Elliot Spitzer paid for someone's ticket, and look what happened to him.
"Tkacik"? Is she related to Tcheky Karyo? Or Ptarmigan Psmith the Psychedelic Pseud?
"Tkacik"?
I believe it's pronounced "Smith."
It's a relief to see that everyone cares about this post about as much as I do -- I was worried I was being left out of something.
Fuck you, Labs! And Anderson, Moe & I later agreed that me paying for her transportation would be waaaay too Spitzerish.
Hmm...this story seems perfect for unfogged. Or not.
I like to use the "What are you, a prostitute?" line too, when someone suggests that I should cover their bill, spackerman.
Moe & I later agreed that me paying for her transportation would be waaaay too Spitzerish.
So she's going for the Chinatown bus after all?
Just to make ackerman angrier, I will say that this saslgy post is insightful, boiling the entire "Clinton is more electable because..." arguments down to "...because Obama wouldn't win Ohio".
Hmm...this story seems perfect for unfogged. Or not.
No. Fucking. Way. Surely, surely not for two years.
Just to make ackerman angrier, I will say that this saslgy post is insightful, boiling the entire "Clinton is more electable because..." arguments down to "...because Obama wouldn't win Ohio".
Of course, if it becomes "...because Obama wouldn't win Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida," the Clinton electability argument would have the virtue of being true.
12: except not, given that we're talking about Democratic primary voters rather than the general electorate.
Hi, how are you!
13: you are filled with undirected rage, spack. We all know that you're just waiting for the slightest provocation to unload on Ned.
Right, what "has the benefit of being true" is that primary voters in Ohio, voters in an unsanctioned and largely uncontested pseudo-primary in Florida, and the most recent polling results in Pennsylvania show that people who took part in those preference measuring events prefer Sen. Clinton to Sen. Obama for the Democratic nomination.
Huh, she's pleasant on the eyes, but I'm not seeing the $4300/hour, Spitz.
The Times has her at $1000, which isn't a whole long way above standard average generic (supposedly $200 in Portland OR, maybe $400 in NYC).
See, guys like Spitzer aren't babe magnets like us guys.
It's my balding head that brings me the would-be $4300-pers for free.
If Spitzer quit doing that thing with his mouth he'd be more successful with the babes.
Yeah, his mouth is no substitute for the cup.
20: and yet makes $80k seem less reasonable.
Didn't one report say that he'd been seeing call girls for six years? That's about once a month.
That Ned is a motherfucker. It's time someone unloaded on him.
Man, the worst part, for me, of this Spitzer business is that it's making me remember events I'd rather forget involving my ex-roommate with a hooker habit.
80 hours could just be 40 visits, over how long?
making me remember events I'd rather forget involving my ex-roommate with a hooker habit
Spill!
Don't pretend that you don't want us to ask for details, Sifu.
John Lee? All day every day? Sounds like hell all right. He's great, sure, but you can only take so much.
Well, (a) if you come home and your roommate is having sex with a hooker he found on craigslist, and you're hoping against hope that he has not decided that your bed would be the most comfy place to enjoy his purchased services, and you have sort of a sinking feeling that he might have decided that, and you turn out to be correct? That sucks, man.
80 hours could be just one visit, if Spitzer was very... disciplined.
Also (b) if a heavily made up girl arrives at your house looking for your recently moved-in roommate, telling you some weird story about a laptop he loaned her or something, and she can't wait for him because her "ride" is idling in the parking lot, and you say "gee so, dude, that girl looked like, well, a hooker", and he says "oh, no, no, I met her at a party at [ different college than the one you go to]"? He might be lying to you.
I was expecting something much more like "The Piña Colada Song".
36: tell me you wouldn't have burned your damn mattress if that happened.
I would have bleached the sheets, but I think the mattress would have been ok. Which is not to say that I wouldn't have been extremely pissed.
Ogged would have burned his roommate if that happened, but surely he's not our reasonable person to be used as an example.
I'm not claiming to have a lot of staying power or to be an erotic aesthete or anything, but even for me 60 minutes seems awfully brisk even for something completely transient.
I feel dumber for having read that IM exchange. Thanks for reminding me why I don't read SpAckerman - he's a twit.
