This day in history - June 5, 1963: John Profumo resigns

By Richard K. Barry

The Profumo Affair was a 1963 British political scandal named after John Profumo, Secretary or State for War. Profumo had an affair with Christine Keeler (pictured above), who was also reputed to have been involved with a Russian spy.

Not only was Profumo married but Keeler was a "London call girl" (a quaint term of the time). And an affair that close to a Russian spy was surely bad form in the middle of the Cold War.

Revelation of the whole sordid entanglement was, as one would imagine, devastating, as was the fact that Profumo lied about it in the House of Commons when questioned.

He was forced to resign, which badly damaged the reputation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillian's government. Macmillan himself resigned a few months later due to ill health.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

My views on Weinergate

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Reluctantly, I wade in...

First, if Rep. Weiner really did tweet a photo of his penis, or rather of his underwear with a prominent bulge, he's an idiot (among other things). Have we not learned that social networking, like much of the Internet (e.g., Craigslist), isn't private?

Second, he's not handling the crisis well. Even if he didn't do it, even if he finds the media's obsession ridiculous, he should know that treating the media poorly will only hurt him more (and make it seem as if he's done something wrong that he's trying to cover up. Given the absence of facts, what matters is image, and his image is suffering.

Third, this may very well have been (yet another) conservative dirty trick, with someone hacking into Weiner's Twitter account. Breitbart? Someone operating with Breitbart's backing? Maybe. It would fit the profile.

Fourth, Weiner's lawyer is looking into "what civil or criminal actions should be taken, but why hasn't a formal investigation been launched yet, by Capitol Police or the FBI? Shouldn't Weiner want there to be an investigation?

Fifth, is it Weiner? (Whether it is or isn't, how ridiculously stupid is this? A poll asking if it's him? How would anyone know? What bothers me as much as anything about "Weinergate" (because, of course, it has to be a "-gate," is how lascivious the media are, not to mention much of the public.) 

Sixth, who cares?

Too sexy for his seat: Rep. Chris Lee resigns over Craigslist scandal

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well.

I'm not sure this story needs all that much commentary. It's just so juicy as is:

Rep. Christopher Lee, R-N.Y., abruptly resigned from the House of Representatives Wednesday afternoon after a report emerged that he had sent flirtatious e-mails, including one with a bare-chested photo of himself, to a woman he met on Craigslist.

Lee is married and has a young child.

"It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of Western New York. I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness," Lee said in a statement Wednesday evening.

"The challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, and so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately."

On Wednesday, the gossip website Gawker posted a story that included the e-mails allegedly exchanged between Lee and the unnamed woman. According to the story, a single 34-year-old woman from Maryland posted an ad on Craigslist's "Women for Men" section on Jan. 14. Soon afterwards a man named Christopher Lee replied, identifying himself as a 39-year-old divorced lobbyist.

In the exchange that followed, Lee reportedly sent the woman an e-mail including a photo of Lee with his shirt off, flexing his arms and chest. The woman later broke off her correspondence with Lee after she did an online search for him and determined that he had lied about his age and his job, the Gawker story reported. 

Well, you know what? There are any number of snarky comments that I could make, but why? A lot of people keep things hidden, and of course no one's perfect, and actually this story, while great fodder for a site like Gawker, is quite sad. How does his wife feel? What about their marriage? Was he unhappy or just horny, or both? Can he put his life back together?

To his credit, he immediately took responsibility for his actions, apologizing and stepping down (which may be more than should be expected of him -- how many in Congress have done, and/or are doing, far worse?). We don't know the details beyond the Gawker story, we don't know what he was thinking/feeling, and we don't know anything about his relationship with his wife, nor what is now going on behind closed doors. There is a temptation to play up a scandal like this, to wallow in the muck, to tsk-tsk and express our supposed moral superiority. Personally, I think we should just leave him alone.

Yes, this is yet another Republican "sex" scandal, as Steve Benen notes, and Republicans, unlike Democrats, usually get away with it. But to me -- and, again, we don't know the details -- this is different than what, say, Mark Sanford did (use of government resources, repeated lying), or what David Vitter did (adultery with prostitutes), or what Larry Craig did (seeking gay sex in an airport washroom and denying it while being rigidly anti-gay). And he's not denying it, he's admitting it and taking responsibility for himself. There's something to be said for that, is there not?

So let's see. For now, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and to take his apology as sincere and his commitment to seek forgiveness as genuine.

**********

Here's Gawker's salacious image:

Yet another Berlusconi (sex) scandal

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here we go again:

Silvio Berlusconi's political career is once again in jeopardy after prosecutors today accused him of paying a "significant" number of women to have sex with him at parties he hosted last year.

Investigators also claim to have "ample investigative evidence" that Berlusconi provided flats for the women in return for sex at a Milan housing complex he built in the 1970s before entering politics.

