Jeff,
Just goes to show you that even the most straight laced person has a dark side. Nothing surprises me about any of our politicians or elected officials. They think that they can do as they please like they live by a different set of rules. I guess Spitzer got caught!! I feel nothing for him. He made his bed now he has to lie in it. But I do feel sorry for his family.

Cynthia, Covington, Ga.

Jeff - I guess that your and Eliot’s Harvard coursework diverged: seems while you missed the classes on self-righteous, sanctimonious hypocrisy, you friend Eliot passed with flying colors.

Hi Jeffrey,
Von Bulow’s story is a fascinating one. I loved the movie!

In regards to Spitzer, I can only say that I’m not surprised, since those kind of men always seem to think they’re above it all and can do as they please and get away with it. … in total disregard of the people involved.

I’m reading your book “The Nine” right now, so your post is good timing. I actually get to tell you that I am enjoying every single page of it!!!

Hope you’ll be on 360 tonight!

Eliot had a reputation for being hot headed and relentless as attorney general which served him well as attorney general but obviously was a complete disaster starting off as governor.

I think that his inability to act in a reasonable manner as governor was a window to the same personality flaws that would lead him to see a prostitute while serving as governor.

And today he stormed off stage when asked if he would resign. If he thinks he is in a position not to resign despite his actions that shows once again how flawed he is as a human.

May I remind everyone that by paying to transport the prostitute across state lines he was engaged in human trafficking across state lines in a manner that made him involved int the ring in a manner that triggers a whole series of serious criminal felonies. And I know this as a fellow HLS grad but much more recently!

This isn’t new; sex scandals with or without prostitutes: JFK, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King, John McCain, Gary Hart…and on and on…….it is just news…unfortunately. Sex improprities were as widely known in the old days amongst “those who knew”, the public just weren’t told…and people who did know (including the press) stayed silent. I am not sure which reporting I liked better. On we go.

This is the reality of the world. Most human beings specially Politicians, rich people & people in power have this Natural instinct. According to the law, man made, they have violated the law. In God’s eyes, have they? But high profile public officials cannot afford to do it. Spitzer is down hill. Violated the trust of the people & his family.
Ram, LaVerne, Ca

Well, what makes this case worse is the hypocrisy involved. Elliot Spitzer was a District Attorney who campaigned for Governor as a fighter against corruption, including prostitution rings.

Sorry, Jeff. I liked the way Spitzer handled Wall Street (accountablity). I liked his populist view of politics. The last 2 years he has been a loose canon on deck. The latest being totally out of touch with his state on driver’s permits for those in the country illegally. It’s time for him to step down and be forgotten.

JR Houston, TX

Gov. Spitzer’s claim to fame was his reputation as atty. general, crusader. He was not accomodating when it came to jurisdictional disputes, so don’t look to Southern District to give him any leeway. His office (atty. gen.) seemed to pursue “glory” cases rather than cases that would protect New Yorkers. Funny how one of his biggest cases was the prosecution of a prostitution ring. This isn’t just a sex case — profits from international prostitution rings wind up financing international drug smuggling, arms trafficking, art theft, and most tragically human trafficking. Anyone who believes this is a victimless, harmless sexual indiscretion has a myopic view of the world at large.

How convenient to have yet another sex scandal to make people focus on moral and ethics.
Aren’t the real Christian issues we are looking at these days how to stop wars, how to not pollute our water and environment, how to feed everyone in this world because we have enough resources to do so….
So mister governor got someone go done on him and pay for it. Big deal.
I think in this country we seriously need to set our Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Orthodox/Atheist/Hindu/Buddhist/et al. values straight. Legalize the oldest trade in the world, and stop wasting precious news time for hypocritical judgments.

Well, well what do we have now! Mr. Spitzer the hard charging lawyer who would take no prisoners. Suprise; hardly not. The world we live in is edgy and elusive we think. How on earth can a smart guy e.g. Harvard tarined not cover his tracks appropriately. I’m not condoning his actions. Yet, my surprise really is how dumb the supposedely “smart:” guys are. He now has to face the same intense going over like he has done so admirably in all of his cases. We will see how the pressure rips at him.

what a huge dissappointment. this guy really seemed too good to be true and i guess he was. why are there so many hypocrits in positions of power. only someone capable of extreme selfishness could do that to his wife and family. in the end his entire life became worthless because of an hour in a hotel room. his wife should kick him to the curb and find someone who respects her and her daughters.

