Spitzer Returns

Newsweek writes an article about the attempted comeback of Eliot Spitzer. They ask "can he become a public figure again" in an article making him a public figure again. Also, Spitzer has a column for Slate, which is owned by the same parent company as Newsweek. Michael Wolff is absolutely right to point it out.

But putting that all aside, I agree with Ezra Klein that Spitzer has a unique voice that is simply right for the times. He has been talking about the need for regulating the banks, and not just talking but acting on it, for a long time. This is from 2004:

On the surface, predatory lenders are doing nothing more than seizing a "market opportunity" for refinancing or home-improvement loans in lower-income communities. To be sure, such communities desperately need credit. And it stands to reason that the prices and terms will be less favorable to borrowers whose financial circumstances are troubled or limited. In this sense, predatory loans are the natural outcome of a competitive market.[...]

[But] it is difficult to imagine a less rational, less efficient economic practice than lending of this sort. At the micro-level, it results in a gross misallocation of costs-- imposing higher costs than the market requires on those least able to bear them. At the macro-level, it denies lower-cost capital to whole classes of persons who would otherwise qualify for it and to neighborhoods whose economic vitality depends on it.

In these circumstances, government must step in to curb predatory lending and encourage the flow of fairly priced capital to sectors where it is needed and will be well-used. Filling a gap left by federal inaction, state enforcement efforts in this arena have centered on identifying the valid economic criteria considered in mortgage underwriting and compelling lenders to focus on those factors--not on preconceptions, prejudices, or predatory instincts--in determining how to price home mortgage loans. The point is not to protect people from their own bad decisions or, conversely, to guarantee that mortgages be granted to specific persons or groups on specific terms--that would violate the principle of market freedom. The point is to support equal opportunity and to ensure that borrowers are charged rates and fees based upon their status and qualifications as economic actors in the mortgage market, not upon their diminished access or market savvy or their race.

This was written years before anyone "discovered" the subprime disaster. Simply put, we should not sacrifice valuable insight and opinion on the altar of sexual peccadilloes. Spitzer was an idiot for soliciting prostitutes but his experience is valuable, perhaps too valuable to ignore.

Missed It By That Much

David Vitter is sending gift baskets all over Washington today, particularly to Deborah Jeane Palfrey and her family.

Sen. David Vitter will not have to testify about his ties to an upscale Washington escort service, a defense attorney said Monday, sparing the Louisiana Republican an embarrassing trip to the witness stand.

Vitter has been on notice for more than a week that he could have to appear during the prostitution trial of Deborah Palfrey. Palfrey's attorney, Preston Burton, said he would rest his case Monday without calling Vitter or any other witnesses.

Vitter has acknowledged being involved with Palfrey's escort service and has apologized for what he called "a very serious sin." He has since avoided most follow-up questions.

That would have been tough to do on the witness stand. During the weeklong trial, men have testified about how they found the service, how often they called, what they were hoping for and whether they got it during their 90-minute, $250 visits.

Why Vitter was not on the prosecution list is obvious enough; the Justice Department doesn't want to take down one of their own, as we have seen. Why he was on the defense list was odd; how exactly would he help them prove that the service didn't offer sex but "fantasy" services? But no matter; we will be deprived of the funniest witness testimony evah.

Graceful Republicans Under Pressure

VetVoice is having a lot of fun today with Patrick McHenry (R-NC), the wingnut from North Carolina who I always like to call the Republican version of Billy Zabka, a cartoonish villain who is always defeated and humiliated in the end. This time, Zabka... McHenry got caught saying on video his location in the Green Zone after a rocket attack, violating operational security and putting the lives of Green Zone soldiers at risk. In fact, two soldiers died just a couple days after McHenry posted this really ignorant video. McHenry obviously knows that this was a big no-no, since he took the video down and tried to scrub his website of any trace of it. VetVoice was able to get a screen grab, though:



Sorry, Zabka. And thanks for endangering our troops.

Joining McHenry in the "frightened Republicans who don't know how to get out of their own messes" department is Sen. David Vitter (Diapers - LA), who suffered not only from a tough town hall meeting with constituents, who battered him with questions about his links to the DC Madam story, but whose staffers were so rattled by the affair (pun intended) that he backed into a stop sign on his way out of the area. Crooks and Liars has the video and it's pretty darn good. We may get some more choice moments like this, as Vitter is scheduled to maybe even take the stand in the DC Madam case.