He is already under investigation on suspicion of paying for sex with one of his guests, Karima el-Mahroug, a Moroccan belly dancer known as Ruby Rubacuori, when she was 17 – an offence under Italian law. He is also suspected of pressuring police into freeing her from custody after she was arrested on suspicion of theft last May.

Prosecutors outlined their case today in a document sent to parliament to seek permission to raid the Milan offices of a Berlusconi accountant they suspect of handling payments to the women.

The prime minister emerged with his popularity intact after accusations in 2009 that he held similar parties in Rome and slept with a prostitute. But with his parliamentary majority now under threat, the recent overturning of an immunity law and a criminal conviction now possible, the latest scandal may prove more damaging and lead to elections this spring.

Yes, maybe, but it's already amazing that Berlusconi has managed to keep his political career, at the highest level, going this far.

Well, no, it isn't. The rampant corruption in Italian society has been widely documented -- just read or watch Gomorrah, for example, or read The Monster of Florence -- and so it's hardly surprising that the country's political leader is himself as corrupt as they come, an oligarch who controls a great deal of the Italian media.

And when you already have the media in behind you, or in front of you, or all around you, spinning your lies and defending you no matter what, well...

I'm tempted to write that the Italians have the prime minister they deserve, and that there won't be meaningful change until they refuse to put up with this shit anymore.

One thing's clear, though: Berlusconi deserves more than just a punch in the face.

Am I advocating violence? No, no. He and his anti-democratic media empire just need to be kept as far away from political power as possible.

Unless, of course, Italians are happy living in a pseudo-democracy under the authoritarian rule of a veritable thug. I suppose it's up to them.

(photo)

MSNBC blacklists Kos: A tale of murder, Twitter, and media double standards

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Did you know that in 2001, around the time Chandra Levy, an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, disappeared and media attention focused on Democratic Rep. Gary Condit, with whom Levy, who was from Condit's district, had had an affair, there was another serious incident, if one that received far less attention, involving a young woman, one Lori Klausutis, who worked for then-Rep. Joe Scarborough, now a big-shot MSNBC host?

I didn't either, until I read about Markos "Kos" Moulitsas being blacklisted from MSNBC.

It's still not clear what happened, but the 28-year-old Klausutis died at Scarborough's office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The mystery surrounds how she died, and if anyone else was involved. Conspiracy theories abound that Scarborough himself was involved, but nothing, it seems, has ever come of them. Kos wrote about the incident back in 2005.

Well, as Kos writes, Scarborough was all over the Joe Sestak "scandal" (the allegation that the White House offered Sestak a job to keep him from challenging Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter in this year's Pennsylvania Senate race. (Sestak challenged and won the nomination.) Scarborough accused the media of neglecting to give the story, such as it was one, its due. In response, Kos tweeted: "Like story of a certain dead intern..." Scarborough fired back, accusing Kos of having "a long history of spreading lies" and of calling him a murderer. Kos replied that he had never called Scarborough a murder, noting that the issue was "media hypocrisy": "But he was Dem. You aren't."

Maybe there's nothing to the conspiracy theories, but Kos certainly wasn't pushing them. Rather, all he did was bring up the lack of media coverage of Klausutis's death. But that was enough to send Scarborough over the edge, and the upshot is that Kos has been blacklisted from MSNBC. As MSNBC head Phil Griffin put it in a statement reprinted (in full) by Kos:

Yes, after I became aware of the ugly cheap shot  you  took at Joe on Twitter, I asked the teams to take a break from booking you on our shows for a while. I found the comments to be in poor taste, and utterly uncalled for in a civil discourse.

I'm hoping this will be only temporary and that the situation can be resolved in a mature fashion, but until then I just don't know how one could reasonably expect to be welcomed onto our network while publicly antagonizing one of our hosts at the same time.

The DailyKos community has been among the most supportive of MSNBC, and we continue to appreciate that support.

Well, a lot of people antagonize MSNBC hosts. Are you not welcome on the network if you've ever criticized Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann? And, again, it's not like Kos called Scarborough a murderer. All he did was bring up a subject that Scarborough finds uncomfortable, one for obvious reasons he would rather consign forever to the dustbin of his own sordid past, far away from prying eyes.

What Kos is getting at here is that there appears to be a double standard, just as there was with the coverage of Levy/Klausutis, one driven by partisanship and ideology. And it's all about the media giving conservatives a free pass. It may not be clear-cut, and there may be exceptions to it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

Meanwhile, the Kos-Scarborough flare-up probably could have been handled more maturely, but it's really only Kos's first tweet that went a bit too far (if anything, he could have been more tactful). After that, it was Scarborough who lost it, throwing a "temper tantrum" and complaining to his boss (who "lets Scarborough call the shots" and so who was bound to side with his low-rated morning host).

Regardless, it's pretty stupid for MSNBC to blacklist a major progressive voice and new media icon like Markos Moulitsas. It would do well to rethink its priorities, and to think through its double standards.

