We're all wearing the blue dress now

As much as I LOATHE the Republican Party, there's a certain unabashed verve with which they perpetrate their crimes and misdemeanors that's impressive to behold, even if it makes me absolutely livid at whatever the latest shenanigan is.

Exhibit A: the entire Spitzer debacle. I'm still in shock at what happened, and it all happened so quickly that I don't think anyone's had time to absorb the magnitude of it yet. Like pretty much everyone else in the liberal blogosphere, I've been following Spitzer's career for years, since his time as a NYDA and then AG. He fucked some people's shit up, and they were the kind of people that aren't used to getting so much as a disapproving look while they lie, cheat, and steal, let alone indictments and verdicts. To say that the man has made some powerful enemies is the understatement of the year.

So the fact that he left himself so wide open with the prostitution thing is perhaps doubly boggling, and whatever else you can say about the situation, it's both sad and infuriating that he had such a massive Achille's Heel that he either couldn't or wouldn't fix.

HOWEVER. The way in which it all went down, and the severity with which they came down on his head smells exceedingly fishy, or should, to everyone that's not actually a, you know, fish. Conjuring up some 60+ year old law that hasn't been used in ages to get him on, and throwing the kind of federal resources on the kind of case that the feds normally don't even handle because they have far more important crimes to prosecute? Yeah, that's not suspicious in any way.

The good folks at firedoglake are on the case, as ever. And today, they've got a nice timeline of the whole affair (pardon the pun), with links to some very interesting documents that I think you'll all find interesting. Valentine's Day in particular.

Just What DID Trigger That Investigation of Spitzer?

I'm not saying we should excuse Spitzer for obtaining the services of a prostitute. It was wrong and he shouldn't have done it. But I'll note that David Vitter -- the Repub busted for visiting prostitutes for years (and whose predilections apparently involve wearing a diaper and other unusual kinks, according to the reports that floated around after that news broke) -- is still in office with nary a word that he ought to resign, even though he's in trouble for using campaign money to pay for his extracurricular activities. To say nothing of guys like Larry Craig, who's actually been convicted of a crime in relation to his extracurricular activities, and yet currently holds office AND all of his Committee assignments. And to my knowledge, there were no federal agencies involved in either of those cases, and certainly not the 5 or more that were/are apparently involved in the Spitzer case. Apparently, as in all other things political these days, IOKIYAR.