Lefties Line Up For Spitzer

Even those at the peak of leftist commentary, like Glenn Greenwald, can sense that there's something wrong with the hypocrisy of (soon to be ex?) Gov. Eliot Spitzer:

That hypocrisy precludes me from having any real personal sympathy for Spitzer, and no reasonable person could defend him from charges of rank hypocrisy.

But that doesn't mean he shouldn't get a good, secularist, amoralist defense:

But how can his alleged behavior -- paying another adult roughly $1,000 per hour to travel from New York to Washington to meet him for sex -- possibly justify resignation, let alone criminal prosecution, conviction and imprisonment? Independent of the issue of his hypocrisy -- which is an issue meriting attention and political criticism but not criminal prosecution -- what possible business is it of anyone's, let alone the state's, what he or anyone else does in their private lives with other consenting adults?

Indeed, one of Greenwald's commenters, DCLaw1, takes it a step further, with nodding heads all around:

I have always found it very curious that one of the following, but not the other, is illegal:

(a) Two people have sex, one of them gets paid for it;

(b) Two (or more) people have sex, all of them get paid for it, and it is videotaped and sold to third parties as a commodity.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument why this difference makes any actual sense.

In that, DCLaw1 is absolutely right. They ought to throw the porn stars, directors, producers, gaffers, editors and best boys in the slammer, too. There was a day, before Free Speech got naked, when that would have been what people like then-DA Spitzer did to earn their keep.

Whoa. The heads just stopped nodding.

But the Left has much bigger fish to fry than simple morality in the Spitzer case. As Scott Horton writes in Harpers:

It looks like the Bush Justice Department just bagged themselves another Democratic Governor.

Horton has a figure, undocumented, that under Bush's Justice Department, 5.6 times more cases were opened against Dems than Republicans.

He would like us to think that these are all high profile political cases, but he offers us no data to prove it. In fact, he says, "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."

Let me hazard a guess here. More drug dealers and pimps are Dems than Republicans. Are we being told to elect Clinton or Obama so the purveyors of crack and whores, and crack whores for that matter, will face less prosecution?

And stop me if I'm reaching here, but in watching The Godfather, I never got the sense that anyone in the Corleone circle of influence was a big man in the GOP elite.

Of course, we know from ABC that it was suspicious fund transfers that got Spitzer in trouble, not hooking up with hookers, and we know that it was a bank that initially reported him to the feds, not Karl Rove.

Are we being told to vote for Obama or Hillary so suspicious fund transfers are to be ignored? Hmmm. Maybe.

That seems to be Firedoglake's POV, given the questions asked there:

1. Why would the bank tell the IRS and not Spitzer himself if there was a suspicious transfer?

I believe it's this troubling thing called the law.

2. What is the USA doing prosecuting a prostitution case?

Her point, of course, is that the local DA, not the feds, should be prosecuting it. Certainly that's a harken back to the Clinton admin, whose Justice Department was notoriously soft on sex crimes. But look at the facts: A person from New York was doing business on a large scale with a prostitution ring in DC. Federal jurisdiction, baby.

3. Mike Garcia is a Chertoff crony.

She's following this case a lot closer than I am, but please ... cronyism? Cronyism, thy name is politics. The Dems are all over cronyism during the Bush Admin. It must be because they were exhausted containing their outrage during eight years of Clinton cronyism. This rings of 9/11 Truther Whacko garbage.

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

The answer is Karl Rove, of course! Why ask? And if we're so concerned about such questions, Jane, who leaked the FISA surveillance story to the media?

5. Why did Mike Bloomberg suddenly start talking about running for governor recently?

Could it be because he decided not to run for president? Spitzer is 18 months into his term ... about time to fire up an opposition campaign, ya think?

6. The Mann Act? Are you kidding?

People who don't like prostitution being prosecuted don't like the Mann Act and are always harping about it being a political tool more than a prosecuting tool. But it was written to provide the tool for prosecuting interstate prostitution. I kid you not.

7. Spitzer's been in the line of fire of the GOP hit squad for a while.

Technically, that's not a question. But here's one for you, Jane: What high profile, ambitious Republican has not been in the Dems' line of fire for a while?

Eliot Spitzer's fall is a great personal tragedy and his family has the misfortune of it also being a great political spectacle. By turning his crime and fall into a rant against prostitution laws, Bush, old laws, the GOP, Chertoff and goodness knows what else, the Left is doing their man no favors.

But I'd rather watch their ranting than Spitzer himself, any day.

Sunday Scan

Foreign Aid

A lot of my friends oppose foreign aid, and there are plenty of reasons to feel that way. Not resonate with me, however, is the complaint that we should spend it here instead of there; God knows we spend too much here on swollen entitlement programs as it is, and we have so much plenty that we can afford to give some there.

