It appears that Spitzer was seeing prostitutes while publicly denouncing people and trying to send people to jail for operating a high end prostitution ring.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

“This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. “It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

Now prostitution should clearly be legal. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with explicitly paying money for sex, and let’s not kid ourselves what differentiates prostitution from dating the guy with the nice car is only the explicitness of the transaction. In fact criminalizing prostitution, and thus requiring those women who want to monetize their sexual allure to give up their autonomy and hitch themselves to a rich guy, seems decidedly sexist to me. True, as a practical matter it is right to worry that some women may get treated badly or abused in prostitution but once as a practical matter the question is will less women be hurt if prostitution is legal (or tacitly tolerated) or if it is illegal?. I think the answer is clear. If prostitutes don’t fear arrest they can seek police protection from extortionists and pimps, can receive health care, have worker’s rights and otherwise be protected by the same systems that protect the rest of us but so long as it is illegal we create a shadowy underworld that will trap the most desperate and abused women and use the illegality of their business as a means to subjugate them.

But while some argue that the moral acceptability of prostitution is a defense of Spitzer I couldn’t disagree more. At worst patronizing prostitutes is a relatively minor moral failing. Knowingly placing people in prison who don’t deserve to be there is on the order of kidnapping, rape or murder.¹. Sure, we can’t expect any one politician to undo all that is wrong with our justice system. If Eliot Spitzer had stood up and said, “I think we should legalize prostitution,” his political career probably would have died right there and done no one any good. But it’s one thing to pick your battles carefully, it’s another thing entirely to exercise your discretion to send people to prison for being involved in the same activities you do so you can further your political career. Unless evidence comes to light that Spitzer fought to minimize the penalties or change the law on prostitution he deserves to hang for hypocritically sending people to prison for offenses he must not have thought warranted that treatment. At the very least he doesn’t deserve a free pass from the people when he wouldn’t give that pass to others.

Now some complain about the use of seemingly absurd application of laws like the Mann act or arcane financial crimes to ‘get’ Spitzer. I couldn’t agree more with the queasy unease many people have about stretching these laws to cover Spitzer’s activity to satisfy the people’s moral outrage or serve political ends. But this sort of tactic was Spitzer’s calling card. Two wrongs don’t make a right and I believe we ought to take the high road and refuse to do to Spitzer what he did to others but having made his career on this sort of ‘dirty’ legal trick it’s appropriate that he lose it for the same reason.

Ultimately if this had been Bill Clinton chared with say smoking pot I’d go to the mat for him. Certainly he has never openly spoke in favor of legalization but he didn’t choose to advance his political career by throwing others into prison for the same things he himself did and I got the impression that his administration at least slightly favored liberalization (his pardons, DOJ attitude toward MMJ). However, if we don’t hold people like Spitzer accountable to their own standards we further encourage politicians to victimize the less powerful with faux moral outrage. More on this later.

Now, I’ll leave you with some links for purient interest about the girl he was with and other details. I would feel sorry for her if I didn’t think she was sure to get a generous offer from playboy, likely to get a book deal (or payoffs from other clients) and maybe even have her CD produced.

• people about Kristen
• Hufington Post, lots of links
• Kristen’s MySpace Page, note the creepy guys leaving messages.
• Details About Trysts
• Post Identifies Prostitute