Must be a Democrat. Strange
I bet if it was a Republican that would be the first thing CNN would have said.

You could stick a fork in Spitzer, he is done. As a state worker I cannot be happier to see his demise. Since he became the governor he has not fired ANY of Pataki’s political appointees in my agency, NOT ONE. They are all still there running the state. That’s why NOTHING has changed in New York, not on day 1, not on day 101, not on day 201, not on day 301. Hasta La Vista Elliot, God Bless New York.

I am sick to my stomach to see such a great politican/lawyer to stoop to this level. I use to admire Gov. for his work against white colar crimes at Wall street. After seeing this, I have lost trust in politicians. They will be corrupt no matter what. This is what our kids and future will look up. I hope we can clean up dirtiest poltics in this country.

Why are the you LIBERALS surprised? Everybody does it. That has been what you liberals have been arguing all these years. I know, I know. It is the Harvard, the elite institute. Nobody in Ivy school like Harvard would do anything like that. The communist leftist elites are above the rest of “you people”. The Elites aren’t supposed to show any “appearance of impropriety”, so the Bill Clinton said. Arrogance, corruption, vanity are the trademark of the corrupt leftists, just like North Korea. They parade it everyday, looking down on the rest of idiots. Everybody doesn’t do it, you liberals. You do it, and act sanctimoniously self-righteous. Gore flies around in jets that fume trillion times more polluting than his farts, and preaching Global Freezing. He tries to make all of you LIBERALS guilty. Clintons wag dirty stinking fingers. Hillary shouting at Obamba, “Shame on you…” while she comes up with 3AM ad. In her own word, that is all she can come up with her “35 years of experience”. Your liberal experience has taught you to lie, cheat, steal, intimidate, lie, lie and get away behind the iron curtain of Clinton News Network.

Jeffrey,

This is sad because Eliot Spitzer had done some admirable work, but in doing so he made many powerful enemies. Generally I would not say that somebody caught in a sex scandal should resign, but I think in Spitzer’s case, he may not have a choice. By his own admission he violated his obligations to his family and did not even live up to the standards he set for himself. If he cannot even respect his family and himself, how can the voters continue to believe that he will act in their best interest?

Frankly, I am never shocked by sex scandals involving the powerful and famous because they are the ones who think they are above everyone else and can get away with anything. I am sure he, like many others, thought it could never happen to him. He can take heart because he probably isn’t the only powerful person on the list.

Sex always seems to do these guys in; sooner or later they all get caught with their pants down.

Jo Ann
North Royalton, Ohio

@Mike; Legalized prostitution still doesn’t mean you can cheat on your spouse.

Mike. Legalize prostitution? This is the kind of mental ineptitude that make intelligent people look on the psuedo-intellectual liberals as nothing more than potential domestic terrorists.

if Elliott spitzer has an affair with a woman, that is between him and his family.
Prostitution, however, is illegal . There can be no double standard . He must step down.

Thanks Jeffrey. I makes one kind of sick.

I am watching Anderson Cooper and the crap that Professor whatever his name is was defending this sanctamonious cheater by saying that basically he has done nothing wrong. He compared past presidents to what this man has done. I do not claim to know the details on the past presidents except for Clinton. He did not cheat with a prostitute. His was a moral issue between a husband and wife (all the while lying his ass off). But for Dershowitz? to sit up there and defend Spitzer is unbelievable. It is still a crime to pay a prostitute and if he paid for this individual to cross state lines, isn’t this trafficking? We wonder why our country is disfunctional? We see it everday in the news.

Just cannot digest how the professor from Harvard is defending this cheap and shameful act of Spitzer. Public figures especially in office should be responsible not only to their family but to the people who elected him/her. In this case it is clearly a disgrace and a let down. What will younger generations learn from such loose characters? ‘Good Role Models’ are becoming a rarity.

Thanks Tracy. Dershowitz is a notorious idiot who is teaching hundreds and hundreds of lawstudents to be idiots too. We have the freedom of OJ Simpson to thank Dershowitz for… he has no ethics but certainly behaves as though he does.

