SPITZER'S GONE! SPITZER'S DONE! NEVER TO SEE THE LIKES OF SPITZER AGAIN!! There is a God after all.
Now they better press charges and I better hear that the slimbag went to prison and can no longer practice law!!!! And the shell of a human being better not receive a taxpaid pension and benefits!!!!!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Associated Press Wednesday, March 12, 2008 his 2006 image obtained March, 12, 2008 from a MySpace webpage shows a woman identified as Ashley Alexandra Dupre. The New York Times reported that the real name of the woman identified as "Kristen" in court papers alleging that Gov. Eliot Spitzer paid more than $4,000 for prostitutes' services is Ashley Alexandra Dupre. (AP)
NEW YORK -- New details emerged Wednesday about the call girl at the center of the prostitution scandal engulfing New York's governor, with a newspaper report identifying her as a 22-year-old aspiring musician from Manhattan.
The New York Times reported that the real name of the woman -- identified as "Kristen" in court papers alleging that Gov. Eliot Spitzer paid more than $4,000 for prostitutes' services -- is Ashley Alexandra Dupre. Don D. Buchwald, a New York lawyer, confirmed to The Associated Press that he represents Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the same woman in the Times story. "That's as far as I can go," he said. A man who answered the phone at her mother's home in New Jersey and identified himself as Dupre's brother told The Associated Press he had no idea why Dupre would agree to be interviewed in the scandal. "I've talked to my sister every five minutes since this happened, and I'm not going to comment on it," he said. "She's just trying to get through this." Dupre's MySpace page provides a window into her life as she went from a broken home in New Jersey to a music career in the city. "I have been alone. I have abused drugs. I have been broke and homeless. But, I survived, on my own. I am here, in NY because of my music," she wrote. In an Aug. 30 blog posting on MySpace, she writes: "The past few months have been a roller coaster with so called friends, lovers, and family ... but its something you have to deal with and confront in order to move on ..." "What destroys me strengthens me" is the slogan next to a Dupre photograph. The photos show her at various places, including in a bikini on a boat in a tropical locale. The number of hits to the page soared by the tens of thousands after the story broke. Dupre describes her favorite musical artists as Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera and Frank Sinatra, among many others. Her Web site boasts a recording of a song, "What We Want." "I know what you want, you got what I want. I know what you need. Can you handle me?" she sings. She briefly spoke to the Times about the Spitzer scandal. Law enforcement officials identified the governor as a "Client 9" who had a Feb. 13 tryst with "Kristen" and paid her $4,300, according to court papers. "I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," Dupre told the Times. "This has been a very difficult time. It's complicated." She told the newspaper she had slept very little since the allegations against Spitzer were revealed. Dupre told the Times she worried about paying her rent in a ninth-floor Manhattan apartment after her boyfriend recently left her. She said she was considering moving back in with her family in New Jersey. Records show that Dupre lives in Manhattan on West 25th Street, where a gaggle of reporters and TV trucks quickly gathered Wednesday night. It is a luxury rental skyscraper called The Chelsea Landmark where rents start at $3500 a month for a small studio, neighbors said. The 35-story building opened less than a year ago. She declined to comment when asked by the Times when she first met Spitzer and how many times they had been together. Dupre apparently appeared in federal court Monday as a witness in the case against four people accused of operating the Emperors Club VIP prostitution ring.
Whoreable Behavior by Ann Coulter Posted: 03/12/2008
This is a disaster for Hillary Clinton.
According to the wiretaps, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was delighted to be getting the prostitute "Kristen" again. At least he knew her name. It took Monica Lewinsky's boyfriend six sexual encounters to remember her name (raising his lifetime average to 8.2).
You know that queasy feeling you get thinking about Bill Clinton back in the White House again? Now you remember why. Hillary Clinton couldn't feel worse about the Spitzer case if she were an actual New Yorker.
Proving that Karl Marx got everything wrong -- more bad news for Hillary -- history is indeed repeating itself, but, contra Marx, the first time as farce, the second time as tragedy. Clinton's scandal was hilarious; Spitzer's is just depressing.
Most people outside of New York can't grasp the enormity of Spitzer's political free fall.
Eliot Spitzer was the golden boy with an absolutely charmed life. His parents were the children of Jewish immigrants, who created a Ralph Lauren lifestyle for their children.
Spitzer's father made half a billion dollars in New York real estate and raised three high-achieving children -- two lawyers and a neurosurgeon. In a family like that, becoming governor of New York makes you the black sheep.