John Ensign, money launderer

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I think we all know that Repubican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada is a breathtaking hypocrite. But did you also know that he is, quite possibly, a criminal money launderer, and that an indictment may be on the way? As the Las Vegas Sun reported yesterday:

In the federal penal code, it is known as "structuring."

And it is a word Sen. John Ensign should remember because it is very likely to be on any indictment with his name on it.

*****

Structuring is a broad term that refers to the crime of creating financial transactions to evade reporting requirements -- for example, a $96,000 payment to your mistress laundered through a trust controlled by your parents and calling it a "gift" instead of what it obviously was: a severance payment that had to be reported.

That the feds are looking at structuring as a possible crime will not surprise many old hands who have watched the sordid Ensign saga play out, morphing from a fairly grotesque he-slept-with-his-best-friend's-wife-who-was-also-his-wife's-best-friend story to a fantastically creepy tale of a senator trying to keep the cuckolded husband quiet by any means necessary, including, perhaps, structuring transactions with businesses in exchange for campaign contributions.

Of course, in the Republican Party, money laundering, like infidelity and bribery, may very well be considered a core family value, so perhaps Ensign's conduct in this matter isn't all that surprising. But it's a good thing that the FBI is looking into it.

As Steve Benen explains, "Ensign's controversy, for quite a while, looked like a simple sex scandal -- the 'family-values' conservative was sleeping with one of his aides who happened to be married to another one of his aides. But as we've seen the matter unfold in recent months, there's now ample reason to believe the Republican senator may also include ethics violations, hush money, and official corruption."

For more on this and similar Republican scandals (e.g., Vitter, Sanford), and on how Republicans tend to "forgive and forget" their own kind, see this great post by Mustang Bobby from last year. It includes this Ensign-related quote from Salon's Joe Canason:

For more than a decade, Ensign lent his name to Promise Keepers, the all-male Christian prayer movement run by a former Colorado football coach, whose mass rallies highlighted men's integrity, purity and uncompromising domination of family life. Both he and Sanford have worked closely with the Family, a secretive Christian fellowship on Capitol Hill that maintains a brick townhouse where Ensign and other members of Congress have resided. Over the years both men have won the highest marks from the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association...

Awesome.

Frack you: The self-aggrandizing dishonesty of Eric "The Groper" Massa

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yesterday, I called Eric Massa the Worst Democrat of the Day for a variety of reasons.

Well, Massa went to Glennbeckistan last night and admitted to having "groped" and "tickled" a male staffer at his 50th birthday party:

He also said he'd used rough language when he shouldn't have and that he had jokingly told a male staffer at a wedding reception that he'd rather have sex with him than with one of the bridesmaids.

But, Massa told Beck, "I did nothing sexual."

He said he had done "things that were wrong," but he suggested that his only real sin -- aside from "salty" talk -- was that he had allowed himself to become too familiar with his staff.

Uh-huh, sure. Is he lying or is he really that (self-)delusional?

Because it seems that there was more going on than the ex-Congressman would care to admit:

Not long after Eric Massa joined Congress in January 2009, several male staff members began to feel uncomfortable with the sexually loaded language their boss routinely used, according to accounts relayed to the House ethics committee.

As the months passed, rumors began to circulate in Congress that the married New York Democrat had sexually propositioned young male staffers and interns in his office, allegations, according to two sources with knowledge of the inquiry, that included Massa groping at least two aides. In the second week of February, Massa's deputy chief of staff contacted the office of Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer for help in dealing with the accusations.

According to two sources familiar with the investigation, Ron Hikel, Massa's former deputy chief of staff, provided the information about the staffers' allegations to the House ethics committee three weeks ago. Hikel had earlier sought advice from Hoyer's office about internal complaints, the sources said, and had been urged to report the allegations to the panel.

Upon becoming aware of the claims, Hoyer (D-Md.) gave Massa an ultimatum, his office confirmed: report the staffers' complaints to the ethics committee within 48 hours, or Hoyer would do it for them. Last week, the panel's investigation became public, and Massa resigned, effective Monday. 

And yet Massa insists on lashing out at Rahm Emanuel and blaming his situation, claiming he was forced out, on the Democratic House leadership, which, in his polluted mind, wanted him out so as to have one less No vote on health-care reform?

Uh-huh, sure. Does anybody outside of Glenn Beck and his ilk actually think this guy's story is credible? He refuses to take the blame for anything, only vaguely admits to doing some "wrong" things, like "tickle fights" and "inappropriate language," and, offender that he is, tries to direct the focus elsewhere, anywhere else but on himself, attacking his own party and turning to Beck to spin his nonsense (like that it's all about his health-reform vote when, as we know, this all started long before his vote mattered).

Massa may very well be "a very sick person," as Nancy Pelosi put it, referring to his health problems, but it would seem that he's also sick in a different way, either deeply delusional or deeply dishonest -- or perhaps both.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Eric Massa

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That would be (now former) Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), who has resigned, effective today.

