Governor Spitzer's Career Gets Heave-Ho

Before he was a talk show host Jerry Springer was a politician and while he was Mayor of Cincinnati he engaged the services of a prostitute and paid her with a check that bounced.

Elliot Spitzer could have learned something from Springer that any philandering traveling salesman knows all to well: when you hire a call girl, pay cash.

I had a difficult time working my way into caring about Spitzer except for the pure Schadenfreude of the whole sordid affair. Seems like if his wife can forgive him, it’s none of anyone’s else's business. After all, Louisiana Senator David Vitter still has a job despite a prostitute’s claim that they had an affair.

Now I’ve changed my mind on Spitzer, but not because of morality. Spitzer deserved to go because he’s a dumb ass. Not that he’s not intelligent, but Spitzer has obviously demonstrated behavior that is exasperatingly stupid.

You might think that the Governor of New York was caught as a by-product of an investigation of the high-priced prostitution enterprise called Emperor's Club VIP, but no, it was actually the other way around.

Spitzer was caught as a result of routine examination of financial transactions, large and small, conducted by computer programs that pass suspicious activity along to the IRS for further review. As a Governor, Spitzer was designated as a PEP or “politically exposed person” and therefore subject to additional scrutiny.

When he was New York’s Attorney General, Spitzer was partially responsible for the implementation of these systems because he used them to gather data on Wall Street investments firms.

Across town, his friend from Emperor’s Club has been outed by the New York Times (that's her photo above):

“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster,” the woman said as she told the tiniest tidbits of her story.

“Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupré, she spoke softly and with good humor as she added with significant understatement: ‘This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated.’”

I wonder if her rates have gone up.