Spitzer went to the best schools -- Horace Mann, Princeton and Harvard Law School. He must have written some good papers.
He lives at the perfect address (Fifth Avenue and 79th St.) with his perfect Harvard Law School-educated Southern Baptist wife -- whose parents must be telling her they told her so right about now -- and their three perfect daughters. (Admittedly, the apartment is a gift from Dad: A mere top-flight education doesn't get you an apartment overlooking Central Park.)
And now Spitzer's entire anal-retentive, good paper-writing life has collapsed in the horrifying image of a frenzied masturbator. This is the most complete coup de grace imaginable, short of an assassin's bullet.
Spitzer's life is ruined. It doesn't matter if he has defenders who will wail, "It's his private life!" It doesn't matter if he fights the charges. It doesn't matter if this was a political prosecution. As Talleyrand said: "It's worse than a crime; it's a blunder."
Eliot Spitzer, Harvard Law graduate and Fifth Avenue denizen, is forevermore: "Client No. 9."
Forget about his career -- those around him better have him on suicide watch. Dudley Do-Right is on tape in a white-knuckle negotiation with pimps about payment for a prostitute. (Let's just be thankful that there's no anti-Semitic expression for Jews haggling about money.)
No one will ever be able to look him in the eye again. How can Spitzer hold a press conference when reporters won't stop giggling at him?
Spitzer can't go to the restaurants he used to frequent. He can't go to the Whitney Museum near his apartment. He can't go to track meets at his daughters' expensive private school. He can't show his face in public.
The golden boy's disgrace is deep and subliminal; it can't be expunged.
One shudders to imagine the sepulchral gloom pervading the Spitzer home this week. At least Hillary would liven the place up with some lamp-throwing.
Whatever Spitzer's flaws, he was a pristine product of wealth and attainment. And he threw away a star-studded life of accomplishment in a wanton, reckless pursuit of sex with prostitutes.
There's no prettifying what Spitzer has done. The Web site of the "Emperor's Club VIP" whorehouse patronized by Spitzer heroically claims the prostitutes -- or "models" -- are chosen for their "level of education, family background, intelligence, personality."
One can almost hear the typical John, heavy-breathing into the phone: "And this one you call 'Busty Betty' -- does she come from a good family? Parents still together? What church do they attend?"
Surprising no one, police wiretaps indicate that the "models" were semi-literate, could not learn to swipe a credit card and seemed invariably to be on drugs. That's what you get for $2,000 an hour in this charming business.
After one prostitute missed an appointment and left a "crazy" text message for one of her pimps, the procurer remarks that the girl is on drugs. It seems, the procurer adds, "a lot of these girls deteriorate to this point."
Behold the "victimless" crime of prostitution. Hard to believe these girls would turn to drugs. Having sex with strangers for money, nothing to live for ... just thinking about it makes me want to take drugs.
It's absurd to talk about Spitzer's problem being "hypocrisy" -- as if everything would be fine if only he had previously advocated legalized prostitution.
It's absurd to talk about "alpha males" and political power -- an alpha male does not bring his family shame and disaster. Who was more alpha than Ronald Reagan? Think he ever had a "whore problem"? This is more like a dog who wee-wees on your leg.
It's absurd to talk about legal defenses. This guy has fallen from the pinnacle of New York society to being a disgrace to his class. He's the Ivy League version of Paris Hilton.
That was always the advantage Clinton had: We never expected any better. He went from Skunk Trot, Ark., to Skunk Trot, Ark. Spitzer fell from Fifth Avenue to Skunk Trot, Ark.
It’s ironic that Mr. Spitzer was designated as Client 9 by the Emperors Club. This is the natural reality, an irony if you will — the Emperor dubbing him No. 9. But, of the Great Potentate of the Universe, i.e. God Almighty, He gives us another look at what the number nine means biblically: Nine isn’t yet the full or complete number 10, but it does mark the ending. It’s the last of the single digits, in our decimal numbering system. Thus it can represent the conclusion or ending of a matter. The number nine represents finality or judgment. I request readers to pray hard for this family, for our governmental leaders and for our state. We need to realize that God is in control of all things, and no amount of earthly wisdom or understanding can ever undermine that. We have seen that with the tortured soul of Mr. Spitzer, who despite his penchant for the good life and all things associated with understanding and wisdom, needed to get caught because of the pent-up guilt over his immorality. God will not leave Eliot Spitzer without an avenue for redemption. God allows all of our self-righteousness to be cleansed and judged eventually. This is when the true work of redemption is realized. Thank God in most cases, including Mr. Spitzer’s, it is happening this side of death. JOHN GENTILE Duanesburg The writer is an ordained minister for the I Am Redeemed Ministries.
