If one wanted to know the difference between being an American and being a European, this article from France’s Le Figaro newspaper would be a very good place to start.
From Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to client number nine Eliot Spitzer and ‘Kristan,’ Europeans have looked at the effect that sex has on American politics with a collective shake of the head. Read the rest of this entry »
One thing conspicuously lacking in the recent public discussion about Eliot Spitzer’s political demise, is the draconian nature of many of America’s sex laws. Hélio Schwartsman writes for Brazil’s Folha newspaper, “In various nations including Brazil, the location a politician installs his annex is normally a topic that only concerns himself and those directly involved … The Americans, however, don’t only insist on scrutinizing the private lives of their public men and women, but they also cultivate what is likely the most absurd sexual legislation in the West.” After a bit of a history lesson on the sexual proclivities of Alexander Hamilton, Schwartsman goes on to warn his readers, “be very careful what you do in a motel along the highway in Idaho.”
By Hélio Schwartsman
Translated By Brandi Miller
March 20, 2008
Brazil - Folha - Original Article (Portuguese)
Politics, hypocrisy, sex and power. In a broader sense, all of these words are synonymous. As ex-Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer well-knows, after being forced to resign after being caught up with luxury prostitution ring.
There are two interpretations for Spitzer’s fall. In the first, he succumbed because Americans are a puritanical people who take pleasure in punishing their leaders caught in humanity’s “flagrante delicto [immoral acts].” In the second, his sin was to have been shown a hypocrite: secretly practicing what he condemned in public. The detail here is that the two interpretations are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they reinforce one another. Let’s look at them in greater length.
If there is something that Americans can’t resist, it’s a sex scandal. The first U.S. politician to get caught up in one was Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757-1804), who after a complaint was filed against him in 1791, was compelled to admit to his relationship with Maria Reynolds. Both were married - and not to one another, just to be clear. Although he insisted on not having violated any of his public duties, Hamilton had suffered a fatal blow to his career. Shortly afterward, he had to abandon his post as Treasury Secretary. In life, he never again enjoyed the prestige he had before, but – and here comes the first ambiguity – this peccadillo didn’t prevent him from assuming his historic place as a “founding father” of the North American Republic.
[It turned out the Hamilton had paid Maria Reynold’s husband, James Reynolds, a total of $1000 over several years in order to continue bedding Maria unimpeded. Rather than challenging Hamilton to a duel - which was the custom, Reynolds decided to blackmail the well-heeled Hamilton instead. Eventually, Reynolds tried to implicate Hamilton in a scheme to bilk Revolutionary War veterans, and rather than get caught up in that, Hamilton spilled the beans of his affair to Congressional inquirers, one of which was future President, James Monroe . Ironically, Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr a number of years later].
Hamilton’s was decidedly not an isolated case. The Web site politicker.com has a list of the 53 biggest U.S. sex scandals. Bill Clinton, of course, occupies the number one position after his rumored “affair” with Monica Lewinsky - which almost cost him the presidency. That’s not to mention Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones, his alleged lovers while he was governor of Arkansas. But the list is much broader and touches on representatives of various States and all parties during all eras. It involves heterosexual cases, homosexuals, prostitutes, married women and minors. There’s even a homicide.
A good number of these scandals would be “dispensed with” in other Western countries, which better-separate (or, at least with more clarity) the public sphere from the private sector. In several nations, including Brazil, where a politician installs his annex is normally a topic that only concerns himself and those directly involved. The issue only gains a public dimension if one of the parties complains about the behavior of “said party” (the politician - not the annex) or reveals a correlated fault. Otherwise, officials tend to be left in peace with their lovers, even by the press.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the United States.
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has gone into therapy in the wake of the hooker scandal that swept him out of office, a Spitzer insider told The Post yesterday.
As part of the therapy, Spitzer will explore whether he has an addiction to sex, the source said.