And he's the worst for so much:

-- For (allegedly) sexually harrassing one of his aides at a party on New Year's Eve, and for frequently using "salty" (his word) and otherwise "inappropriate" (also his word) language in the workplace.

-- For initially claiming that he was resigning because he has cancer (and thereby likely lying).

-- For trying to excuse his behaviour/language on his time in the U.S. Navy, where, apparently, it's fine to be a foul-mouthed lout.

-- For blaming Democratic House leaders for his demise: Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill. And this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they've gotten rid of me, and it will pass. You connect the dots." When I connect the dots, what I see is that Massa is an idiot. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has pushed back, asserting that he told Massa's staff to report the harrassment complaint a month ago. Actually, it's not clear what the House ethics committee is investigating, but it seems that Massa's inappropriate behaviour goes back many months, long before his vote on health-care reform mattered so much.

-- For viciously attacking Rahm Emanuel: "Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive." I'm not a big Rahm fan myself, but come on. This is laughable in its excess.

-- For regurgitating Republican talking points (i.e., propaganda) on health-care reform (more shoving the bill down our throats nonsense, which we've heard from countless Republicans).

-- Looking ahead, for going on Glenn Beck's show later today to attack and blame Democrats (what else?), and no doubt also to be lauded as a true American hero of Glennbeckistan.

-- And for being, in general, a pretty reprehensible figure. I feel sorry for him with regards to his very serious health problems, but, as for his political career, good riddance.

The end of David Paterson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may have heard, New York Gov. David Paterson has announced that he will not seek re-election. (Or, rather, will not seek election. He was, after all, not elected to the office of governor but appointed, by succession, following Spitzer's scandal-fueled resignation.) He pulled out, following a good deal of justifiable speculation in the New York media, "amid crumbling support from his party and an uproar over his administration's intervention in a domestic violence case involving a close aide."

It is not clear what he did or didn't do in the matter of that "close aide," David Johnson. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, himself with designs on the governor's mansion in Albany, will investigate.

And it could very well be that LG&M's Scott Lemieux is right:

One thing worth noting is that, while it will get much less attention (especially nationally), the scandal that seems to have ended Paterson's political career would in any rational world be considered much more serious than those that have presumably ended the political careers of the likes of Mark Sanford or John Edwards. (Or, although the commercial transaction makes it slightly trickier, Elliot Spitzer.) Without getting in to moral comparisons, abusing the powers of your office to protect a domestic abuser strikes me as much worse than consensual adultery from the standpoint of one's fitness to stand in office.

Again, there's a lot we don't know yet. And I'm not so sure the moral/ethical distance between Paterson and Sanford is all that great, given that the latter lied about his whereabouts and used state resources to conduct his, er, affairs. Still, Paterson almost makes Spitzer look good, in retrospect -- at least Spitzer, after all, knew what he was doing, was a compelling figure (and remains one today), and didn't seem thoroughly incompetent, and worse.

Nice parents you've got there, John Ensign

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Politico:

Sen. John Ensign's parents shelled out big bucks to pay off their son's mistress, the latest twist in an unfolding scandal that has upended the political career of the one-time rising GOP star.

*****

On Thursday, Ensign's attorney said that the senator's parents gave Doug Hampton, Cynthia Hampton and their two children gifts worth $96,000 in the form of a check. The attorney, Paul Coggins, said that each gift was limited to $12,000 and "complied with tax rules governing gifts."

Meanwhile, Roll Call:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Thursday said he would not testify in court or before the Ethics Committee about any advice he gave Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) on how to handle his affair with a former staffer, citing constitutional protections for communications during religious counseling, as well as the patient confidentiality privilege.

"I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon... That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the Ethics Committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody," Coburn said.

Coburn repeatedly denied allegations that he urged Ensign to pay Doug Hampton, the husband of his mistress Cynthia, millions in hush money following a confrontation with Hampton. "I categorically deny everything he said," Coburn said.

Good times in the densely populated world of Republican scandal, corruption, and hypocrisy. (And that includes Coburn's bullshit excuse. Yeah, sure he was providing Ensign with medical and religious counsel.)

Blago impeached, Burris exposed

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Blago, in case you missed it. And what a worthy fellow he is.

**********

And let me repeat: There's no way the Senate should seat Roland Burris -- even if Obama wants him seated. It looked like it was inevitable, what with Reid et al. ingloriously caving in, but now it has emerged that Burris did, contrary to his own initial testimony, "[reach] out to a close friend and former chief of staff to [Blagojevich] to discuss the Senate seat. That appears to contradict Burris' statement in a sworn affidavit that he had no contact with any of the governor's 'representatives.'"

Burris, of course, is defending himself, claiming that the "close friend," Lon Monk, was no longer one of Blago's representatives, but Burris clearly knew that what he told Monk would get through to Blago. As he told Monk, "[i]f you're close to the governor, you know, let him know I'm certainly interested in the seat."

