"This has been the mystery of the Trump era — every time we think this is the final straw, it turns into a steel beam that merely solidifies his political infrastructure."

Said Eliot Spitzer, a man who resigned for nothing more than using prostitutes.

Quoted in "Any Other Politician Would Have Bowed Out. Trump? Not a Chance. This week’s debate over his very eligibility for office served as a stark reminder that anyone else facing such a wide array of legal problems would have left the political stage long ago" (NYT).

I think the reason Spitzer — and let's throw in Al Franken — didn't stand their ground and fight is that they were beholden to their political party. Trump never was in thrall to other Republicans. He took over the party. Who holds sway with him? 

The article also has this quote from Trump: "Other people, if they ever got indicted, they’re out of politics. They go to the microphone. They say, ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life, you know, clearing my name. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with my family.' I've seen it hundreds of times.... I can tell, you know, it’s backfired on them."

Maybe some of these others — Spitzer, Franken — would have prevailed if they'd fought. But it's hard to believe that other beleaguered politicians will fight like Trump. The Trump example shows that by fighting, you attract endless woes — multiple impeachments, felony charges, efforts to confiscate all of your wealth, the most miserable smears on your character. But Trump fights, and it's an amazing spectacle.

The reason I only have 1 post up today (until this one) is that I stopped to watch Bill Maher's show (which I had recorded).

I'd seen that he was the latest target in the game of Destroy a Comedian, and I wasn't interested in playing the game. We need our comedians, and if they're any good, they're going to offend us now and then. Maher does his show live, and he's got to jump at jibes when he sees them, and often he's childish or edgy or low.

I needed to watch the whole thing, and that took a while, because I have a sort of real-live, in-the-room, blogger-and-commenter thing happening here, and it takes a long time to watch the whole show. There's pausing and conversation and rewinding and innumerable points to be made — and not just about Maher's "Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger" response to Ben Sasse's invitation to come out to Nebraska and "work in the fields with us."

Meade and I weren't just talking about that, but about the entire interview with Ben Sasse, who was there to talk about his book — "The Vanishing American Adult" (which I've blogged about before). Sasse was doing a great job holding his ground and seeming like a smart, attractive, independent politician, and it will be a shame if people only want to talk about Maher's zinger with the bad word, but that's what we do these days. Because Sasse is right, adulthood is eroding.

Ooh! Maher said a bad word, Mommy. Punish him! 

And then there was a panel discussion, a completely unbalanced panel with what seemed to be 3 hopped-up Trump haters: Eliot Spitzer — isn't he supposed to be in prison? — Rebecca Traister — author of that NY Magazine Hillary hype, "Hillary Clinton Is Furious. And Resigned. And Funny. And Worried." — and Jim VandeHei — a co-founder of that new media effort Axios, which aspires to fix what's wrong with media, but might be bad. These 3 jiggled and fidgeted and spluttered. The best part was when Traister, effusing, made a reference to Hillary Clinton redirecting her fundraising "hose." Maher — with almost nothing but facial expression — called attention to the pun, and Traister tsked at him. Meanwhile, sitting between Traister and Maher was Spitzer — Client 9 — but Maher resisted the edgy joke there. He didn't say "Eliot, you know about hos" or anything like that. The panel stumbled on.

In the middle of the panel, there was the most substantive, intelligent part of the show, a little interview with a man named Tristan Harris, whose bottom-of-the-screen identification read: "Former design ethicist, Google." He had a lot to say about the great power of manipulation possessed by Google and Facebook and Apple and the ethical problems of the attention-manufacturing business. But that set up a question Maher threw to Traister and Traister seized the opportunity to chatter manically and we never got back to Harris.

The morning was getting late and the cool breeze in real-life world wasn't going to last. I got out for a long walk. But now I'm back and I see that Maher has apologized:

"Friday nights are always my worst night of sleep because I’m up reflecting on the things I should or shouldn’t have said on my live show. Last night was a particularly long night as I regret the word I used in the banter of a live moment. The word was offensive and I regret saying it and am very sorry."

If it were up to me, I'd say fine. The word wasn't directed at anybody (other than at Maher himself). It was mostly just laughing at the idea of Bill Maher working in a field. Worse that the "n-word" itself, in my view — if you want to take racial matters seriously — is that he used slavery in a lighthearted way.