Everybody Must Get Stoned

See, there's a very simple explanation for how federal investigators discovered Eliot Spitzer's secret trysts in hotel rooms with prostitutes. They were merely alerted by a series of suspicious financial transactions and thought it was a bribery case and then just stumbled upon the prostitution ring. It's all so very s-

What's this now?

Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ''used the services of high-priced call girls'' while in Florida.
The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ''a social contact in an adult-themed club.'' It offered one potentially identifying detail: The man in question hadn't taken off his calf-length black socks ``during the sex act.''

Stone, known for shutting down the 2000 presidential election recount effort in Miami-Dade County, is a longtime Spitzer nemesis whose political experience ranges from the Nixon White House to Al Sharpton's presidential campaign. His lawyer wrote the letter containing the call-girl allegations after FBI agents had asked to speak to Stone, though he says the FBI did not specify why he was contacted.

''Mr. Stone respectfully declines to meet with you at this time,'' the letter states, before going on to offer ''certain information'' about Spitzer.

''The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services. It is Mr. Stone's understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer,'' the letter said.

So a well-known Republican ratfucker with a history of making threatening phone calls to Spitzer's father in the middle of the night, is contacted by the FBI, in reference to God knows what, and he refuses to talk to them, but through his lawyer he leaks a bit of oppo research he picked up in a sex club, which he's been known to frequent. The Miami FBI apparently TAKES NO FOR AN ANSWER, and may have forwarded the information to the FBI in New York (they would not say whether or not they received the letter). A month later Stone goes on Michael Smerconish's radio show and says unequivocally that "Eliot Spitzer will not serve out his term as governor of the state of New York." A couple months later Spitzer is picked up on a wire and you know the rest. Immediately Stone is interviewed by Newsday, and you can almost smell the smugness.

"I didn't make him go to a prostitution ring," said the most famous and ruthless Republican dirty trickster who still walks the earth. "He did that all on his own."

Stone said that even before I asked if his hand was somehow in Spitzer's latest trouble. I figured, somehow or another, it had to be.

"No comment on that," Stone said. "I will say I knew it was coming. That's why I wasn't too upset about the results of the special election," where a Democrat grabbed a supposedly safe Republican State Senate seat, leaving Democrats just one vote shy of control.

Conversations with Stone often go like that. Always cocky. A little cryptic. Leaving you wondering about more.

Yeah, I'm wondering why some slimy political operative is all but managing federal investigations in the Bush Justice Department.

Scott Horton at Harper's has some more, including this new article from the New York Times.

The Justice Department used some of its most intrusive tactics against Eliot Spitzer, examining his financial records, eavesdropping on his phone calls and tailing him during its criminal investigation of the Emperor’s Club prostitution ring. The scale and intensity of the investigation of Mr. Spitzer, then the governor of New York, seemed on its face to be a departure for the Justice Department, which aggressively investigates allegations of wrongdoing by public officials, but almost never investigates people who pay prostitutes for sex.

A review of recent federal cases shows that federal prosecutors go sparingly after owners and operators of prostitution enterprises, and usually only when millions of dollars are involved or there are aggravating circumstances, like human trafficking or child exploitation. Government lawyers and investigators defend the expenditure of resources on Mr. Spitzer in the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. case as justifiable and necessary since it involved the possibility of criminal wrongdoing by New York’s highest elected official, who had been the state’s top prosecutor.

So the Justice Department, under the direction of Roger Frickin' Stone, at least from the outside, deployed massive resources to capture the bad actions of a sitting Democratic governor, while in the analogous case of the DC Madam they expended no energy entrapping David Vitter or Randall Tobias. And we know the Bush Administration has a history with going after Democratic governors and even putting them in the slammer.

Eliot Spitzer did what he did; there's no getting around that. The selective prosecution and politicization of justice, however, continues to magnify in this case.

QOTD

Gov.-in-waiting David Paterson just wrapped up a news conference in the governor’s Red Room (more on that shortly), but before he finished, the question that seems to hang over him this week finally got asked: Has he ever patronized a prostitute?

The uncomfortable question grew more uncomfortable in the silence that followed as Paterson paused, paused some more, and finally said, “Only the lobbyists.”

Is he from Harlem or the Catskills?

David Paterson will be playing all week.