…
…it has emerged he has had a jones for pricey professional girls going back as far as a decade, and hooked up with “Kristen” - the nom-de-sack of 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre - several times prior to getting nabbed on tape, sources have said.
Experts say this type of behavior exhibits classic signs of sexual addiction.
“If it becomes an overwhelming urge to the detriment of your professional and familial relationships - if it starts to screw up your life - that is addictive behavior,” said Dr. Jeffrey Gardere, a clinical psychologist.
“Someone who displays this sort of behavior could be classified as having a sexual addiction.”
I would agree with this: “…an overwhelming urge to the detriment of your professional and familial relationships - if it starts to screw up your life - that is addictive behavior…”.
Well, if you know anything about addictive personalities and addictions, the issue is often around risk, taking risk, self-destruction, narcissism and the presence of other addictive behaviors.
Here’s a good primer on addictive personalities, especially sex addiction, with a podcast and links to other resources.
Of course the unasked question is, if Ms. Dupre has been engaged in the exposure of her body for money or other gratification since at least the age of 17, accompanied by the drinking of alcohol, does she too have some addictions that should but probably won’t get attention? Is that right, wrong, unimportant?
Yeah. Remember, there’s nothing victimless about prostitution or infidelity.
The name of Eliot Ness, that iconic crime fighter if the early 20th century - has reverberated down through history as the definition of justice and incorruptibility. In writing about his namesake Eliot Spitzer, Serge Truffaut of Canada’s French-language Le Devior writes in part, ‘You cannot make this up. … The first name of Governor Spitzer of New York is Eliot. The same as that other Eliot - Eliot Ness - the patron saint of the incorruptible who hunt down criminals, both white collar and blue … This image - fashioned with his [Spitzer’s] own bare hands on a canvas of moral rectitude - evaporated instantly at the end of an act of contrition … the spectacle was appalling.’
By Serge Truffaut
Translated By Kate Davis
March 12, 2008
Canada - Le Devior - Original Article (French)
You cannot make this up. The first name of Governor Spitzer of New York is Eliot. The same as that other Eliot - Eliot Ness - the patron saint of the incorruptible who hunt down criminals, both white collar and blue. It is in making life harder for fashionable crooks in neck-ties on the floor of the stock exchange that he built a reputation for himself as a “new incorruptible,” or even a “tireless crusader,” to borrow nicknames that the media gave him during scandals at WorldCom, Tyco, Enron and others we have forgotten. He proclaimed himself the “Sheriff of Wall Street.”
This image - fashioned with his own bare hands on a canvas of moral rectitude - evaporated instantly at the end of an act of contrition by the former New York Attorney General WATCH . This sheriff acknowledged paying a heavy price for his history of peccadilloes. He spent more than $4,000 to enjoy the favors of strumpets in chic hotels of the capital city. QED [It has been demonstrated - quod erat demonstrandum]: This prostitution network procured the services of the so-called call girls especially for high-flying politicians.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Aside from any moral judgment, this affair is particularly distressing since it seriously cripples the work of the current attorney general and his staff - notably the investigations initiated while Spitzer was still the boss of the patrons of justice. One this is certain; when the news hit the presses, traders on Wall Street… Applauded!
Because this man, when he was hunting down crooked millionaires, had opted at all times and in his words - for a strategy of “aggressiveness.” He was at times so hard and his methods so brutal that even people in his camp now say that they considered Spitzer reckless or irresponsible. This inclination, or rather his certainty that he was always right - led him to demolish without proof, individuals who appeared on his prosecutor’s radar screen. An example? He started a rumor that the secretary of New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso had been Grasso’s mistress. In short, he brandished a little poison, even if only an allegation, to reduce the reputation of another to a briny bouillon.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with many other translated foreign-press reactions to Spitzer’s downfall.