So I just want to register my sense of pride as President Bush tours Africa to create political support for his President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding request of $30 billion. The Dems don't like the requirement that a third be spent on abstinence education and are threatening to hold up the funds.

Why? What harm would a bit more abstinence to for Africa? What complaints are there that there aren't enough condoms and medications in the $30 billion? And in this aid there is a lesson in Democracy and good governance that Africa desperately needs. As Bush told a crowd in Tanzania:

"I'll just put it bluntly, America doesn't want to spend money on people who steal the money from the people. We like dealing with honest people, and compassionate people. We want our money to go to help human condition and to lift human lives as well as fighting corruption in marketplace economies." (AP)

China is spending billions to woo Africa, but they're not showing compassion at this fundamental level that turns human hearts. Bush's proposal is for money that would be well spent, strategically and compassionately.

Friends Of Barack

The new FOB's -- socialists? Steve Bartin at Newsalert conjures up this passage, from pages 100-101 of Obama's Dreams of My Father:

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout,I chose my friends carefully.The more politically active black students.The foreign students.The Chicanos.The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets.At night,in the dorms,we discussed neocolonialism,Franz Fanon,Eurocentrism,and patriarchy.When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake,we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints.We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure.We were alienated.

Funny, I don't hear "bourgeois" very often in his speeches nowadays.

San Diego Tax Dollars At Work

If you saw city fire fighters on a city fire truck in a gay pride parade, would it ever cross your mind that they were straight, on-duty and required by the city to ride in the parade to represent the city's position, not theirs?

It's true. In San Diego, a group of straight fire fighters is suing the city under sexual harassment laws for requiring them to ride in a Gay Pride parade. San Diego Union Trib columnist Gerry Braun writes,

I've read a few sexual-harassment suits in my time, and I find this one credible. The remarks directed at the firefighters – “You're making me hot!” “You can put out my fire!” “Show me your fire hose!” “I can't breathe, give me mouth to mouth!” “Pull out your hose!” – have been confirmed even by their critics.

How is the gay community, concerned as they are that we all be tolerant, responding to the lawsuit? If you guessed intolerantly, you'd be right. Braun:

An editorial in the Gay & Lesbian Times called the firefighters “sissies” and “wimps” before laying it on thick: “As far as we can tell, you are weak-wristed, unstable, unsuited, incapable little mama's boys.”

Caution: If you think that makes it OK to call a gay a sissy, wimp, weak-wristed or a mama's boy ... prepare to be sued.

Movie Break

Just watched a movie with Incredible Wife ... Saving Sarah Cain. It was a bit Lifetime-ish, but still a nice turn on the Amish in the city story, made by Michael Landon Jr. and other people with deep faith.

Red Hot And Green

Myself, I don't even want to know, but in case you're losing ... er, sleep ... over whether your sexual activity is appropriately green, you'll find ways to green-up your red hot sessions here. Here's an excerpt:

Sure, you love that hot-pink plastic [sex toy], but have you ever thought about what is in it? That item you’re hiding in the nightstand might contain phthalates, a chemical used to soften rigid plastics. Though nobody knows for certain if phthalates are harmful to human health, studies have linked ... blah, blah blah.

Greenies ... they can take the fun out of anything.

Extreme Bad Taste Case OK'd

Close to home, some good news: A judge is allowing the family of Nikki Catsouras to move forward with their lawsuit against a California Highway Patrol dispatcher who made gory photos from Nikki's fatal car crash public.

Attorneys for CHP dispatch supervisor Thomas O'Donnell, accused of releasing the photos, argued that it was his first amendment right to release the photos. As if.

What happened to the Catsouras family is a case of the worst sort of bad taste that grows out of the anonymity of the Internet, as photos of their beloved daughter's and sister's decapitated body appeared on numerous Web sites with insulting comments.

The Catsouras family has been able to shame many of the sites into removing the photos, but their only possible legal action is against O'Donnell for his scummy (alleged) action of releasing the photos.

One Web site I won't link to that includes links to the photos also includes a reader poll with these results:

Do the parents deserve to win their lawsuit? Yes, 57%, no 43%.

Should Web sites be allowed to show the graphic photos of Nikki Catsouras? Yes, 33%, no 32%

Obviously, people who visit these sites are a schitzy bunch: Rooting for the parents, while a significant amount of them root against them, too.

A Big 'Heh!' On Biofuels

What's wrong with me? Why do I get such glee from environmentalism gone bad? Especially when environmentalism and Congressional eagerness to score greenie points -- and get votes -- coincide?