Let’s look at this from a policy perspective. We’ve elected someone to craft a budget for the state who thinks $4,300 per night for a hooker is a rational economic decision? Now, that’s frightening! TED THOMPSON Schenectady
The roughly 48 hours that elapsed between the first rumors of Eliot Spitzer’s involvement in the Emperor’s Club VIP prostitution ring and his resignation speech seemed like an eternity, with so little acknowledged by the governor in his initial confession Monday and so few details unearthed by the hordes of reporters assigned to the story. Yesterday’s statement didn’t shed much additional light on this incredible, tawdry tale, but at least it’s over with as far as most New Yorkers are concerned, and we — and more importantly, the state — can get back to business. Spitzer — arrogant, hypocritical sleaze that he is — let New York down in tragic fashion, but he’s history now. About the best that can be said for him is that he had enough political sense not to try toughing it out, which would have been only more humiliating for him and for the state, and created such a distraction in Albany that gridlock would have kept the state’s business from getting done. As most New Yorkers are aware right now, the state has issues it can ill afford to ignore. Foremost among them is the budget, which by law must be passed in just 19 days. This is no ordinary budget year, as lawmakers have to figure out how to close a $4.7 billion gap without killing an already weak economy. Spitzer’s proposals for doing so weren’t exactly met with universal acclaim, thus there’s much negotiating to do. But not much time. Ironically, David Paterson may have more luck getting it done, given a personal style that is far less confrontational than Spitzer’s. It’s also possible — and one can only hope true — that the other principal negotiators, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, will be willing to cut Paterson a little slack under the circumstances. Even shotgun weddings deserve a honeymoon. Paterson may be a virtual unknown elsewhere around the state, but not in Albany, where he’s won bipartisan respect over the years as a hard-working, minority-party senator. Though legally blind, he’s never used his handicap to seek special treatment. At this point, one can only guess at how his agenda will vary from his predecessor’s, but he shouldn’t necessarily try to distance himself from all of Spitzer’s ideas, including the ethics reform he pushed for, however hypocritically. Spitzer was also a champion for upstate interests, which clearly are needier than those of the Metropolitan New York area and Long Island. Another worthy Spitzer idea was the one to enhance the state university system. The Spitzer case had the potential to create a real crisis for New York state. His prompt resignation lessens that likelihood, but there’s still going to have to be a break from the Legislature’s business-as-usual, partisan behavior to allow Paterson to get his bearings. We hope that, for a change, Republicans and Democrats can subjugate their political interests for the greater good of all New Yorkers.
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Spitzer: We never knew him Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com. Post a comment at dailygazette.com.
I can safely say I have not seen anything like it in my years of observing state and local government — a politician so meteorically successful as Eliot Spitzer brought so hellishly low, so fast. We thought we knew him. He was smart, he was energetic, he was hot-tempered, he was impatient, he was sure of his rightness, he was sternly ethical. Above all, sternly ethical, cracking the whip over Wall Street and the state Legislature alike, not willing to accept any shaving of points or any cozying up to pay-to-play lobbyists. He certainly wasn’t like Bill Clinton. We all knew Clinton had his sleazy side, remembering as we did Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers. And he certainly wasn’t like the assorted Christian gasbags who have turned out to be patrons of prostitutes and snorters of nose candy. Anybody who couldn’t detect the sleaziness in the souls of those characters right from the get-go deserved what they got. Eliot Spitzer was the genuine article, as upright as they came. To imagine him deviously moving money from his own account into the account of a shell company fronting for a prostitution ring and asking his bank to remove his name from the transactions, to imagine him negotiating over the phone with a madame about how much credit he had, to imagine him scheming to get a call-girl into his hotel room past the notice of his security detail, at the same time he was berating legislators for their shortcomings, is just, well, I don’t know what to call it. It defies comprehension. Hypocrisy seems too mild a word. Never think you know the human heart, is a rule of mine that I am reinstalling at the front of my consciousness. Maybe it was exciting for such a high-achieving guy to engage in such risky adventures. Maybe it gave him a rush. Maybe he felt he was so powerful he could do what he wanted, which is a theory presented to me by a friend who went to the same school, Horace Mann, that Spitzer went to, in the good part of the Bronx. Most of the students came from rich families, and their attitude was that they were destined to rule, my friend, who did not come from a rich family, told me, he being the only person I know who was not shocked by the scandal. He figured that what Spitzer did was just like a Horace Mann kid. Spitzer puts me in mind a little bit of Sol Wachtler, the chief judge of the state Court of Appeals back in the early 1990s. Another lean, brilliant, upright guy, who on the side, it turned out, was stalking a former mistress, wearing disguises and making anonymous phone calls from phone booths, trying to extort money from her and her daughter. Never think you know the human heart, I repeat. One thing does puzzle me, and that is why Spitzer resigned without first concluding a deal with the U.S. attorney’s office. I had assumed he would work something out along the lines of Alan Hevesi, our former comptroller, if you remember him. No felony, no jail time, just a slap on the wrist, and resign. Having already resigned, Spitzer seems to have no chips left to bargain with, and if the government wants to charge him with felonies for moneylaundering or transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, it can do so. And speaking of the government, meaning the U.S. Justice Department, I’m glad it moved expeditiously against Spitzer without giving him any special consideration because of his high office. And now I wonder how they’re coming along in their investigation of Sen. Joe Bruno, which was announced more than ayear ago and hasn’t been heard of since.