For a different perspective, here's what Malcolm X said about the "field Negro" and the "house Negro" (via "Five (Other) Times Bill Maher Was Racist, Islamophobic, or Sexist"):

"You know, Republicans are getting a lot of flack these days, as they should, for waging a war on women. But what's the excuse for the country's most progressive mayor?"

"How can this strain of puritanism endure in the same city that pioneered the kinky hollowed parade? It was bad enough with New York City went all Rick Santorum on Eliot Spitzer to begin with. He's only the guy who arguably did more to reform Wall Street than any other American. Yeah, his libido got the best of him and he paid dearly for it. A brilliant man was reduced to a punchline and banished from public life. But now, anybody he touches has to go?"

Said Bill Maher on his show last night, criticizing Bill de Blasio, "a man so liberal he married a black lesbian," for rejecting a woman seemingly because she was dating Eliot Spitzer — "Lis Smith who ran Mayor Bill de Blasio's communications department in last year's campaign was all set to take over the job that she earned as his top spokesman." How do you "earn" a job as someone else's spokesperson? De Blasio gets to pick the person who speaks for him. If he didn't want to get any Spitzer on him, he's entitled.

Glenn Loury and I don't see what's so bad about Anthony Weiner's sexting.

We question the denouncement of Weiner, speculate about the nature of the "arrangement" or "understanding" between Huma and Anthony (and Bill and Hillary), and compare the wrongness of sexting to pornography, adultery, and prostitution:

"Alarmed by Eliot Spitzer’s momentum in his unexpected bid to win citywide office, an unlikely coalition of business leaders, women’s groups and labor unions..."

"... is vowing to finance an ambitious effort to thwart the former governor’s ambition," begins this NYT article.

The interest groups, which often spar with one another over competing agendas and priorities, have found rare common cause in their antipathy toward Mr. Spitzer, who infuriated the business community with his aggressive posture toward Wall Street, who offended feminists by paying for sex with prostitutes and who alienated unions by taking on a labor-backed candidate.

Kinda makes you like him, no?

And here's how Tina Brown referred to Spitzer in that "End the Damn Dickmanship!" piece that I've already blogged this morning:

He looks demented. The scimitar mouth pulled back in a mad crow of triumph, the face sweating with guilty pleasure.

That's so mean I'm starting to root for him.

“Spitzer, you cheated on your wife!”

“You betrayed your constituents. You abandoned your wife. You betrayed everybody!”

“This is about power. You just want power, man. If you want public service go volunteer somewhere!”

“Did you leave your black socks on?”

“This is what I look forward to — dealing with the public,” said Spitzer. “This is New York. You know when we go to a ballpark we heckle the pitcher who throws one bad pitch. We have a little bit of the heckler in each one of us. At a certain point it passes the line of decorum, but this is New York. This is politics. I’m game for it. I have skin as thick as a rhinoceros.”

A rhinoceros in black socks?

"I don’t think we should talk about Lincoln’s underwear..."

"It’s not appropriate for someone so iconic. Even in the bedroom, Lincoln is never shown in his pajamas. He’s in his shirt and pants."

Joanna Johnston, movie costume designer.

***

"But even the President of the United States/Sometimes must have to stand naked."

Bob Dylan.

***

"How many Bob Dylan songs have the word 'naked' and how many of them can you name?" I challenge Meade with a Bob Dylan test, as I tend to do when I've done a search at bobdylan.com (as I did for the "It's Alright Ma" quote, above).

Meade immediately says "even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked," then none of the others — not even "You see somebody naked and you say who is that man?" — and makes 2 wrong guesses:

MEADE: "'Mr. Tambourine Man'... just to dance beneath the naked sky..."

ME: "That's 'diamond sky.'"

MEADE: "The one where the farmer is chasing him out of his house."

ME: "'Motorpsycho Nightmare?' No."

In "Motorpsycho Nightmare," Bob Dylan is just trying to get some sleep — no sign that he's sleeping naked — when Rita — "Lookin’ just like Tony Perkins" (i.e., the murderer in "Psycho") importunes him to take a shower. He's freaked out: "Oh, no! no! I’ve been through this [movie] before." Afraid of getting knifed to death, but unwilling to run off unless her father (the farmer) throws him out (because he promised the farmer he'd milk the cows in the morning), his sees his only option as saying "something to strike him very weird." What he says is: "I like Fidel Castro and his beard."