Corruption runs rampant. So does the lying.

And now the whole Burris affair goes back to Reid. I have no confidence in him whatsoever -- but maybe, with Blago now impeached, and with Burris caught lying, just maybe he'll reconsider. (But I doubt it. I suspect we're stuck with Sen. Burris.)

Whoa!

By Carl

Well, I figured there would be some fallout from the whole Illinois corruption thing, going back to the Rezko trial, but this?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges.

Blagojevich and Harris were accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that included Blagojevich conspiring to sell or trade the Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. The governor was also accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.

Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning.

Ouch. Naturally, Obama's sainthood is tarnished just a little by this revelation, but it doesn't touch him beyond that, as far as anyone is saying. As well, it would have to take a mistake of monumental proportions for this to somehow get tied back to Obama. I suspect he was purposely left completely out of the loop in any way, shape or form. At worst, someone lower-level in his campaign organization will take a fall for even discussing Obama's noninvolvement.

However, it is unlikely that Obama became such a powerful force in Illinois politics without having to dip his hand into this barrel of slime at some point, and that will likely come back to haunt him.

Blagojevich is a particularly unctious little creep, judging by the various investigations that he is or has been the subject of, but Illinois has a long history of people like this, from former governor George Ryan to the infamous Daley machine. It's not pretty.

It's possible that Obama's fast rise was predicated on keeping him out of the muck in this machine, much like Harry Truman managed to win the presidency despite being a member of the Pendergast machine of the '40s and '50s in Missouri. Truman had a few brow-raising favors traded with Pendergast, but much of the dirty work seemed to take place around him but avoiding him directly.

Or he avoiding it.

Either way, the rest is history, and one can hope that the same can be said for Obama.

The difference, of course, is the Republican party today plays a far nastier and unctious game themselves and it's not out of the question that this shadow will hang over and hamper the Obama first term almost as much as the Lewinski affair nearly defined the Clinton legacy.

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

Abuse of power

By Mustang Bobby

Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power as governor in the "Troopergate" incident.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner.

The investigative report concludes that a family grudge wasn't the sole reason for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan but says it likely was a contributing factor.

The Republican vice presidential nominee has been accused of firing a commissioner to settle a family dispute. Palin supporters have called the investigation politically motivated.

Chickens, here's your roost.

Troopergate: Just the facts

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've written about it here and here.

Make sure to check out TPM Muckraker's "everything you need to know" overview here.

__________

AMERICANS DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT SARAH PALIN.

Troopergate: What is Palin hiding?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The truth, no doubt. And the McCain campaign knows it:

Is the McCain campaign afraid of an 'October surprise' involving vice-presidential pick Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska?

The Alaska state senator running an investigation of Gov. Palin says the McCain campaign is using stall tactics to prevent him from releasing his final report by Oct. 31, four days before the November election.

"It's likely to be damaging to the Governor's administration," said Senator Hollis French, a Democrat, appointed the project manager for a bi-partisan State Senate Legislative Counsel Committee investigation of claims that Palin abused her office to get the Alaska public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, fired.

Palin, who has denied any wrongdoing and has said she has nothing to hide, hired private lawyers on Saturday, the day after Sen. McCain announced her as his running mate.

She denies and denies, but her staff was involved, as well as her family (including her husband), and her story keep changing as details emerge.

But did Palin really know nothing about what was going on?

Monegan... said in an interview with The Washington Post's James V. Grimaldi on Friday that the governor repeatedly brought up the topic of her ex-brother-in-law, Michael Wooten, after Monegan became the state's commissioner of public safety in December 2006. Palin's husband, Todd, met with Monegan and presented a dossier of information about Wooten, who was going through a bitter custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly. Monegan also said Sarah Palin sent him e-mails on the subject, but Monegan declined to disclose them, saying he planned to give them to a legislative investigator looking into the matter.

Palin initially denied that she or anyone in her administration had ever pressured Monegan to fire the trooper, but this summer acknowledged more than a half a dozen contacts over the matter, including one phone call from a Palin administration official to a state police lieutenant. The call was recorded and was released by Palin's office this month. Todd Palin told a television reporter in Alaska that he did meet with Monegan, but said he was just "informing" Monegan about the issue, not exerting pressure.

Uh-huh. Sure.

Palin herself may never have "directly asked" Monegan to fire Wooten, but the message was clear. No wonder the McCain campaign is stalling.

When the magic is over...

By Carol Gee

When reputation is lost, things are not the same any more. -- Today's post looks at the current news about lost reputations, and the resulting loss of illusion among those who had believed in them. The reputation of former Governor Eliot Spitzer in the crusader community was shredded in just a matter of days by revelations of his alleged involvement in a prostitution ring. The reputation of Senator Clinton in the Democratic community is under attack because of the candidate's lukewarm criticism of the hurtfully dismissive comments about Senator Obama's candidacy by her former surrogate, former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro. The reputation of the U.S. in the world community has been in decline almost since the turn of the century. In all three cases, when the magic is over, there is hell to pay.