Spitzer won’t miss state paycheck Despite financial setbacks, frugal millionaire should be fi ne BY DAVID B. CARUSO The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Eliot Spitzer probably doesn’t need to get a day job when he leaves the governor’s office next week. The scion of a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer, Spitzer is a millionaire who could easily live off his share of his father’s real estate business. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be financial wrinkles ahead for Spitzer, who announced his resignation Wednesday after becoming ensnared in a prostitution scandal. If he were to lose his law license, his ability to return to private law practice might be compromised. There’s also the possibility that his wife could divorce her cheating husband and walk away with a chunk of the family fortune. “Any judge who is going to decide this case is going to bend over backward to give her a break, considering what she’s been through,” said Albert Momjian, a prominent Philadelphia divorce lawyer. Silda Wall Spitzer gave up a lucrative career in corporate law in 1994, the year that her husband made his first run for public office. Since then, she has worked unpaid jobs in philanthropy and founded a charity called Children for Children. Spitzer’s fall may have one indirect financial benefit. He will probably have to give up what appears to be his most expensive vice: highpriced prostitutes. When the scandal broke, allegations surfaced that he had shelled out $4,300 to a call girl the night before Valentine’s Day. A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity later told The Associated Press that Spitzer was a regular customer who spent as much as $80,000 on a call-girl service over several years. Until this week, the governor’s Mr. Clean image extended to his spending, too. His staffers always boasted that their millionaire boss was a frugal guy who owned only a few pairs of shoes and drove a minivan. “He was certainly not free with the dollars. He was very, very careful,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a New York political consultant who worked on Spitzer’s first two campaigns. “This is not the kind of guy who would take $50,000 out of his own bank account one weekend and blow it in Atlantic City.” Spitzer could have afforded many more luxuries. He reported $1.9 million in income to the IRS in 2006, according to his last publicly available tax return. Not including last year, his earnings have been $14.9 million since 1998, and that total only hints at his family’s wealth. His father, Bernard Spitzer, is said to be worth at least $500 million. Spitzer’s tax returns show that a majority of his income comes from rent collected on apartments and shops owned by the family. As governor, he earned $179,000 a year. For years, the family spent weekends in a modest, rented home in Columbia County. The Spitzers recently paid $4 million to buy the entire 160-acre property. The family’s main residence continues to be a luxurious Fifth Avenue apartment in a tower built by his father in 1968. Spitzer lives there rent-free, courtesy of his father, who owns at least 10 such apartment towers. When his three children were younger, Spitzer shelled out nearly $50,000 a year for nannies. Now the kids attend the Horace Mann School, where tuition exceeds $29,000 per student — nearly $100,000 in education expenses alone.
The "rumor" mill is already starting up. Check out this one that was just passed to me;
Quoted Text
Obama met with Mayor Bloomberg in NYC November 30, 2007. Rumors abound that he was courting him as a VP consideration. WHAT IF Obama went there to get information on Spitzer (Bloomberg hates Spitzer) from the mayor. To further the cause of the African American Lt Gov to the seat of Governor, would only propel Obama's own candidacy goals.
While I can see this as the ULTIMATE remotely plausible motive, even I think that's a stretch.
The Man Without A Party by Seton Motley Posted: 03/12/2008
Ronald Reagan often said “I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.”
