Hillary Should Condemn Spitzer ASAP

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's involvement in a prostitution scandal, revealed yesterday, has prompted little reaction from New York Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Spitzer was, and still is, a superdelegate who has pledged his vote to Clinton.

The New York senator sidestepped questions about the sex scandal while campaigning in Pennsylvania on Monday, although she did convey her "best wishes and thoughts" to the governor and his family.

Clinton and Spitzer have been friendly colleagues since the former first lady first ran for the Senate in New York in 2000. Her aides said Clinton deeply respected Spitzer's work during his two terms as state attorney general.

This, coupled with the fact that Spitzer has yet to resign, might make a more cynical person wonder if Hillary is hoping Spitzer can hang in there until the Democratic National Convention in August.

It has become common practice for colleagues of disgraced politicians to stand by and wait for the scandal to fall on his own sword, but in this case, Spitzer has copped to at least being an Emperor's Club client. Clinton's silence here, friend or not, lends credence to the notion that Spitzer is a good guy who was "only human" and plays into the mindset that prostitution is some kind of "victimless crime."

Update: Obama mum as well

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Hillary Clinton should flatly condemn Spitzer, and not just because she's a woman, but because he is an ally and the Governor of her home state. Not to do so is to equivocate the impact of what he has done.

Leave aside any moral objections to prostitution Many people with libertarian leanings believe that it should be legal. It could be regulated, and these women and their clients could be protected. The fact is, it is not legal, and that sets up a coercive relationship that removes the ability for true consent.

This is central to Spitzer's misdeed. Unlike Senator Larry Craig, who was allegedly engaged in consensual conduct, what Spitzer, and anyone else who frequents illegal prostitutes, has done is to coerce women into sex with money, and to coerce their silence with the full force of the law.

There's a winking acceptance of prostitution by a wide swath of men in this country -- one that I have witnessed anecdotally. Every guy I know has a story about "wild times" at some bachelor party, courtesy of paid escorts. I've been hearing commentary from the left along the lines that it is a shame that Spitzer is done because of all the good he was doing.

Now, I am no moralist, especially where sexuality is concerned. There is very little that I cannot accept, or am even shocked by sexually. But, along with opposable thumbs, one of the building blocks of our civilization, the thing that separates us from animals, that imbues us with a belief in our own immortal souls, is the idea of consent in sexual relations.

Information Week reports that one of the defendants, a madame, is also a web designer. Now, whether or not the business' main function was to act as a front for the ring, this demonstrates eloquently the divide between the opportunities that are available to women today. The existence of a black market for sex has the effect of coercing many women into one life, and denying them the other.

So I don't want to hear any more about what a good guy or a great job Eliot Spitzer is doing. What he did was an assault on all women and a stain on all men. Instead of offering these women protection, he violated the trust that they, as citizens like the rest of us, had put in him. If Hillary Clinton wants to be able to look my mother, my sister, my wife, my brother's daughter in the eye, she needs to fire Eliot Spitzer out of a cannon. Nothing less will do.

Update: Barack Obama has also steered clear of commenting on Spitzer, but in his case, he needs to avoid seeming opportunistic in condemning a Clinton ally. All the same, a measured condemnation from Obama is in order, regardless of political considerations.

Update 2: Wow, lots of comments. I can't respond to them all. Many of you who disagreed with me must not have read what I wrote. Why should Hillary comment, why this is not a private matter, how prostitution is coercion, and why it is not about the sex are all in the story. Please go back and read the whole thing.

I am not a Republican, I have no quarrel with sex, marriage is personal, I already have a "pair" and a real job. What I find amazing is how willing so many of you are to excuse Spitzer's deeds, and that you assume that anyone who thinks he is wrong must be a Republican. This is why political discourse has no credibility anymore, people have no principles, only Party.

There is no more staunch Democrat than me, but these people work for me, not the other way around. When one of them messes up, we need to be the ones pointing it out, or we have no credibility when they get things right.

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