Was there something beyond Eliot Spitzer’s ungoverned libido behind his breathtaking downfall? Andrei Fedyashin writes for Russia’s Novosti news service, ‘Spitzer had his career and family life taken down by the forces of political retribution … Only the naive can doubt that this was a pre-arranged “sex scandal.”‘ Pointing out that most of his Wall Street enemies were Republican, Fedyashin asks, ‘Who better to bring down, if not a Democrat and personal friend of Hillary Clinton, who had formally pledged to support her at the upcoming Democratic convention? As a governor, Spitzer is among one of about 800 so-called super-delegates, who may well decide which candidate will lead the party’s fight for the White House - Clinton or Barack Obama … Perhaps the explanation is that Hillary frightens Republicans far more than her party-comrade, Barack Obama?’
By Political Columnist Andrei Fedyashin
Translated By Igor Medvedev
March 14, 2008
Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)
MOSCOW: Less than a week after a “sex scandal” erupted around the Governor of the State of New York on March 13, Democrat Eliot Spitzer announced his resignation on March 17.
Unofficially, on the day that The New York Times published the spicy details of his phone order for a “short brunette,” it was clear that Spitzer, who two years ago was thought to have a promising future as a likely Democratic candidate for the White House - had destroyed his political career and probably his family. She [the brunette] was “delivered” to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where the 48-year-old Spitzer spent the night before testifying to Congress. How badly everything turned out! Bad from a purely moral point of view and doubly bad in a U.S. presidential election year.
It later transpired that Spitzer had used the services of this brunette and other call girls through a certain company called the Emperor’s Club VIP, and over the last ten years had paid it over $80,000. And considering that he allegedly paid $1,000 for this one brunette, one concludes that he must have had 80 of them during this time. This is quite a propensity for variety - even in ten years.
In a nutshell, this is the tale of the downfall of the now-former governor of America’s third-largest state. And now, apart from having to completely quit politics, he stands accused of the “illegal promotion of prostitution,” since the call girl was dispatched from New York to Metropolitan Washington D.C. According to the laws of the United States, transporting someone across state lines to procure sex is an even greater offense than prostitution itself. Moreover, he may also be deprived of his right to practice law. Simply put, when it rains it pours.
If you are unfamiliar with Spitzer’s record and fail to take account of his backround, you might get the impression that these charges of “illegal sex” came like a bolt from the blue. Sex scandals in America, of course, are nothing new: Almost every second U.S. President has committed adultery, with John F. Kennedy - given his record of such transgressions - mastering his White House rivals. That’s to say nothing of Senators, House members and other governors.
But these scandals do differ. Some are more moderate while others hit like a thunder-clap. The Spitzer story is of the latter category. Since this is a presidential year it couldn’t have been otherwise. It’s embarrassing again to speak here of political hypocrisy in the United States. It’s so unfortunate to devalue this meaningful notion through such frequent repetition.
What is it about Eliot Spitzer’s downfall that has attracted the attention of people around the world? Is it the power, the sex, the hypocrisy? According to the editorial board of Switzerland’s Nachrichten newspaper, the tale of Eliot Spitzer follows a pattern that never really goes out of style. According to Nachrichten, ‘American politics without sex scandals is almost unthinkable. The fallen sinners are almost equally divided between the two major parties. … Elmer Gantry, the amoral preacher of morality depicted by Sinclair Lewis, is the pattern of a story that never really gets old.’
EDITORIAL
Translated By James Jacobson
March 11, 2008
Switzerland - Nachrichten - Home Page (German)
The rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer is an American success story of a very particular kind. The Democratic governor of New York State was a fierce dog, who as a public prosecutor walked on the dead to expose all kinds of corruption, organized crime and prostitution. He destroyed the reputations of many well-known and lesser-known business and political opponents in a way that left behind many enemies.
The fact that he now had to admit to being involved in a prostitution ring is not in itself unusual for an American politician. American politics without sex scandals is almost unthinkable. The fallen sinners are almost equally divided between the two major parties.