For floundering and foundering New York Governor Eliot Spitzer -- a twist on the Gipper’s words. Spitzer didn’t leave the Democratic Party: the Media just didn’t see the need to mention the fact that Spitzer was -- at least until noon Wednesday -- one of the most powerful Democrats in the nation.
On Monday afternoon, the Big Three Networks (NBC, ABC and CBS) and the Associated Press led the charge of the wall-to-wall coverage of the breaking news that Spitzer was involved with an interstate prostitution ring. And with near unanimity they failed to mention that Spitzer is a Democrat.
Spitzer -- who since his years as the Big Apple’s swashbuckling anti-capitalist Attorney General the Press has glowingly called the Champion of the Everyman -- was caught on one or more wiretaps dialing for damsels to the tune of $5,500 an hour.
Only the press can fail to see the irony of calling someone who inherited $500 million -- and who hires ladies of the evening at hourly rates equal to a semester’s tuition at a state university -- a champion of the everyman.
Ronald Reagan also said, “It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.” Spitzer has finally, formally joined the two in the latest installment of the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s on-going game show “Defining Deviancy Down.”
The media, as expected, inundated us with Spitzer stories. They went on and on at great length analyzing the merest minutiae and every detail related to the Spitzer saga – save one. Nearly all their reports were bereft of any mention that he is a (shhh!) Democrat.
NBC has been the worst offender. They have not -- as of early Wednesday morning -- yet labeled Spitzer as a Democrat in any manner.
They led off their Monday Nightly News cast with “Fall From Grace”, a four minute story on Spitzer that made no mention -- in either word or graphic -- of the fact that he is a Democrat. Tuesday morning on their Today show they ran eleven Spitzer stories -- in none of them did they label him a Democrat in any way. Tuesday’s evening news again made no mention of Spitzer’s Party affiliation, but somehow managed to verbally and graphically identify Republicans in their story on Spitzer.
That is thirteen NBC stories on Spitzer over nearly two full days, with no reference whatsoever to him as a Democrat.
ABC fared just barely better. Through Tuesday night, no one on either World News Tonight or Good Morning America said the word “Democrat” in reference to Spitzer. Two times for a total of six seconds -- once on Monday night and once on Tuesday morning -- a “D” was placed by his name in an on-screen graphic.
Like NBC, they too identified Republicans in their Spitzer stories as Republicans, and managed the added coup of assailing the Rs as partisan for wanting the apparently unaffiliated Spitzer to resign.
Congratulations ABC, for being six seconds more credible than NBC.
This is devolving into the network news equivalent of the Gong Show, where one utterly miserable contestant takes some sort of perverse pride in being gonged six seconds later than another utterly miserable contestant.
Hurrahs to CBS’s Katie Couric, who on her Evening News actually called Spitzer a Democrat once. But the glory soon faded, as no one on Tuesday morning’s Early Show did, relying on two spots totaling fourteen seconds worth of graphically delivered “D”s, and diminished further still with Tuesday night’s news also failing to deliver the label.
Gong!
Our old friend, the Associated Press, broke the story with 590 words Monday afternoon, without any Spitzer Party mention. They then came back with a “BREAKING NEWS UPDATE” -- perhaps it had come to their attention that he is in fact a Democrat? Alas, no. Eighty-six additional words, nary a “Democrat” amongst them.
Another, related question also remains unanswered -- of what Party affiliation is Customer #9 (Spitzer’s Emperor Club call-sign)’s favorite girl, Kristen? The Media may very well deliver this before they do Spitzer’s party.
And this is by no means the first time that a Democrat in hot water is transformed by the Media as if by magic into Unaffiliated Man.
Recall Gary Condit, the California DEMOCRATIC Congressman who in 2001 ran into trouble when his Capitol Hill intern and secret paramour Chandra Levy turned up missing and later dead? The Big Three Networks ran a total of 179 stories over the course of the saga -- only 14 contained a reference to him as a Democrat, less than 8%.
And current DEMOCRATIC Mayor of Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick -- embroiled in a sex scandal involving his chief-of-staff -- has been repeatedly delivered to the public as Unaffiliated Man by Media outlets great and small since the story broke in January.
Just more episodes in the never-ending Gong Show -- Media series. (The real) Gong Show host Chuck Barris, somewhere, is smiling.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre got an offer from Penthouse for an undisclosed amount of money. Next will be Oprah and of course Dr. Phil!!!! And of course a recording contract. ONLY IN AMERICA FOLKS!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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