Why is the price so high? It is hard to live with disillusionment. We want to think the best about those leaders in whom we place our trust to do the right thing. We are willing to be followers of those who merit their good reputations because they are believed to be among those who will do the right things. But when we find out that is not the case, the magic is over. Things are not the same thereafter for loyal followers.

Eliot Spitzer -- The former governor of New York made his reputation by rooting out white collar law-breakers, often the last to be found out in our corporation-run society. The hypocrisy of Spitzer's apparent double standard, and the use of his own methods against him, brought this leader down in a matter of just days. To quote from Intel Dump:

Follow the money. That's the age-old guidance for prosecutors, investigators and journalists who want to get to the bottom of anything. If you can find and document the money trail for any organization, you can usually figure out what it's doing, why, and prove it in court.

According to yesterday's New York Times, that's precisely how the federal government first learned of NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer's indiscretions and alleged criminal conduct. A "suspicious activity report" was filed with the IRS — not because someone suspected him of sexual improprieties, but because his bank thought he might have been hiding cash, possibly the result of corrupt activity.

Senator Hillary Clinton -- The Clintons have had a reputation as fighters for civil rights and helpers in the advancement of opportunities for African Americans since former President Bill Clinton took office. The Clinton administration made far more progress than any other administration in integrating African Americans into positions of true power in that administration and in governance in general. And Senator Clinton's apologies may or may not be enough to repair the damage. Memorandum has the late-evening 3/12 story, "Clinton Apologizes to Black Voters," here via Breitbart.com and Devlin Barrett at the AP. To quote:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did something Wednesday night that she almost never does. She apologized. And once she started, she didn't seem able to stop.

The New York senator, who is in a tight race with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, struck several sorry notes at an evening forum sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a group of more than 200 black community newspapers across the country.

U.S. President George W. Bush -- The decline of the reputation of the United States as the nation to whom all others look for leadership seems unprecedented in history. The current administration's record of torture, lying, law-breaking, fiscal profligacy, and subversion of world community institutions would be hard to top by any subsequent administration. To quote the article from the International Herald Tribune (3/12/08):

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist on the international scene, says that whoever succeeds President George W. Bush may restore something of the United States' battered image and standing overseas, but that "the magic is over."

When the magic is over, we have several choices of action. We can deny that anything is different, hoping against hope that "this is all a bad dream." We can pile on, getting caught up in endless cycles of recrimination. Or we can allow ourselves to feel angry for a time about being disillusioned, and then move on to acceptance and forgiveness (not for the offender but for ourselves). Remember, just the passage of time alone can make things better, if we allow it by letting go.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Sex and the shitty

By Carl

I think it's about time to weigh in on a topic that's troubled me all of my adult life, but has been crystalized this week with the scandal surrounding soon-to-be former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

The topic is morality.

I think we can all agree, left and right, that the fundamental struggle for humanity is the balance between individual rights versus society's betterment.

I think we can all agree, as well, that no one gets it right. Or wrong, for that matter.

We liberals are often accused of situational ethos: what's good for the goose is not always good for the gander, depending on the circumstances.

In other words, we strive to protect the individual against the "tyranny of the majority," to use Mill's phrase.

The right wing would claim that they uphold society's rule over the "tyranny of the minority".

Well, neither side has either a lock on morality or a lock on consistency, which is where the "details devil" lies.

For example, the right wing hasn't eaten its own when it comes to Senators David Vitter or Larry Craig, two men who also committed adultery and committed crimes in executing those adulteries (Craig's was not a felony, to be sure). Yet the right wing sure was quick to level calls for Spitzer's resignation.

Similarly, rather than admit that the campaign Hillary Clinton has run is a winning strategy, liberals have painted her as a "Republican lite," as if there was some moral good to come out of running a clean campaign in the primaries, and then gearing up for the general election in a defensive shell.

Myriad other examples abound, of course, and I'll probably include them as this piece goes on, but let me jump ahead a bit.

The fundamental flaw in American society is this: the economic system and the "morality" system are nearly diametrically opposed.

America was created in a Judeo-Christian form, where fair play and compassion for one's neighbors was tantamount.

The American economy was founded in a morally disinterested theory that the individual, striving for his self-betterment, would contribute to society's overall welfare. Yesterday, I wrote how that evolved into a society where government had to step in to fix deeply entrenched social problems, despite the supposed counterbalance of America's moral code.

See, the thing is, money talks. It is objective, easy to measure, has great utility for everyone, thus makes the perfect vehicle for measuring the progress of a nation.

We talk often about the Gross Domestic Product.

When was the last time you heard someone talk about the Gross Moral Product of the country?

It is against this backdrop that morality plays out: my morality and your morality and the right wing morality all must compete head-to-head in an environment where winners are easily found.

You know the bumper sticker: "He who dies with the most toys, wins."