Older students recall the case Wilbur Mills, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who in 1974 was brought down due to his involvement with a stripper named Fanne Foxe. When a policeman stopped the politician’s car, this beautiful woman in the dead of night jumped into the freezing water of the Washington Tidal Basin, next to the Jefferson Memorial, thereby setting his fall in motion. Before that, these things only went on under the table, the escapades of President John F. Kennedy being the most well-known example.
Now those attracted by the Mills story have something even bigger. Since then a lot has happened, and many politicians have fallen from their pedestals. But the way Spitzer of all people has fallen into the clutches of law enforcement authorities has almost a literary quality. Elmer Gantry , the amoral preacher of morality depicted by Sinclair Lewis, is the pattern of a story that never really gets old.
In one of those telling front page-back page juxtapositions, the headline news about Eliot Spitzer overwhelms a government study showing that one out of every four American teenage girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
After seven years of a federal government promoting abstinence only, both stories are reminders that the gap between what Americans say in public and do in private has morphed into a chasm of hypocrisy.
As righteous Republicans enjoy the spectacle of a Democratic governor joining the ranks of Larry Craig, David Vitter et al, little attention is being paid to the alarming news about teenagers who don’t know or don’t care enough to protect themselves from infections that can lead to serious disease.
Read the rest of this entry.
The case of Eliot Spitzer - as is often the case when an American politician is charged with a lack of moral rectitude - leaves many Europeans scratching their collective heads. According to this editorial from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, ‘From a Central European perspective, the Spitzer Affair has a rather outlandish aspect to it. New York’s once dreaded “Mister Clean” is facing ruin because in most U.S. states, prostitution and visiting a prostitute is not just a matter of moral misconduct - it’s an indictable offense.’
EDITORIAL
Translated Bu Ulf Behncke
March 12, 2009
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays virtue. But Eliot Spitzer made so many bitter enemies during the course of his career that now, some even refuse to call the Governor of New York State a hypocrite: To them, Spitzer never even pretended to respect virtue.
Spitzer, who in his previous post as Attorney General was the terror of Wall Street and many major American corporations, simply imagined himself above the law.
What Spitzer was actually thinking, nobody knows. What’s clear is that this classic drama of a smug Mister Goody-Two-Shoes whose meetings with high-class hookers proved to be his undoing, will provide ample material for psychologists and future scriptwriters alike.
Since Spitzer violated the very laws that as Governor and former Attorney General he was ultimately responsible for upholding, he is left no way out other than resignation.
From a Central European perspective, the Spitzer Affair has a rather outlandish aspect to it. New York’s once dreaded “Mister Clean” is facing ruin because in most U.S. states, prostitution and visiting a prostitute is not just a matter of moral misconduct - it’s an indictable offense.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing foreign press reaction to the the downfall of Eliot Spitzer.
March 11th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
(See my previous post here for background and initial comments.)
Greenwald asks: “Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?” — “[A]re there actually many people left who care if an adult who isn’t their spouse hires prostitutes? Are there really people left who think that doing so should be a crime, that adults who hire other consenting adults for sex should be convicted and go to prison?”
Well, yes, I suspect there are many people who care. America’s retrograde views on sex and sexuality are still quite prevalent, after all.
Now, whether such views should or should not be prevalent is another matter, and Glenn is right to question those views. As I mention in my previous post, I think prostitution laws should generally be relaxed — or, let’s be blunt about it, overturned (with restrictions, of course, and highly regulated).
I certainly agree with Glenn that sex with a prostitute (consensual sex for money generally) does not warrant prosecution and imprisonment, and, legally, Spitzer should be treated like anyone else. But I do not agree that, non-legally, he should be treated like anyone else. He is the governor of New York, after all, a prominent politician, a Democratic leader. Like it or not, we do need to hold our leaders to higher standards than we do most private citizens. We must be able to trust our leaders — and is not one of our key criticisms of Bush and those around him? And we certainly do not want our leaders hiring prostitutes.
As liberal as I am on sexual matters — and I am extremely liberal, I suppose — I think Spitzer was right when he said he broke his obligations, including his public ones.