Beards. Fidel Castro made a beard as off limits to an American president — in spite of Lincoln — as Hitler made the mustache. And here I want to go back to that "Becoming Adolf" article by Rich Cohen that were were talking about a couple days ago:

[Y]ou could not wear any kind of mustache after [WWII], because, running from Hitler, you might run into Stalin. Hitler plus Stalin ended the career of the mustache in Western political life. Before the war, all kinds of American presidents wore a mustache and/or beard. You had John Quincy Adams, with his muttonchops...



You had Abe Lincoln, whose facial hair...



... like his politics, was the opposite of Hitler's: beard full, lip bare. You had James Garfield, who had the sort of vast rabbinical beard into which whole pages of legislation could vanish.



You had Rutherford B. Hayes...



Grover Cleveland...



... and Teddy Roosevelt, whose asthma and elephant gun were just a frame for his mustache.



You had William Howard Taft — the man wore a Walrus!



After the war, the few American politicians who still wore a mustache were those who had made their name before Hitler and so had been grandfathered in. Like Thomas Dewey.



Dewey was Eliot Spitzer. He was a prosecutor in New York in the 1930s (and later governor), the only guy with the guts to take on the Mob. For Dewey, the rise of Hitler was a fashion disaster. Because Dewey wore a neat little mustache. Dewey ran for president twice — losing to F.D.R., losing to Truman. In my opinion, without the mustache, the headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune (Dewey Defeats Truman) turns true. One of the few prominent American politicians to wear facial hair in recent memory is Al Gore, who grew a Grizzly Adams beard after he lost to George Bush, in 2000. The appearance of this beard was taken to mean either (1) Gore would never again run for office, or (2) Gore had gone completely mental.



The decision to grow a mustache or a beard is all by itself reason to keep a man away from the nuclear trigger.

Are we going to decide who deserves out trust based on they look? Come on, Abe. Lose the beard. Okay.

Pick one:

What's the best position for a 2012 candidate to take on the Arizona approach to immigration enforcement?

The Obama administration fought this law, in what culminated in an embarrassing performance at the Supreme Court this week. And Chuck Schumer's saying that if the Supreme Court upholds Arizona's law, the Democrats in Congress will rise up and kill it. But polls show that a big majority of Americans — and about half of Hispanic-Americans — support what Arizona has done — even after extensive efforts by the Democrats+MSM to make us all feel as though only terrible, racist people think Arizona's okay.

And I just want to remind you of something that you may have forgotten: the reason Barack Obama was able to overtake Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination. What was the issue that tripped her up and gave Obama the opening to look like the sensible, moderate person?

But it was a question about driver's licenses for “undocumented workers'' – the politically neutral terminology for “illegal aliens'' which she prefers – that created the most trouble for Clinton during last night's two-hour debate of the Democrats staged in Philadelphia....

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, NBC moderator Tim Russert reminded Clinton. “You told the Nashua, N.H., editorial board it makes a lot of sense,'' he said. “Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license? ''

“ Well, what Gov. Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform,'' she said. “We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers.

We know all about Spitzer trying to "fill the vacuum," but let's not digress into the subject of prostitution in this post.

“They are driving on our roads,'' she said. “The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It's probability. So what Gov. Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum.

Ahem. I'm trying not to get distracted!

“I believe we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform because no state, no matter how well-intentioned, can fill this gap,'' Clinton continued. “There needs to be federal action on immigration reform. ''

“Does anyone here believe an illegal immigrant should not have a driver's license?'' Russert asked the other six Democrats assembled on stage.

Damn! I miss Tim Russert! Here's video. I love the point — at 2:53 — when she complains that "everybody" — i.e. Tim — is playing "gotcha." Because he got her. And that's the moment when she loses.

After that point, it looks as though they are moving on to the next topic: protecting children — children! — from — horrors! — the Internet. We got a laugh watching the now-disgraced John Edwards scramble to: Children? Protect children? I would. But he shifts back to the immigration topic, not to take an actual position himself, but to attack Hillary for taking more than one position, and after all the years of "double-talk from Bush and from Cheney...  America deserves us to be straight.'' (Yeah, be straight, John. Tell it to the jury.)