Grey Lady Goes Into The Depths

It's been a little disturbing how the New York Times has driven this Spitzer story purely to get extra eyeballs at their website, but this useless, unnewsworthy "interview" with "Kristen," the call girl from room 871, is about the lowest of the low. Will they print tomorrow's edition in tabloid format with Page 3 girls, too?

I know you're supposed to give the reader what they want, but show a little self-respect, would you? I mean, if the NYT covered Spitzer and Albany politics with this kind of zeal BEFORE this story broke, maybe people would actually know something about how their government functions...

This was the only quote of interest to me in the story:

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

The Clinton campaign immediately called on "Kristen" to resign.

UPDATE: More on this from Glenn Greenwald (and actually his whole post is worth reading):

All decent people agree that what Eliot Spitzer did is repulsive, morally disgusting and totally nauseating -- which is why it's so important to learn about and report on every last titillating detail about what he did, the kind of sex he had, with whom he had it, how many times he had it, and what his partners looked like -- because it's all so completely appalling that it's critical that we stay fully informed.

Spitzer Resigns

Two things. I love when he said "the remorse I feel will always be with me." That must be why he only consorted with prostitutes for six years, because he knew it'd be so hard to live it down.

Second, I still can't get over the fact that a blind, black man from Harlem will now be the Governor of New York now. I hear extremely good things about David Paterson, but honestly, that's a Martin Lawrence movie.

OK, now that my jokes are out of the way, this is sad, as I thought Spitzer had a bright future.

UPDATE: Looking at this story, it appears clear that the feds were sitting on the wire, waiting for Spitzer to incriminate himself with audio evidence. They had enough information to bust the prostitution ring without Spitzer, but they had to bag the Democrat, or at least the high-profile john.

The Sad Spitzer Chronicles

It's really upsetting to see such a bright prospect in the Democratic Party, a guy who didn't make friends because he didn't put up with the bullshit, be brought so low. But he was of course a victim of his own hubris. Anyone who prosecuted scum as long as he did to not understand fundamentally how those rackets work and how easy it is to get caught is either stupid or amazingly arrogant.

Spitzer ended up as the subject of an investigation into the prostitution because his bank branch in Manhattan turned him in to the Internal Revenue Service as someone who might be engaged in suspicious currency transactions, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Agents of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division initially started a probe, fearing that the governor was the victim of some sort of blackmail scheme or that he was being victimized by an impostor, the sources said.

Spitzer last year had wanted to wire transfer more than $10,000 from his branch to what turned out to be the front for the prostitution ring, QAT Consulting Group, which also uses a number of other names, in New Jersey, the sources said.

But Spitzer had the money broken down into several smaller amounts of less than $10,000 each, apparently to avoid federal regulations requiring the reporting of the transfer of $10,000 or more, the sources said. The regulations are aim to help spot possible illegal business activities, such as fraud or drug deals.

Apparently, having second thoughts about even sending the total amount in this manner, Spitzer then asked that the bank take his name off the wires, the sources said.

Bank officials declined, however, saying that it was improper to do so and in any event, it was too late to do so, because the money already had been sent, the sources said.

There's something unseemly about the IRS snooping around in every transaction checking for possible violations, but if anyone knows that's occurring it's the former Attorney General of the State of New York.

I still think there are some unanswered questions about how fast this got to the press and why the government is wiretapping prostitution rings and how Spitzer was so quickly burned for this, but clearly he needs to resign as is likely, though the New York Times is more noncommital, even suggesting that his wife wants him to stay in office.

Finally, it was nice to see Tucker Carlson end his ignominious run as a TV host with such class, simultaneously decrying the peering by Big Government into private consensual activity and also having Moonlight Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof on his show to speculate about all the deviant behaviors Spitzer might have engaged in, like whips and ball gags. He's really a superb human being. And how exactly does he know Dennis, anyway? It's irresponsible not to speculate.

Spitzer and Bush League Justice

Without attempting to defend Eliot Spitzer in any way, it's unquestionable that the questions over the monitoring of his conduct and the speed with which the story went public remain unquestioned.

ABCis reporting that Eliot Spitzer came under the attention of the Feds because his bank reported "suspicious money transfers" to the IRS. The Justice Department brought it to the FBI's Public Corruption Squad, who looked into it and found that payments were made to a company called QET, which did business as The Emperor's Club.

