L'Affaire Spitzer

So Eliot Spitzer resigned today. I have no sympathy for him at all. He is no less of a hypocrite than Larry Craig and David Vitter and the family-values-loving Republicans who talk a good talk but don't feel that they have to walk the walk.

Like most, I feel extremely sorry for his family and especially his wife. I agree this practice of trotting out the wife for her public embarrassment must stop. Its utterly contemptable that he brings his wife to stand there at a news conference while he apologizes to his constituents. I'd wonder what she was thinking to agree, but I tend to think it was something along the lines of "my entire family is ruined, my marriage is a sham, my children are hurt beyond words, ...oh, what was that? Stand here? ok...what do I do now? How can I repair my family...". You get the point.

The absolutely WORST part of all this is a little nugget that came out today which indicates that as Client 9, Spitzer asked a prostitute about some "dangerous" activities. It turns out, that activitiy was "bare-backing", or having sex without a condomn. You know what Eliot? Do whatever you want to your own body. But potentially exposing your spouse to STD's or any other consequences of having sex with someone who has sex for a living is downright, utterly reprehensible. I was about to say there is nothing worse about this scandal, but then I saw that Dr. Laura was on the Today Show this morning speaking about why poor, little, victimized men cheat:

Dr. SCHLESSINGER: Men do need validation. I mean, when they come into the world, they're born of a woman and getting the validation from Mommy is the beginning of needing it from a woman. And when the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. And these days, women don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their men what they need.

VIEIRA: But you--are you saying the women should feel guilty, like they somehow drove the man to cheat?

Dr. SCHLESSINGER: You know what, the cheating was his decision to repair what's damaged and to feed himself where he's starving. But, yes, I hold women accountable for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.

Why is this vile woman on national TV? Why is she validated by being given a platform? Absolutely disgusting.