44: and yet nobody ever comments on your blog. Where's the justice?
Spackerman is a twit who does a lot of great reporting. But frankly, I respect him just for his horndogging.
Wait, are we seriously looking at pictures of this woman and dismissively saying that Spitzer overpaid? Where's B when we need her?
44: Maybe I'm missing the sarcasm, but why is he a twit?
50: Threesome with Kristen and apo!!!
But! Perhaps if you sell yourself as a product, you'll be judged as a product. The prostitute is already objectified, and Ugh is responding to her on her own terms, no? Some of us might say that that's one of things that's wrong with prostitution.
53: I'm pretty sure I can only afford you.
Yes, but I'm guessing apo comes free, too. So.
I have already weighed in on the prostitute hotness issue. She's definitely attractive, but not career-sacrificingly attractive.
Along these same lines, I'm looking forward to the Obama late-night show appearance where the prostitution issue is brought up and he says, "That's not a problem for me -- I don't have to pay."
not career-sacrificingly attractive
I seriously doubt that the attractiveness of the prostitute was the reason Spitser was driven to sacrifice his career.
60: it'll be the reason in the movie.
"If we had some hookers, we could have some hookers and blow, if we had some blow."
Too bad my dotcom limocokeandwhores.com never got off the ground. e-commerce would have proved a much safer option for the governor, and he would have gotten a limo for the evening out of the deal.
48: Someone had to.
54: Exactly. Or, at least that sounds like a good reason for me to tell others.
63: your mistake was making it too similar of a name to "limpcokewhores.com".
62: If I could write I'd write a nasty letter to the mayor, if he could only read.
Any word yet on who "Client 10" is? I'm hoping it's Blagojevich.
Cancel the B-signal!
Aw man, and I was waiting for someone to go, "To the Bitchcave!" and then be like, "oops."
Because we all like to be as close as possible to the center of a scandal, without actually being prosecuted, I would like to inform you that "Kristen" grew up in the *very same county* that I did.
Kristen, Bruce, and me, brought to you by Monmouth County, NJ.
I was walking down the hall today with my boss and my bosses bosses boss, both female. My bosses bosses boss turned to me and said, very seriously, "Why did Spitzer do it? As a man, why do men do such stupid things?". Then they both looked at me silently, waiting for me to give my view as a man.
It was an awkward moment, let me tell you. I felt like I was on the "View".
I've been waking up in a cold, professional sweat hearing "Kristen gets $4,300 an hour!" I for one am happy to have a different name to attach to this individual.
Confidential to Ogged: For the horndogging, you really need to get in on the Twitter feed.
71: You know the answer, right -- did you tell them? Are they hott?
Like, he uses Twitter the way I use Flickr.
You don't need to feel like a failure, Smasher. She's in her prime earning years, whereas yours are ahead of you.
70:
She does look like a girl you'd see walking down the Seaside Heights boardwalk, doesn't she?
72, 75: As Emerson said I do know the answer, but couldn't really tell them for career reasons. It was not a blog comment type moment.
I can't quite remember what I said. I think it was something sort of like, "Well, it's not a rational decision, men can be that way, but most guys work all that idiocy out when they're young."
Fortunately, their attention wandered pretty quickly.
I do know the answer
"Well see, back on the veldt..."
I don't think it's a one-answer question.
More evidence of the two Americas problem.
at some mystical, pre-verbal, veldt-related level it might be.
kidding aside, I'm not sure I do understand how a (by all accounts) happily married 45 year old man who was governor of New York could do that. I *do* understand the curiousity or the urge or the appeal in a way I think most women probably don't. But I can't understand yielding to it in that situation any more than I can understand yielding to that weird urge you sometimes get to jump off a cliff.
Maybe at some weird subconscious level he didn't really want to be governor of New York any more.
Or maybe his situation having married young is very different from mine, having stayed single and had lots of relationships. When I get married I'm folding into it like that middle-aged dad in his old easy chair.
83: Well, you're not married, and you don't have $80,000 burning a hole in your pocket.
80: I just clicked over to Yahoo to check some mail, and this was the top article in the News section:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/16579966.html
It's an article that combines several kinds of speculative stupidity.