All kinds of questions arise here:

1. Why would the bank tell the IRS and not Spitzer himself if there was a suspicious transfer? Spitzer is a longtime client, a rich guy and the governor. We're talking thousands of dollars here, not millions. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they spotted a "suspicious transfer" made by the governor, and that this is how things began. It's possible it was just ordinary paperwork the bank had to file with the government whenever some particular flag was raised, but if that's the case, why did the DoJ go to DefCon 3?

2. What is a USA doing prosecuting a prostitution case? This isn't normally what the feds spend their time with.

3. Mike Garcia (the USA for Southern New York) is a Chertoff crony. Sources familiar with the investigation say that he sent a prosecution memo to DC two months ago asking for authority to indict a public figure (Spitzer). Which means they had their case made long before the wire tap of February 13. Why did they then include this line from that conversation in the complaint?

LEWIS continued that from what she had been told "he" (believed to be a reference to Client-9) "would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe -- you know -- I mean that...very basic things...."Kristen" responded: "I have a way of dealing with that...I'd be like listen dude, you really want the sex?...You know what I mean."

This salacious detail does not seem like it's necessary to make their case, and appears to be added for no other purpose than to destroy Spitzer's career.

4. How did Spitzer's name get leaked to the media, and who did it? Didn't happen to Dave Vitter.

The only way #1 can be credibly answered if there were multiple bank transfers that fell slightly under the $10,000 limit required to trigger federal reporting. If this was a one-off deal then there's no way that gets noticed unless someone at DoJ or the US Attorney's office is combing through the records. I don't think we have that information yet. Numerous transactions would raise a red flag, to be sure.

The political partisanship which has infected the Justice Department has really poisoned the system of justice in general. While there's no question that Spitzer committed a crime here (regardless of what you think of that crime and whether or not it should be prosecuted; for the records, johns rarely are convicted), the way in which they drew him into the case is suspicious. And if the transfers tipped the feds off to the whole prostitution ring, then this notion that Democratic governors are held to a different standard in this Justice Department, and are subject to intense scrutiny and wiretapping and all the rest, stands.

Scott Horton, who's been following the Siegelman prosecution (a different case, as he was railroaded and committed no crime), writes:

Note that this prosecution was managed with staffers from the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice. This section is now at the center of a major scandal concerning politically directed prosecutions. During the Bush Administration, his Justice Department has opened 5.6 cases against Democrats for every one involving a Republican. Beyond this, a number of the cases seem to have been tied closely to election cycles. Indeed, a study of the cases out of Alabama shows clearly that even cases opened against Republicans are in fact only part of a broader pattern of going after Democrats. So here are the rather amazing facts that surface in the Spitzer case:

(1) The prosecutors handling the case came from the Public Integrity Section.

(2) The prosecution is opened under the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910. You read that correctly. The statute itself is highly disreputable, and most of the high-profile cases brought under it were politically motivated and grossly abusive [...]

(3) The resources dedicated to the case in terms of prosecutors and investigators are extraordinary.

(4) How the investigation got started. The Justice Department has yet to give a full account of why they were looking into Spitzer’s payments, and indeed the suggestion in the ABC account is that it didn’t have anything to do with a prostitution ring. The suggestion that this was driven by an IRS inquiry and involved a bank might heighten, rather than allay, concerns of a politically motivated prosecution.

There is simply no reason to trust the Bush Justice Department. Remaining Democratic governors need to conduct themselves far more cleanly than Spitzer, to be sure. But there is unquestionably a different standard. Remember that Karl Rove and other Republicans have relentlessly named "corruption" as the reason they lost Congress in 2006. They didn't do that by accident. If they can find a few spare Democrats to point to for 2008 they can say that the pendulum has swung back, that those in power now are abusing it, and that Democrats are hopelessly corrupt and cannot be trusted. Not sure if it'll work, but they can claim "balance" for Mark Foley and Dave Vitter and Larry Craig. If I were a Democrat I wouldn't even leave the house at night from now until the election.

UPDATE: On the other hand, it could have been a routine investigation into financial improprieties triggered in a perfectly reasonable way. But the well of justice is poisoned by consistent partisanship.

Wiretaps

I guess that Eliot Spitzer was caught on a federal wiretap asking for a prostitute to be sent from New York to Washington, DC. The law is pretty clear on this and that's a violation of the Mann Act.

However, the Mann Act is occasionally used for political purposes. And the bigger story here is how normal it is for federal wiretaps to be used in prostitution cases. We have this situation where the Terrorists are lurking and ready to kill us in our beds at night, according to Republicans, and let US Attorneys are spending their time on this. And after reading this report in the Wall Street Journal, I think it's not much of a leap to consider how these wiretaps could be used for partisan political purposes.

