Client #9....Viagra is Ruining Our Government

Friends: Client # 9 ….
Viagra is Ruining Our Government

Well, this week’s Spitzer affair is just too salacious to pass up writing about, so here’s my take, full of puns.

Descriptions of all sorts have been offered up to define this scandal. I can understand the facts of it, perhaps the psychological implications of it, the hypocrisy of it, the arrogance and hubris of it, but what troubles me the most is the “cost of it.” Webster will be adding yet another term to the dictionary this year: Client # 9 to summarize the event. This soon-to-be cliché will join other such innovative descriptions like, “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is; Abscam; Watergate and Waterboarding."

For all his talent and empirical integrity, Spitzer was dull and boring in his approach to the tryst. Compare it with some of the more notable sexual scandals of the past:
Wilbur Mills and Fanne Fox, later known as “The Tidal Basin Bombshell”…Wilbur, the old alcoholic, resigned in disgrace from the Ways and Means Committee….
Take Gary Hart and the Playboy chick Donna Rice, cavorting in public on the yacht “Monkey Business…” now, that’s real panache!
Then there was Rita and John Jenrette, reputed to have favored the steps of the Capitol….bold;
Don’t forget Earl Long, called “The Last of the Red Hot Pappas,” and his stripper, Blaze Starr… made for movies;
Teddy had his Chappaquiddick and Willie his West Wing;
Chuck Robb and Tai Collins avowed that they only had champagne and massages…and Gore didn’t inhale either!
Even our progenitor Alex Hamilton confessed in public the slimy details…a media’s dream!

“Indiscretions” abound in our political world: Bobby and Marilyn, the foot-tapper Larry Craig or the Peanut Pickin’ Preacher from Plains with lust in his heart…Excuse me!...what else would you get from reading Playboy?

The whole affair is filled with irony and stupidity. The Emperor’s Club VIP was a “shell” company; it “priced” the girls differently: Susie for $1,000, but Kristen for $5,500… same person maybe? Duh? Then there’s the venue of it: Washington, DC, perhaps the capital of prostitution in all its forms, from politicians to lobbyists to escort services and all things in between.

If Spitzer were creative, he would claim he had gone undercover to bust yet another ring of prostitution, and in his zeal he had personally front-ended the $80,000 cost of the investigation. He could boast great success, and perhaps be given yet another medal for rooting out evil in Gotham City and Washington. But, No, he chose contrition, crawling out of the weeds like a groveling rodent looking for sympathy. And poor Silda, dragged through this mess and propped up there to face the media, yet another “stand-by-your-man” spouse who will soon get her own revenge…if he thought $5,500 was expensive, just wait…

But back to my take: Inflation. You ask “How could an hour cost so much?” Back in the old days…and I won’t go too far back lest it bring to memory skeletons of ones own Mayflower Hotel, Room 871, … gas was $0.29 per gallon: new cars cost $2,500; the movie was $0.25 and popcorn $0.10. But today, gas over $3.50, movies $8, popcorn and a coke $5, and a new car about $35,000. So, don’t be surprised if escort services charge $5,500 for their merchandise. Why not? This is America…. Res ipsa loquitor!

And like you, I long to know who the other 8 Clients are .... Feet of clay, my friends, Feet of clay!!


Bud
March 13, 2008