In truth, whatever moral code we have is pretty arbitrary, despite the facade that it is strict, Christian, and widely enforced by society.

It's an extension of the dichotomy you raised in Sunday School: Thou shalt not kill, but people fight wars in God's name, or kill abortion doctors, or bomb Federal offices in Oklahoma City.

There's always a loophole.

This "loopholic morality" becomes magnified the closer you come to real power: it's moral for George Bush to lie us into war, some would say, but not moral for Eliot Spitzer to pay to get laid.

(I'm disregarding the legal aspect of the case: a bad, immoral law should not be obeyed anyway.)

I've even heard liberals make the claim that it was OK for Bill Clinton to have a mistress but for Eliot Spitzer to pay for sex was wrong.

Actually, I thought of a rationale for Spitzer that made pretty good sense to me: by not getting involved with "that (generic) woman," Spitzer avoided dragging another person into his sordid psyche, but also he could portray this as a business decision to have sex for relaxation or release or because he was kinky and his wife wouldn't do whatever it was he needed, like, say diapering.

Getting caught with either a mistress or a hooker would be a bombshell, true, but there's an implied contract, I think, in hiring a hooker. It may not be enforceable like attorney-client privilege, but a hooker who blabs about her (or his) clients will soon find he has no clients at all.

All this leads to the point of this post: sexual mores.

If Bill Clinton made the rest of the world, particularly Europe, embarassed for us, what do you think the reaction is about this story in, say, England, which 50 years ago had it's own "showgirl" scandal, complete with Soviet espionage thrown in as a bonus?

Not surprisingly, they focus on Sptizer's hypocrisy, being known as a straight-arrow, no nonsense prosecutor. There is something to be said about applying one standard of behavior for yourself and then a different one for others. It's not about sex, it's about standards.

Trouble is, those standards, in this instance, wouldn't exist if it wasn't about the sex. There's the rub.

America has a pretty repressed attitude about nearly all things sexual. Most people find something someone else does abhorrent, deviant, and therefore immoral behavior.

Me, I'm pretty tolerant. I don't care if you're an athletic handsome Lothario who travels the country on business getting laid in every town by frustrated housewives, or a fat ugly bisexual domme wannabe who swaps partners like I'd swap baseball cards, that's OK.

I'd like to think that's the way most people are, but I have a sneaking suspicion, based on how sex gets manipulated and perverted by people for other advantages, that I'm in a minority.

Take the woman who gets pregnant, marries the father, then a few years later kicks him out and demands alimony and child support. Sex was a weapon.

Take the guy who demeans his rival by saying to a potential date that he's a womanizer because he has a lot of female friends who find him attractive. "Fear of sex" as a weapon: "Look at all those chicks around him! Look at how he flirts with them!"

Or just look at the gay marriage struggle. Or the abortion fight. Or the persecution of any politician who has even the slightest hint of impropriety in his demeanor.

In this atmosphere, does it surprise anyone that there are women and men, mostly women, who make a pretty good living by indulging sexual fantasies? We're terrified to ask for anything in a relationship that doesn't involve a man, a woman, and a horizontal space.

And does it surprise anyone that, in a society where normal sexual urges are repressed, channeled, and put into boxes like "marriage", "commitment", "romance", and "fidelity", that people will not only stray, but having strayed and found it exciting and good, stray even further? To the point of self-destruction in "polite" society?

I wonder when America is going to grow up?

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Should I stay or should I go now?

By Carl

No doubt you've heard the tale of woe of New York's Democratic (you're welcome, Stewart) Governor, Eliot Spitzer, who unwittingly got caught up in a money laundering operation that revolved around an online prostitution ring.:

The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer's suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes, according to federal officials.

I dare say, this is one of those infrequent moments in politics when you lean back and exhale. It was only sex (so far).

Many in the opposing camp of NY State Republicans, chief among them the ethics-challenged Joe Bruno, have called on Spitzer to resign.

Eliot. No. Don't do it. There is no legitimate rationale, based on what's been made public thus far, for you to resign and indeed, to resign might hamper New York politics far more than the battles you will face going forward.

You have a short window of opportunity to put this behind you quickly. From all accounts, this was money you spent out of your own pocket, and the time taken away was your own time. There have been no allegations that state police accompanied you to the DC hotel or stood guard over you.

The real damage you have done is to yourself and more, to those whose trust you have earned over these past forty eight years: your family.

You've made a general apology, no doubt on the advice of your attorney, and kept it ambiguous, again, on the advice of your attorney. That attorney is likely in negotiations with Federal prosecutors to swing a deal.

Here's the deal you should swing:

-- A blanket but specific apology to the people of New York, to your family and your friends.

-- An acknowledgement that you exhibited poor judgement in your personal life.

-- A refusal to resign. Personal weakness is no reason to give up what could yet be a great governorship. Promise to double your commitment to the job and more, to your family.