Here's the way the whole thing works, according to Gorman: into the NSA's massive database goes data collected by the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury. This information includes data about email (recipient and sender address, subject, time sent), internet searches (sites visited and searches conducted), phone calls (incoming and outgoing numbers, length of call, location), financial information (wire transfers, credit-card use, information about bank accounts), and information from the DHS about airline passengers.

Then the NSA's software analyzes this data for indications of terrorist activity. When it hits upon a suspicious pattern, the NSA "feeds its findings into the effort the administration calls the Terrorist Surveillance Program and shares some of that information with other U.S. security agencies.”

Here's a more in-depth explanation:

"Two former officials familiar with the data-sifting efforts said they work by starting with some sort of lead, like a phone number or Internet address. In partnership with the FBI, the systems then can track all domestic and foreign transactions of people associated with that item -- and then the people who associated with them, and so on, casting a gradually wider net. An intelligence official described more of a rapid-response effect: If a person suspected of terrorist connections is believed to be in a U.S. city -- for instance, Detroit, a community with a high concentration of Muslim Americans -- the government's spy systems may be directed to collect and analyze all electronic communications into and out of the city.

The haul can include records of phone calls, email headers and destinations, data on financial transactions and records of Internet browsing. The system also would collect information about other people, including those in the U.S., who communicated with people in Detroit."

You can't tell me that such a massive drift net can't be employed in a situation like this, and to furthermore take down every single Democratic politician in the country if they ever got so much as near trouble. It's really not a conspiracy; this stuff is publicly available and out there.

At the very least, we should continue to question the enormity of the national surveillance state that we have created over the last several years. I don't personally think prostitution should be illegal; it's a victimless crime and it should be properly regulated rather than the shadow environment in which it exists today where exploitation is rampant. If it remains a crime, certainly it should be prosecuted. But let's prioritize the criminal justice system. And let's keep heavy oversight over this surveillance state which is spinning out of control.

...In this context, I'd say that fixing FISA is of paramount importance.

...I completely agree with this and I wish we'd shuffle off those Puritan bonds of history, but these are the laws we have:

If I were in charge of writing laws, I do not believe that anyone belongs in jail for procuring or (certainly) selling sex for money, or that any criminal offense more severe than a ticket for the purchaser should be involved.

If poor sex workers are thrown in jail under existing laws, then affluent white johns sure as hell should be too. This goes double for people who have positions that might allow them to work to repeal laws they don't feel are just.

... Glenn Greenwald also has some worthy thoughts. Our discomfort as a nation with sex and morality really becomes pronounced at moments like this.

Politicians Are People

This is an object lesson into why you should not invest yourself so heavily into politicians.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

Mr. Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides early this afternoon, had hours earlier abruptly canceled his scheduled public events for the day. He is set to make an announcement about 2:15 this afternoon at his Manhattan office.

Mr. Spitzer, a first-term Democrat who pledged to bring ethics reform and end the often seamy ways of Albany, is married with three children.

Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved.

I really, really liked Eliot Spitzer when he was a reformist Attorney General, and his campaign for Governor was first-rate. I could probably dig up my "Spitzer 2008" blog post from a couple years back. His first term in Albany was tumultuous but he's proven himself a partisan fighter. But he's a person, and people have their own issues and peccadilloes, and nobody should be particularly shocked. Democrats have pretty much voided their ability to say this kind of thing doesn't matter, after relentlessly focusing on Republican sexual deviancy over the years. And that's sad, because it really doesn't matter all that much in the big picture. In the case of many Republicans, there is an issue of hypocrisy at work, as the ones most vocal about family values typically become the ones most likely to be involved in these scandals. And that's fair game. There is a kind of hypocrisy issue at work here considering that Spitzer ran as a crime fighter and a reformer, and he's broken the law if he's involved in a prostitution ring.

The larger point is that politicians are not demigods. They should not be seen as if they walk on water. They're people and they've been given tremendous power and that can have a negative influence. In the current primary fight, we should consider this and try to keep an even keel.

