Spitzer

Cleatus said:

What I have to say is neither profound nor cutting edge. It has happened before, and it will happen again. But, as I watched "The Smartest Men in the Room" documentary on the Enron Scandal and at the same time the news on Eliot Spitzer was breaking, it was just reinforced.

The tale is age old - man grinds, he is either successful or not (doesn't really matter), he gets bored with life, and he takes risk. Regarding Enron, the risk was also in the form of self-gain. Not the case with Gov. Spitzer. But in Enron, they had a culture of risk - they would take vacations where they would do extreme sports, they would cheat on their wives, etc...

I'm not a psychologist, but I imagine one of the main reasons that Spitzer got a prostitute rather than simply having an affair, is because it was more risk. As in fight club, the mundane grind leaves us desiring something more. Generally, the average person has less than 2 hours a day to pursue what they really want to be doing. In those two hours, they don't pursue their desires because society has told us that these desires are bad. Fight Club is probably the extreme example - they risk their health to feel alive. But Spitzer also risked his health (at least I consider sleeping with a prostitute risky).

In the more day-to-day examples, you probably see people flirting when they shouldn't, investing a little more than they should, betting a little more than their allotted "gambling expenses", etc. But, when you get to guys like Spitzer, who have been successful their whole life, this little risk still doesn't make them feel alive. They need to go over the top. He did.

I'm not trying to make Spitzer or the Enron executives come off as victims - its Spitzer's family and the Enron shareholders who will ultimately lose. But, societal morals accompanied with the day to day grind certainly leaves most looking for more. How you achieve the "more" will probably make or break you. It certainly will break a lot more people than Spitzer. FInally, perhaps we should give him a little pass because DC is America's playground - Nixon, Clinton, Marion Barry, and now Spitzer.

Bill Ray said:

When I read the news, I almost felt sorry for him. I am not judging Spitzer as we are all flawed and I have committed my fair share of sins but I think two things:

1) his risk analysis was horrible, and
2) the true victims here are his family

I have no idea why he did it. Maybe he was bored with life and decided to take on risk. Perhaps the day to day grind simply wore him down to the point that he felt compelled to do some shit just for him. He probably thought using a prostitute was less risky than any other affair. I assume there is less risk of emotional attachment when the sex is essentially a business deal.

Regardless of why he did it, he did a piss poor job with the risk analysis and has negatively impacted his career and family life for eternity. When he was thinking about the pros and cons of his risky behavior, he clearly spent too much time on the pros and not enough on the cons.

As a lawyer, he should have realized that there are different levels of crimes. When a regular man cheats, the repurcussions are potentially enormous. At a minimum, you lose the trust of your wife and you run the risk of losing your wife and family altogether. Spitzer's scenario is far worse. His wife has to not only endure the pain of her husband cheating but also the resulting embarassment of having his infidelity exposed to the world. His kids have to go to school with the knowledge that everyone knows what is going on in their household. Add in the facts that he was considered a "straight as an arrow" politician and had prosecuted prostitution rings himself and the scenario is further exacerbated. Dude should have learned from Slick Willie Clinton.

Bottom line, at least he got some "new" ass out of the entire ordeal, his wife and kids gained nothing. I would also wager that when he has some time to think about it all, he will conclude that the "new" ass was not at all worth the risk. I doubt he will get a pass on this but in his defense, I will say this.......................at least the prostitute was not male. That would have gotten him in even more trouble.