthless in school. I can't imagine the teasing they are going to endure. They're who I feel bad for.

I completely agree. I feel awful for his children - he has three teenage daughters. I read in the newspaper that they have been secluded in their NYC apartment because the media is camped outside. But can you even imagine being in their shoes and having to go to school, walking down the hallways and everyone whispering and staring. Just awful. My heart goes out to them.

JimBean wrote:

I completely agree. I feel awful for his children - he has three teenage daughters. I read in the newspaper that they have been secluded in their NYC apartment because the media is camped outside. But can you even imagine being in their shoes and having to go to school, walking down the hallways and everyone whispering and staring. Just awful. My heart goes out to them.

Just awful, but his kids know who to blame, don't they?

Self inflicted petard wrote:

JimBean wrote:

I completely agree. I feel awful for his children - he has three teenage daughters. I read in the newspaper that they have been secluded in their NYC apartment because the media is camped outside. But can you even imagine being in their shoes and having to go to school, walking down the hallways and everyone whispering and staring. Just awful. My heart goes out to them.

Just awful, but his kids know who to blame, don't they?

They may.....but they also may not.

Chances are no one knows what's between the sheets in the Spitzer marriage.

Self inflicted petard wrote:

Just awful, but his kids know who to blame, don't they?

Maybe, maybe not. Chances are there is more to this story than we know. Or should know for that matter.

First, he broke the law....so that's enough there for him to resign.

Second, we all have NO F-ING IDEA what else was going on in that family...nor should we. So don't judge the actions of another - that is not your place. Who knows, maybe the wife was "ok" with it, or just turned a blind eye....hell, even encouraged it....we have no way of knowing.

Wad wrote:

Second, we all have NO F-ING IDEA what else was going on in that family...nor should we. So don't judge the actions of another - that is not your place. Who knows, maybe the wife was "ok" with it, or just turned a blind eye....hell, even encouraged it....we have no way of knowing.

As long as Spitzer keeps parading his wife in public we SHOULD care what's going on in his family.

i get it for free wrote:

She's probably pissed to find out that someone got $5000 a shot to have sex with her husband. She's probably wishing she had invoiced her husband everytime they did the deed.

Most likely there are no invoices to be issued. I bet, poor Spitz did not get any for years and years. (ref. the post-nauptual shutoff topic)

She refused the kink he liked and wanted, so he went elsewhere. Happens every day in every little and bigger town.

i get it for free wrote:

She's probably pissed to find out that someone got $5000 a shot to have sex with her husband. She's probably wishing she had invoiced her husband everytime they did the deed.

Most likely there are no invoices to be issued. I bet, poor Spitz did not get any for years and years. (ref. the post-nauptual shutoff topic)

She refused the kink he liked and wanted, so he went elsewhere. Happens every day in every little and bigger town.

He was probably doing hookers for a long time but got caught by the increasingly sophisticated financial surveillance, instituted on every living American by the Homeland Secret Police after 9-11