Public Detention

My son who is habitually out of sorts with his school administration has just informed me that it doesn’t matter whether you are licking cocaine off your history textbook at lunch which you financed with the very same tongue before homeroom by servicing a senior boy. What matters is how you look-- the first commandment of all teenagers-- and also apparently whether your notes are neat and orderly when the proctors come in to observe your class.

What my son has unfortunately not learned at this juncture is that you must put the proper face into use when proctors come into the room or somehow maintain a status quo and not insist on rocking the boat of those who hold your fate in their petty bureaucratic hands. At least not until you’re old enough to pay your own way and make your own decisions and properly maintain your own personal moral code.

This is something he has in common with our poor governor who has simultaneously delighted local news parasites and boosted their pathetic ratings, while distracting us from dismal economic news and depressing democratic campaign tactics. Another victim of hyper-vigilant bureaucrats whose own lives and careers are precarious and in need of a little media acclamation like a steroid shot.

Only in America does a man’s private life merit this kind of feeding frenzy. Only in America would a political figure, in an important political year, with the economy turning into fairy dust, have to consider abandoning ship because he had a professional appointment with a woman he paid for out of personal, not public money-- for something that should be processed as personal training or a massage. Only in America, land of rampant pederasts, perverts, molesting priests, soliciting senators and billions of dollars in questionable earmarks moving freely day by day, do we point the Uncle Sam finger like a gun. While half the world is starving, trillions of dollars bleed out everyday on presidential wargames, our FBI boys are proudly spending millions of tax dollars to ensnare a politician whose version of hubris, I admit, was getting tiresome. How about John McCain and the lobbyist? I guess he didn’t actually pay her….or did he? How many payments go unlogged every day…how many meals, earmarks, favors...billions of dollars each month…in bribes, cover-ups, wasted funds? Don't forget our own Giuliani and his Judith Nathan… not to mention every single congressman or senator who fools around with a staff member; always convenient to pass favors between people on the same payroll.

I had a brief internship during college in Washington. Believe me, maybe times were different, but no one in a position of power would have to pay for sex unless they wanted to make absolutely sure the woman would keep it professional and private and clean.

Eliot Spitzer has made a lot of enemies, but any of us who are naïve enough to think that this is about sex…well, think again. You’ve all read those Scott Turow novels. The comic icing on the cake was that pathetic Mrs. McGreevey. Maybe she didn’t get enough from her book to finance Botox-for-life. If I were in Mrs. Spitzer’s position, I would find that far more insulting than her husband’s behavior. Besides, at least he’s heterosexual, always reassuring for the wife.

It’s a Democracy, not a Hypocrisy. But as my son says…what matters is how you look. Hilary’s eye surgery, McCain’s necklift. Let’s move on. The fault is with the FBI, hemorrhaging tax dollars on this kind of thing when federal and state corruption, bribes and embezzlement cost us probably half of our annual tax budget. Getting paid to investigate great looking women who probably actually pay taxes? Give us a break.

Let Eliot serve detention with my son who was caught texting his girlfriend in class without a pencil…whatever… and then move on to business. The Board of Ed is not paying for his cellphone bill and from the letter I got in the mail yesterday they are going to be paying for $238,000 less at his school. Why don’t we take the money they’ll waste on crucifying Spitzer and give it back to the Board of Ed? Leave him alone…let’s get those Wall Street criminals who have bankrupted our economy a little nervous. A lot of people were celebrating last night. Does that get anyone thinking? Apparently not.