Well, my knight in shining armour is now a tarnished hypocrtical fool. I was so proud of Eliot Spitzer going after the white collar crooks& wall street thieves. I’m now so dissappointed & feel for his daughters and lovely wife. What a selfish man. He needs to resign and heal his family.

Jeffrey:

I was a second-year student in the law school in the fall of 1984. I don’t think you’re correct about Spitzer’s vintage; I believe he was a year ahead me — although Wikipedia is not clear on this. (I was a roommate of Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, in our second and third years. I think he worked for Spitzer in New York, but I could be wrong about this.)

I had Dershowitz for an ethics elective. Loved him. He had Giuliani come in and speak to us when he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Small world.

Spitzer needed something sexual, went and got it, and he can still be a good governor. A public officials sex life is none of my business. Get over it.

Jeff,
Thank you for sharing your perspecitive of Eliot Spitzer. I can only imagine your disappointment in him as your friend. I have admired Mr. Spitzer from afar since the beginning of his career and had hoped he would be in the running for President someday. Another brilliant, engaging, charismatic—and selfish— man with incredible hubris! His future has changed in an instant and so has ours: we no longer have the possibility of benefitting from his acumen in the way we once did—-pre-prostitute!

Audni G. Miller

Jeff,

How sad that today’s political figures are judged by private acts that do not involve the public. I admit that Spitzer’s conduct belies his public persona, however, I feel that sex by consensual adults should be kept private and not criminalized, even when money changes hands. It is time that prostitution was leagalized in this country. Mr. Spitzer’s crime was his moralistic and puritanical stance that seemed to apply to all but him. This country will continue to lose viable public servants and future public servants as long as we continue to intrude in their private lives and define what their sexual and moral stances should be.

So what does Harvard have to do with it, do they serve stupid for breakfast

Jeremiah Nicholson [ @ 7:23 pm] needs to go back to elementary school and learn to write complete and articulate sentences. Jeremiah, you sound like a Neo-Con Boob! I think members of our Right Wing coalition might want to send you to a reeducation camp in Waco, Texas. If you are going to go after the liberal politicans, then
you need to get your toe tapping and tongue lashing working to the same beat !!!

Best of luck, Jerry! Oh, I would also recommend that Eliot resign and try to make it in private life….

I can’t really understand all these comments that are critisizing this gentleman (whom I don’t know by the way). What he did was something that is socially acceptable, but , when it comes out of public figure, nooo, all of a sudden it becomes an unforgivable sin that he, or she, has to pay for the rest of thier lives??!!!

There was a comment above-the smartest men (OK-women, too-but it usually is a man-sorry) can be the dumbest ….

How ironic, Jeff. Today something made me think of Claus Von Bulow, and I don’t have the slightest idea why. So I looked him up on Wikipedia, and a few other sites, and read about Alan Dershowitz defending him, and his book and then the movie. I made note to one day get that movie. And I was surprised to see that Sunny is still alive, in her coma. How sad, on that note.

Then your blog above. Who would think Claus Van Bulow would jump out at me twice, in one day, from the computer screen? Again, in an unfortunate family situation. I feel so sorry for the Governor’s family, as we all do. Why do these politicians (or any well known person, I suppose) make their spouse join them on TV? Why? It is not going to make them look any better, in fact, it makes them look worse. I wouldn’t get up on that stage for nothing!

Looking forward to reading your book. Thanks for the blog, Jeff.

In the movie ‘Reversal of Fortune’ was the character of ‘Ellen Spitzer’ based on the real life Elliot Spitzer? I haven’t seen the movie in a while… remember liking it.
The Von Bulow- Spitzer-Hollywood gender change-Dershowitz connection is mildly interesting…

I watched your panel segment last night with Alan Dershowitz, Lisa Bloom, and Jeffrey Toobin and then later I read on the web that Eliot Spitzer was a research assistant to Dershowitz. In the interest of full disclosure I believe that information should have been made available to all viewers during the panel discussions in order to lend some balance to Dershowitz’s strident defense of Spitzer. Jeffrey Toobin made clear his basis for commenting on Spitzer. When Dershowitz was asked how he would defend Spitzer that was a fair question to ask him as a defense attorney but it should have been caveated with “as a former student and research assistant” how would you defend him? It certainly would have cast his response in a different light.