The Spitzer Scandal: My Take

I'll start off by saying that I was never a huge fan of Eliot Spitzer; I didn't see what others apparently did---a future President.  At the same time, however, I never thought he would face a scandal like the one he currently is.  All in all, I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing.  Here's my take:

First of all, I always feel terrible for politicians and their families when their personal lives get aired for the whole world to see.  My feeling is that if what a politician is doing personally doesn't effect the public, then the public has no reason to know.  After all, we elect leaders to do a job, and that job is to take care of us.  If they do that job, then that should be enough for us to know.  The perfect example, of course, is the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.  I'm certainly not saying what Bill was doing was okay, but it in no way was any business of the public's.  President Clinton was a fantastic President, and his personal life obviously didn't get in the way of that.   

In many ways, however, Spitzer's case is different.  Spitzer wasn't just having an extramarital affair, which is not illegal, he was involved with a prostitute, which, of course, is illegal.  And it's not so much the fact that he hired a prostitute that makes me mad, it's the fact that he spent the better part of his life going after and prosecuting people severely for the exact same act he has now been caught engaging in.  If there's one thing that gets me mad at elected leaders, it's hypocrisy.  And by engaging in the acts he allegedly did, Eliot Spitzer is just that, a hypocrite.  

It's for that reason that I believe Gov. Spitzer should resign.  Not because he absolutely has to, but because he portrayed himself to the public as someone he was not.  It's the exact same hypocrisy that made me so outraged over the Larry Craig and David Vitter scandals---they ran on high ethics and morality, yet were involved in controversial sexual acts. I called for Craig and Vitter to resign over their hypocrisy (they didn't), so to be fair, I must ask the same of Spitzer.  The difference, however, is that I think Spitzer has the decency to know that what he did was a clear violation of public trust and because of that, I know that he will do the right thing and step down as Governor of New York within the next few days.