With corn and soy prices both at or near record highs, the article tries to handicap which crop farmers will plant more of in the coming growing season. Impossible to tell, it concludes. Nevertheless:

Fertilizer producers benefit either way. Corn demands more fertilizer than soy or wheat. But price competition among the grains, stoked largely by federal supports for ethanol production, has bled generously into fertilizer markets.

That's boilerplate. Anyone who's checked out the stock chart of Mosaic -- the fertilizer giant, two-thirds owned by agribiz behemoth Cargill, recently profiled here -- knows that the fertilizer industry has been essentially printing money. (source)

Fertilizer, of course, is hated by the greens ... it's a chemical, for cryin' out loud, and its production produces gasp! greenhouse gases!

And every gallon of biofuels produced drives up fertilizer sales.

If anyone who says there are easy solutions to global warming that won't wreck our economy and negatively impact our health and well-being, their heads are full of greenhouse gases.

Secular Progressive Insanity

Here's a bit of classic secular progressive-think for you:

1. People who rape and murder little girls to get their sexual jollies need help, not jail, so let's keep their prison sentences to a minimum. Say three years or so.
   
   
2. People who are (1) foolish enough to have children and (2) savage enough to spank them are the worst of criminals. Let's charge those parents with abuse and neglect. (Neglect? For being aware that there's a disciplinary problem that needs dealing with?)

That's the state of the law -- and the mindset of the state -- in Massachusetts today under its current and proposed laws.

Read more at The Provocateur, who adds:

I am not necessarily a huge fan of spanking, however it is not only ironic but downright shameful that a state moves quicker to stop parents from deciding for themselves what punishment their kids should have than they do from protecting children from actual child predators.

Such is the absurd and perverse world view of the secular progressives. In their world, all criminals need treatment not punishment. At the same time, parenting decisions are taken away from the parents and controlled rather by the states. In some sense, child predators have more rights than parents.

Gee, Maybe He Just Seems Gay ...

This just in from the National Inquirer ... which is surprising accurate when it comes to big celebrity scandals:

NATIONAL ENQUIRER WORLD EXCLUSIVE: JOHN EDWARDS LOVE CHILD SCANDAL! — The woman linked to Presidential candidate John Edwards in a cheating scandal is more than six months pregnant and telling a close confidante that Edwards is the father of her unborn child, The NATIONAL ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

Go ahead and indulge your prurient interests ... you know you want to.

Sorry: The link provided by memorandum and The National Enquirer is currently broken. This link will get you some news, though.

Hat-tip: memeorandum

Defending Perverts: LA Times Doom Spiral Continues

What is it that drives the LA Times to so consciously and consistently behave in ways any self-respecting readership would find abhorent? Is it self-loathing? The need for attention? Anti-social pathologies? Or just stupid liberalism?

For whatever reason, the LAT chose to make its Sunday opinion section a forum for a hand-wringer about how badly sex offenders are being treated by the legal system. Really.

Written by a Columbia psych prof (Richard Kreuger) and titled, The new American witch hunt, it calls today's laws against sex offenders "mindless" and thinks it would be better if most sex offenders were able to re-assimilate annonymously into society. Here's a typical passage:

These days, the pendulum continues to swing further toward the punitive end of the spectrum, with ever more draconian sentencing and post-release conditions. Under the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection Act, signed into law by President Bush in July, all sex offenders will be listed on the Internet, making information on offenders, regardless of whether they belong to a low-, medium- or high-risk category, publicly accessible; this includes people, for example, whose only crime is the possession of child pornography.

Since when did possession of child pornography become something we should readily accept into our community? Krueger is probably one of those enlightened individuals who thinks you can fantasize to child pornography day and night and never hatch the idea to actually turn the fantasy into reality.

He also discounts any thought that Internet porn and societal promiscuity are having any effect on the incidence of sexual crime. How can he say that? Well, because it's all the media's fault!

Why has this demonization occurred? One reason is that offenders are hot news, and the more heinous the sexual crime, the more the media focus on it.

Got it. Krueger does correctly point out that there is a difference between a child raper and a guy who just exposes himself to children. But he sees the difference as one of danger to society while most of us just see it as a difference in time: The exposer hasn't had enough time yet to become a full-blown rapist.

Kreuger uses the LAT to promote his idea of treatment instead of incarceration. Do we detect a bit of self-serving here? The guy's a clinical psychiatrist focusing on sex and he wants more treatmetn for predators! He scoffs at GPS controls as being too expensive, but doesn't bother to point out that paying him and his fellows will cost much more, with greater risk of failure.

Any sane newspaper would have scanned this op/ed and launched it towards the trash can, but not the LAT. No, it saw Krueger's piece as an opportunity to crawl out even further on the weak and trembling liberal limb, taking a position only those too intellectually advanced to think clearly could take.