Tag Archives: Eliot Spitzer

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Spitzer’s bad year just got worse

Eliot Spitzer’s year — which was a rocky journey to begin with — has ended with a crash.

The former New York governor and his wife, Silda, are divorcing. OK, so that’s not so uncommon these days. In Spitzer’s case, though, it’s a rather public parting of the ways.

http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/193986-spitzers-split-after-26-years-on-christmas-eve

Spitzer was governor of New York until 2008 when he resigned after admitting to fooling around with hookers. Silda stood stone-faced by his side when he quit. Then he had a brief fling as a CNN commentator. The network dumped him when his ratings tanked. This year, Spitzer ran for New York City comptroller and lost that race, too.

Then reports began to surface that Spitzer had struck up a relationship with an aide to New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio. Sometime during all of this, Silda and Eliot separated and were living apart.

Christmas Eve wasn’t full of much cheer for the former New York power couple as they announced their pending divorce.

I don’t usually spend too much time hashing this kind of thing over, but Spitzer’s inability to bow out of the limelight after the hooker blowup makes him an easy target.

He should have just called it quits back then, retreated into private life and sought to restore his marriage behind closed doors. Spitzer didn’t do that. He continued to thrust himself into the spotlight, apparently forgetting that in this age of prying eyes and ears everywhere no one can escape public scrutiny.

Maybe now he’ll disappear from public view.

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Scandals know no partisan bounds

A word of caution is due to Republicans here and across the country as they watch the struggles of three well-known Democratic politicians.

Let’s not gloat, folks.

Anthony Weiner wants to run for mayor of New York. Bob Filner already is mayor of San Diego, Calif. Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, now wants to become NYC’s comptroller. All three of them have made headlines for (in order) sending text messages and videos of a certain functional body part to women; groping and speaking hideously to female staffers; consorting with prostitutes.

Some Republicans are relishing the troubles that have befallen these Democrats. One noted conservative columnist and Fox News TV commentator, Michelle Malkin, recently tweeted about how silent Rep. Nancy Pelosi and other Dems have been about Filner’s difficulty; I responded to her with a tweet that advised her to cool the “partisan perv” talk.

The record shows that Republicans have endured more than their share of sexually related difficulties. To wit:

House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s extramarital affair with a staffer while he was blasting President Clinton for his own marital misbehavior; U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana becoming involved with a call girl; U.S. Rep. Mark Foley’s email flirtations with underage congressional pages; U.S. Sen. John Ensign’s marital infidelity; U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s arrest (and this is my favorite scandal) for making indecent sexual advances to others inside a men’s restroom at a Minnesota airport.

Let’s stipulate that all three men now caught in the sexual perversion vise — Weiner, Filner and Spitzer — deserve every bit of the scorn they’re getting.

Misbehavior by male politicians, though, hardly is a partisan endeavor. Pols from both parties in recent years have garnered their share of infamy.