For the ethics crowd: Is the resignation enough for you?

[RB TexLa]

[Birthmark]

1. Enough for me? Yes.

Enough to satisfy the law? Beats me. That's for various legal jurisdictions and juries to decide.

[Olney Blue]

2. If he broke the law, he should be treated no differently from others.

If not, he says he is going to get out of politics and try to do something positive with his life. So, I think he should be left to do that.

[asthmaticeog]

3. The "ethics crowd?"

[robbedvoter]

4. No! he has to go to Cheney and say: you're entitled to it, I am not - as a lowly dem

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_gustav_w_070524_dc_madam_scandal_wid.htm
Ah, and to Larry Craig too!

[acmavm]

5. He's out of politics hopefully. Now let's see if he gets the same

treatment as Joe Schmuck, the ordinary working man who gets caught hiring a hooker. Because Spitzer sure a shit would have thrown the book at old Joe.

[baldguy]

6. The only reason this is "news" is because its an unusual situation.

A high-ranking Dem caught in a sex scandal. Doesn't happen much.

On the other hand, if he was GOP there wouldn't be a peep out of the media. GOP sex scandals are a dime a dozen.

[cloudythescribbler]

7. Resignation of key figures (whether Craig or Spitzer) of this stuff? BAD PRECEDENT

When the fate of our public leaders hinges on this kind of stuff (I will note here that I think prostitution should be legal and STRICTLY regulated, for public health reasons among others) then we put the opportunities for political manipulation into the hands of gumshoes and various kinds of officials in the government rather than the people.

Larry Craig, incidentally, comes from a state where his successor, if he is forced out, would just be another Repug -- so the benefit to progressives would be minimal. And if the people of Idaho choose to elect him, then that is legitimate, although I will similarly insist on the FULL range of denied rights for authentic progressives -- to call out creeps and inauthentics openly and explicitly, to organize around blacklisted issues (like a mass based door to door organization against the war, which somehow hasn't come into being in all these years, just as the US has no mass movement insisting on sustainable global development to end absolute poverty, with more activism around ANIMAL's rights (equal rights for lobster tails) than around absolute poverty. (Note that ecologically sustainable development would do MORE for nonhuman animals' rights than the whole animals' rights movement ever has or is apt to in the foreseeable future)

On the other hand, many celebrate that they are happier with Paterson than Spitzer. I don't know that much about Paterson, so I have nothing to say by way of disagreement with the relative merits of the two governors, but I still think if Paterson is better then we should ELECT him. Rule by scandal, and its basis in what I've called the "dirt system" elsewhere on DU, is an AWFUL precedent.

What are the REAL reasons that Spitzer was canned and who decided how they should be applied? small d democracy anyone?

[bryant69]

8. The ethics crowd?

What does that make the other side in this story? The unethical crowd?

What's wrong with ethics?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[eilen]

9. I am a little concerned about the implications

that he had been involved in this behavior for the past ten years, which would have included the time he was in office as Attorney General and prosecuting prostitution rings with a fervor. Was there some kind of collusion there to keep "his" outfit going (overlooking it) while pursuing it's competitors? Was there any kind of quid pro quo involved in this? That could be grounds for some hearings at the bar association--if there is any evidence of wrongdoing in that regard.