Maybe at some weird subconscious level he didn't really want to be governor of New York any more.
The hardened, world-wise NY reporters on the radio all day today didn't want to come right out and say it, but they seemed to be heading in that direction. "It's not just his judgment at this point," one of them, maybe Wayne Barrett, said, "I'm really starting to wonder about his sanity."
He was only caught on the wiretap once. Do the suspicious money transfers date back to the start of his term? The "any more" suggests this was all recent behavior, but I don't know that it was.
He's a wealthy guy (inheritance), this could have been a regular feature of his life. Hard to believe there wouldn't have been rumors, but maybe he concealed it carefully.
The psychology, whatever it is, seems very different if it was a long-engrained habit vs. something that started recently.
The money transfers go back aways, although nobody is saying for sure how long. (I've heard 10 years, but I'm not confident about that.) It's starting increasingly to look like the probe into the prostitution ring was all about catching Spitser. And the wiretap was renewed right before they caught him on the phone---and pulled down soon afterwards, despite having more time allowed on it.
Yeah I wonder if they came down on the wiretap too soon because they wanted to get him on this scandal and ended up missing something bigger.
I'd also note that he had to ask the booker to remind him what "Kristen" looked like, and the conversation between the booker and "Kristen" made it seem like they [Spitzer and "Kristen"] weren't, uh, well-acquainted with each other.
ended up missing something bigger
Taking down a powerful Democratic governor and the former "Sheriff of Wall Street" is pretty big.
Huh. Gawker is reporting that Client6 is Gerald Grosvenor, the 6th Duke of Westminster.
His wife's hotter than the call girl, in my opinion.
I'm thinking in terms of a strong indictment. But of course you're right that just the resignation is huge.
If this was a politically motivated attempt to get Spitzer, it doesn't seem like those who were behind it are going to get in any trouble. It just seems like the prostitution thing is "shocking" enough that no one is willing to question the motivation behind the thing. I find it kind of troubling though.
Where did you see that, oudemia?
Or is that a joke referring to the fact that he's the 6th duke of Westminster?
Whether or not they came down on the wire too soon doesn't necessarily affect the question of motivation. It could have been politically motivated and more patient.
Since this all apparently started with the banks reporting the suspicious transactions to the Feds, the question of motivation seems pretty murky, and assessing it probably requires a much more thorough knowledge of how these prosecutions usually work than most of us here are likely to have.
assessing it probably requires a much more thorough knowledge of how these prosecutions usually work than most of us here are likely to have
You're familiar with the comment threads here, right?
You're familiar with the comment threads here, right?
All too familiar. That sentence should really be read with a feeling of resignation verging on despair.
Population of Monmouth County, NJ (2000 Census): 615,301.
102: Yes, when I first heard about the financial triggers, my guess was that this was completely political from the onset. Further details have muddied that a bit. (Of course at some level it will always get "political" with someone at that level of government.) But even if it as all on the straight and narrow, this illustrates the broader issue of what happens when you erode the rule of law, everything prosecution is legitimately questioned.
I can officially confirm that eekbeat hails from neighboring Middlesex County, NJ.
102: The banks have a lot of political motivation to get Spitzer.
I guess I should have been more explicit. I wasn't wondering mainly about motivation, just about whether there was more to the case (possibly on the financial side) that could have been caught had they used the full wiretap time. So that probably puts my question even further into the realm of complete speculation. I'm ok with that. I'm not actually accusing anyone of anything.
I really should go to sleep.
Hmmm. I suppose there could be further financial shenanigans that they didn't catch, but is there any reason to think so? As far as I know, all the financial shenanigans that came to light through the investigation were directly related to the prostitution.
I have a friend in Monmouth County. His parents have peacocks and golden pheasants.
He went to high school with...um...a guy who was a star on the Rutgers and Virginia basketball teams. Not going to bother looking for his name.
I'm not sure there are any stars on the Virginia basketball team.
Oh, you mean earlier. Right...
That's right, Todd Billet is Kristen and oudemia's homegirl. Rejoice once again!
Wasn't Spackerman dating The Garance at one point?
118: No, absolutely not. Never. No.
I'm not sure there are any stars on the Virginia basketball team.
Sean Singletary, dude.