...What didn't become clear in the Sen. David Vitter case, for some insane reason, is that this behavior is against the law in the states where these officials are alleged to have engaged in it. Somehow Vitter avoided that and kept his job. There may be a double standard, but that wouldn't make it right for Spitzer, just more wrong for Vitter. The standard should not be set by David Vitter. If anything, this should increase pressure on him to resign, too. I can't see Spitzer keeping his job, so why should Vitter?

... Spitzer's comment was vague and noncommital. Maybe he's doing the Vitter/Larry Craig strategy and just waiting around for everyone to forget about this.

"What Is Your Least Favorite Word?" "Bitch Betta Have My Money."

This can't be true, can it?

James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors' Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France.

The revered TV presenter, who has sat down with Hollywood's biggest names for in-depth chats about their life and work over the last 13 years, has revealed he once procured clients for French hookers.

He says, "This was when I was very very young, living in Paris, penniless, unable to get any kind of working permit... I had a friend who worked in what is called the Milieu, which is that world and she suggested to me one night, `Look, you'll be my mec... We would translate it perhaps... as pimp.

"We were earning our living together, this young woman and I, we made a rather good living, I must say."

I stopped watching Lipton when he ran out of actors and decided to interview noted thespian Billy Joel, but I think I'll have to start again. At least when the comedians go on. How could you NOT bring up that he was a French pimp?

By the way, if I'm a young American looking for action in Paris, the last person I'm going to go to for help in trying to get my rocks off is James Lipton, whose face and voice just screams "will cut you up in an alley and dump you in the Seine."

Try Getting This Image Out Of Your Memory

Ick.

A prostitute whom prosecutors say a defense contractor provided to former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham testified Wednesday that the congressman fed her grapes as she sat naked in a hot tub before they headed to a bedroom at a Hawaiian resort.

Is dry heaving due to something I read that's not work-related on company time covered on my group plan?

(This came out in the Brent Wilkes trial, by the way, as just one of the gifts offered in bribe from the defense contractor to members of Congress. But if you're reading this far, you have an AMAZINGLY strong stomach.)

The New Gay Panic Defense

So, is Wide Stance Larry Craig really arguing that, because one local newspaper questioned him one time about being gay, he got so panicked that he pleaded guilty to trolling for gay sex in a bathroom? Doesn't pleading guilty make it MORE likely that he'd be seen as a gay man? And since when is "I was trying to bury the story" an acceptable reason for a court to withdraw a guilty plea? Isn't it illegal to lie to a court? Isn't Craig ADMITTING that he's done so? And wouldn't a lawmaker be expected to know the law?

I understand that Craig isn't actually guilty of much more than tapping his feet, and that he apparently got slightly harsher treatment than others caught up in this sting. But isn't that because he plea bargained instead of fighting the law? According to the Republicans on the Hill, he'd still have his seniority if he didn't plead guilty to a crime. Hell, I just saw David Vitter questioning Crocker and Petraeus in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the evidence that he's been adulterous is far greater than in the case of Wide Stance (and will get even greater today, as a New Orleans prostitute is going to come forward with details of a long affair).

This ridiculousness just got a bit more ridiculous.

Bob Allen Wins The "Most Offensive Excuse" Award

Florida State Representative Bob Allen, one of John McCain's co-chairs in the Sunshine State, was arrested a couple weeks back for offering an undercover policeman 20 dollars to perform oral sex on him. I wrote about it at the time. The police report is pretty unambiguous.

The officer: "I was standing against the far wall of the stall. Allen closed the door behind him and stood against it. I said "what's up" and Allen said "Hi." Allen then said "this is kind of a public place isn't it." I said "do you have somewhere else where we can go?" Allen said "How about across the bridge it's quite [sic] over there." Allen engaged me in a conversation in which he agreed to pay me $20.00 in order to perform a "blow job" on me."

It took Allen a couple weeks, but he managed to come up with the dumbest excuse in the history of mankind.

State Rep. Bob Allen told police he was just playing along when a undercover officer suggested in a public restroom that the legislator give him oral sex and $20 because he was intimidated, according to a taped statement and other documents released Thursday.

..."This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," Allen, who is white, told police in a taped statement after his arrest. Allen said he feared he "was about to be a statistic" and would have said anything just to get away. Allen, who couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, has repeatedly declared his innocence, his intention to fight the charges and his desire to stay in office.