-- Personally see to your administration's involvement in the budget negotiations (New York's fiscal year ends March 31). Convene the Council of Three (Senator Majority Leader Bruno, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and yourself) and hammer out the deal. No surrogates. You won't let this distract the state from its business.

This will probably satisfy the DoJ (particularly once Bush is out of office), who are more interested in the money laundering than in counting coup. There is no profit for them in pursuing a two-headed case of prostitution and money laundering. They'd rather focus resources on the real felonious behavior.

One more thing: insist that no charge be levelled against the prostitute in question, the so-called "Kristen". If you walk, she should walk, barring any knowledge of money laundering.

The public humiliation and refocus on your job, particularly in light of your now-dimmed reputation as a stand-up guy, will serve you well.

And make damn sure you remember your wife's birthday this year...

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Hypocrisy and moralism: The fall of Eliot Spitzer and the rise of the double standard

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(See my earlier post here. The updated NYT article is here. ABC looks at the FBI/IRS investigation here.)

Greenwald asks: "Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?" -- "[A]re there actually many people left who care if an adult who isn't their spouse hires prostitutes? Are there really people left who think that doing so should be a crime, that adults who hire other consenting adults for sex should be convicted and go to prison?"

Well, yes, I suspect there are many people who care. America's retrograde views on sex and sexuality are still quite prevalent, after all.

Now, whether such views should or should not be prevalent is another matter, and Glenn is right to question those views. As I mention in my previous post, I think prostitution laws should generally be relaxed -- or, let's be blunt about it, overturned (with restrictions, of course, and highly regulated).

I certainly agree with Glenn that sex with a prostitute (consensual sex for money generally) does not warrant prosecution and imprisonment, and, legally, Spitzer should be treated like anyone else. But I do not agree that, non-legally, he should be treated like anyone else. He is the governor of New York, after all, a prominent politician, a democratic leader. Like it or not, we do need to hold our leaders to higher standards than we do most private citizens. We must be able to trust our leaders -- and is not one of our key criticisms of Bush and those around him? And we certainly do not want our leaders hiring prostitutes.

As liberal as I am on sexual matters -- and I am extremely liberal, I suppose -- I think Spitzer was right when he said he broke his obligations, including his public ones.

Now, does this warrant resignation? No, maybe not. I'd like to know more about what happened before answering that question. My initial reaction is: probably not. (And the same goes for Republicans like Craig and Vitter.)

Is Spitzer a hypocrite? Yes. That much is clear. But, as I wrote in a comment to my post linked above, what bothers me is that he is being treated differently than Republicans (and conservatives generally) who find themselves in similar situations. What they do is deny, then un-deny, then find God and repent (sincerely or not), and express contrition (genuine or not), then blitz the media seeking forgiveness, looking and sounding pathetic and forlorn, then go on with their careers, all forgiven, all forgotten. And what about someone like Gingrich? While Bill Clinton was being persecuted by Republicans, Gingrich among them, he was engaging in rather inappropriate behaviour, at least from the perspective of the moralists. And did Gingrich suffer for it? Hardly. And he is not alone.

This is not to excuse Spitzer, just to note that the hypocrisy is political as well as personal. Republicans, including (or especially) the rabid moralists among them, seem to be able to get away with it, hiding behind their God and lashing out at the "liberal" media when their "sins" are exposed, while Democrats like Spitzer (or Gary Hart, or Bill Clinton, etc.) are treated to the moralistic wrath and partisan hypocrisy of the right and the blatant double standards of the media -- and the hand-wringing of some on the left.

Let us await more details before judging Spitzer, but let us not accept how he is being treated, and how he will continue to be treated, by the moralists and hypocrites on the right and in the media.

Spitzer, prostitution, and superdelegation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

NYT: Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring

**********

Chait at The Plank:

Clinton Loses Superdelegate?

Eliot Spitzer is about to have a news conference, allegedly regarding his involvement with a prostitution ring. (As a customer? Prostitute? Did he handle their finances? We'll see.)

Anyway, let me be the first to go there: Spitzer is a superdelegate and has endorsed Clinton. I assume he may lose his superdelegate vote.

Still waiting for him to speak...

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The NYT article has been updated: "Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation."

Spitzer = Client 9.

Whoops. Nice job, Mr. Crusader.

(Whatever my views on prostitution -- I do think prostitution laws should be relaxed, but, obviously, it doesn't look good when a crusader against prostitution rings gets caught in one himself.)

**********

Spitzer has apologized (via CNN): "I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public, to whom I promised better... I am disappointed that I failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself."

Alas. I have always liked Governor Spitzer, but this looks to be a pretty damaging scandal.

**********

New NYT: "Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who gained national prominence relentlessly pursuing Wall Street wrongdoing, has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a law enforcement official and a person briefed on the investigation."

**********

Update (5:37 pm): It is being reported that Spitzer could resign as early as this evening. Lt. Gov. David Paterson would be sworn in as governor.

What a sudden, and dramatic, political fall.