Public advocacy of a certain moral code while privately violating it is one thing - putting people in jail for something while doing it privately is another.

I just don't see any upside to our party's prospects if Spitzer stays in office. It's not like he is being replaced by a Republican.

The problem is you don't get an Eliot Spitzer Democrat very often.  He had potential.  He was a legitimate threat to the corrupt moneyed interests.  That is why they took him down.

But I can't help thinking that by focusing on this scandal, we lose sight of the larger picture, which is the changes in NY government that happen when he's forced to resign. And I think it's valid to think, for example, that Spitzer is a fool and a law breaker, but that keeping him as governor would be better in the long run than forcing him out because he wasn't "pure". (Not saying this is my opinion, BTW). I'm saying that the people on the right who've been running this country (into the ground) for the past many years are much more willing to make this kind of calculation, while the rest of us allow ourselves to get distracted by the surface, more "fun to talk about" salacious aspects.

Republican Convention Gets More Prostitutes

Next month, delegates attending the Republican Party convention in New York City will have the opportunity to get up close and personal with sex and sex workers. According to published reports, thousands of escorts, prostitutes, strippers and their posses are headed for New York City in time for the GOP's late-August/early-September [2004]convention in Madison Square Garden.

"Agencies are flying in extra call girls from around the globe to meet the expected demand," the New York Daily News reported. A madam at a midtown Manhattan escort service told the newspaper that "girls" were coming in "from London, Seattle, California...for that week." With fees ranging from $300 to $1,000, it's no wonder that "everyone wants to work," the madam pointed out.

Sex workers at conventions are nothing new. According to The New York Daily News, "At the 1992 Democratic convention in New York, bikini-clad female oil wrestlers dropped their tops on a flatbed truck in front of Madison Square Garden," and "at the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego, an escort service in search of delegate dollars changed its name to GOP: Good Old-Fashioned Pleasure."

Workers in the world's oldest profession -- as some have called it -- don't discriminate on the basis of political affiliation, as Robyn Few, a $500-an-hour California call girl who now runs the advocacy group, Sex Workers Outreach Project, told the Daily News. No matter what you believe in, she says, "When you want to buy sex, you will."

There is nothing new about sex, hypocrisy and the "family values" GOP. (blah blah blah)

and from The Rocky Mountain News:

DNC Boost for Sex Biz, Denver can expect prostitution spike during convention

Political tricks may not be the only ones turned during the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August. The sex and adult entertainment industries are expecting a boom in business when an estimated 35,000 visitors descend on the Mile High City for the presidential nominating bash.

At the Pepsi Center, the focus will be on a single nominee. But outside the event, the choices available to the delegates, journalists and others are unlimited, giving new meaning to the term "conventional sex." More than six months before the convention comes to Denver, the offerings already online range from Claudia the "she- male porn star" to Erin the "adorable college cutie," whose $300- an-hour services are guaranteed to "leave you breathless."

Surprised? Don't be. Denver is, after all, home to Mike Jones, the beefy male prostitute who claimed to have bedded the Rev. Ted Haggard in his Capitol Hill apartment. Jay Watson, who promises an unforgettable milk bath and lotion massage for $125 an hour, said he's expecting to be busy during the DNC Aug. 25-28. Why? "Because look at me," said Watson, a 25-year-old Aurora man with a Mohawk. "I'm cute. I'm sexy and I deliver it all."

'More business' from GOP

Too bad for Watson and others like him that Denver didn't land the GOP convention instead, said Carol Leigh, a San Francisco prostitute "over 50" who has traveled to previous Democratic conventions in Los Angeles and Atlanta. "It would be a lot better for the sex workers if it was the Republican convention," she said. "We get a lot more business. I don't know if they're just frustrated because of the family values agenda," she said. When the Republican convention was held in New York in 2004, some sex workers offered limited-time discounts, according to New York Magazine, which ran a feature story titled "The Girls in Their Summer Hot Pants." (Feb 04 2008)

Of course, Clinton's "perjury" was the result of a perjury trap set by a bunch of witchhunters; he was asked a question he shouldn't have been asked in a lawsuit that had no merit and was later dismissed, and it had nothing to do with his offical duties. But the accusation that he had given misleading, if not false, testimony, was not frivolous on his face. Whether it was material, whether it was technically perjury given the way the questions were formulated and the definitions of "sexual contact" that were in use -- I think he would have had a good defense to a perjury trial if he'd been charged in a criminal case in the courts.  And I certainly didn't think that he should have been impeached, much less convicted by the Senate.