OK, pop quiz time. You're the kind of person who thinks every African-American is about to steal your wallet, and you encounter a "stocky black guy" in a bathroom one day. Do you:

A) walk out of the bathroom calmly but insistently
B) pretend you have a gun and shout "You'll never take me alive!"
C) talk about how much you love hip-hop in order to get on his good side
D) WALK INTO THE BATHROOM STALL with the black guy and offer to give him 20 bucks and a hummer

Now, if your goal is to leave the bathroom unharmed, and you're afraid of scary stocky black men, I think "D" would be fourth on the list of four. But of course, I'm not Bob Allen.

This is essentially the Homer Simpson defense; making a bad situation worse.

Insurance Man: And this "Moe's" - is this some sort of business?
Homer's Brain: Don't say you were at a bar, don't say you were at a bar... But what else is open at midnight?
Homer: It's a pornography store. I was buying pornography.

Incidentally, McCain probably has the least criminal staff out of all of the top tier. Why, none of his advisers have been indicted for selling coke, or impersonated a police officer, or was a Watergate-era spy.

Resignation

That Denny Hastert is possibly about to resign is pretty much expected; a Speaker of the House suddenly pushed to the back bench is a shock to the system that quickly leads to the backbencher seeking to find another line of work.

But I didn't expect Senator Diaper to lose the Republican Party so quickly. Isn't EVERYONE in that party a hypocrite? Why does this one rankle everyone so much? I mean, he lost Hannity? HANNITY? That's like God losing Pat Robertson.

Of course, Vitter is up for a criminal violation, but again, this isn't unique to the GOP. I guess I have major scandal fatigue.

UPDATE: John Kerry didn't botch this joke...

"There once was a man named Vitter/Who vowed that he wasn't a quitter," Kerry began. "But with stories of women/And all of his sinnin'/He knows his career's in the — oh, never mind."

The Duke-Stir

Via Yglesias, Duke Cunningham got mad that his buddy Brent Wilkes always got the better prostitutes, and he had trouble performing, but eventually he did not have sex with the girl “because he felt guilty about his behavior."

He felt guilty about sex with the not-so-young and not-so-cute prostitute that he couldn't get it up for. The cute one would have been fine.

Do prostitutes have special Congressional rates?

Meanwhile there might be a bunch more of these coming down the pike. I'm inclined to believe that there's nobody more deviant than a family values conservative.

Shorter David Vitter

From yesterday's news conference:

I only saw prostitutes in DC and never in New Orleans, and the people making up these lies will have to answer to their Lord by praying on it. My marriage is Sacred and I wouldn't sully it by seeing prostitutes in two different places.

Holy Crap

I had been trying to understand if this latest Republican lawmaker to become embroiled in a sex scandal was offering to perform for money or offering money to receive services. Apparently he was OFFERING MONEY TO PERFORM.

Titusville police were at Veteran’s Memorial Park on East Broad Street on a burglary detail when they noticed an unshaven man acting suspicious, going in and out of the restroom three times, said Lt. Todd Hutchinson.

An undercover officer decided to go into one of the bathroom stalls, Hutchinson said. Moments later, Allen knocked on the stall door and offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $20, according to the police spokesman.

So wait. I get $20 AND I get sucked off? How am I losing here? (If I was a gay man and enjoyed rather large gay closeted Republicans performing oral sex on me, that is.)

This guy was so closeted that he doesn't even understand the ECONOMICS of undercover bathroom sex. As Bradrocket sez:

You know, I always find it funny that somebody would have to offer someone money in order to give them oral sex. I mean, most people will take oral sex for free. Anyone who has to pay money just to give it must be the least talented person ever.

Go there, too, for the picture, which is priceless. Did I mention that this guy is a McCain supporter? (Maybe he was doing some badly-needed fundraising.)

Sharks Are Circling Around Vitter

Wow, I figured that the "It's OK If You're A Republican" rule would apply to David Vitter, but now that the revelations are expanding, Republican lawmakers in Louisiana are calling for Vitter's head, and even casting around for a replacement (and trying to force the Democratic governor to appoint a Republican one).

Lots of people commit adultery; most of them are running for the Republican nomination for President. Why is Vitter's adultery somehow meriting a resignation?

Could it have anything to do with diapers?

UPDATE: With Vitter in Giuliani's stable, McCain supporters have taken to soliciting sex in a men's room to catch up in the all-important sex scandal race. "We cannot afford a sex scandal gap!" exclaimed Gen. Buck Turgidson McCain, probably on his cell phone in the Capitol cloakroom when he was illegally engaging in campaign activities on Senate grounds.