And then Barack Obama gets his chance. At 4:10, the moderator (Brian Williams) calls on him: "Senator Obama, why are you nodding your head?"

“Well, I was confused on Sen. Clinton's answer,'' Obama said. “I can't tell whether she was for it or against it, and I do think that is important.

“You know, one of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we face,'' Obama said. “Immigration is a difficult issue. But part of leadership is not just looking backwards and seeing what's popular, or trying to gauge popular sentiment. It's about setting a direction for the country, and that's what I intend to do as president.''

That's obviously total mush, but he sounds calm saying it. He's pushed to take a position and — caught — he says that Spitzer has "the right idea... because there is a public safety concern":

"We can make sure that drivers who are illegal come out of the shadows, that they can be tracked, that they are properly trained, and that will make our roads safer. That doesn't negate the need for us to reform illegal immigration.''

So he agrees with Hillary's first position.  I had forgotten that. I can't remember how this issue played out and why it hurt Hillary so much and helped Obama. Maybe it was simply that she lost her cool and sounded dishonest, and he lucked into an opportunity to seem solid and competent.

"While one must always be cautious in seeking government investigation of the media for the obvious First Amendment concerns..."

"... this is not actually an investigation of the media, but an investigation of criminal acts undertaken by those masquerading as members of the media."

Eliot Spitzer, writing in Slate, thinks the Murdoch scandal (although it's occurring in the UK) is "an opportunity for the Justice Department to show it can flex its muscles at the right moment."

Where's Huma Abedin? What should she do?

The Daily News headlines: "Huma Abedin is notably absent from husband Anthony Weiner's tearful sexting confession."

Huma Abedin wasn't standing by her man....

A top aide to Secretary of State Clinton, Abedin issued no statements of support for her embattled husband. She was a no-show Monday at two public State Department events.

"I love my wife very much, and we have no intention of splitting up over this," Weiner insisted. "I love her very much, and she loves me."

No intention of splitting up over this. Those last 2 words jumped out at me.

Several political pros cheered her absence yesterday.

"In general, it's very difficult for women constituents to look at the grieving wife up there," said Democratic consultant George Arzt. "It's bad PR."

The better move for Weiner, Arzt said, was "to look like he can take it all by himself and stand up there."

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato took to Twitter with a similar view: "At least Weiner didn't make his wife come out and gaze lovingly at him."

Ha ha. He's a PR expert! He's not advising Weiner in advance. He's dealing with the facts he's stuck with. This is what the PR man says when the wife isn't there. What did the Democratic consultants say when Silda Spitzer stood by her man?

The New York Post headlines: "Weiner & wife worlds apart/:Snake slithers when Huma is globetrotting with Hill."

As the "body woman" to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin is tasked with accompanying the former first lady on diplomatic globetrotting missions.

Weiner, it seems, uses the timing of her foreign affairs to pursue domestic ones online.

For instance, last month, while Abedin and Clinton were in Rome meeting with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Weiner was chatting up Texas nursing student Meagan Broussard.

I wonder what conversations Huma is having with Hillary — the world's most famous stander by of her man.

The political power couple met while Abedin was on the campaign trail during Clinton's 2008 White House bid. By 2009, they were engaged....

Didn't Abedin know the kind of man she was marrying? He was 45, and had never married previously. As Hillary's close assistant, she had to be sophisticated about the ways of oversexed, extroverted, narcissistic husbands. What was the marriage supposed to be, anyway? They were conspicuously a glamorous "power couple," for public purposes, but what was he allowed to do in private? What were their understandings? At the press conference yesterday, Weiner said that she asked how he could be so dumb, which made me think what mattered most was that people found out and she was shamed and embarrassed. Was it the public image that mattered, or was it to be a loyal, deeply bonded marriage in private?

Unlike Bill and Hillary, Weiner and Abedin have only been married a year, and they have no children. And the husband's career is deeply compromised at this point. They're not going to become the Democratic Party's next Bill and Hillary. The glamorous power couple is defunct. What happens to the private Tony and Huma?

Will Abedin divorce Weiner?
	Yes.
	No, she'll stand by her man.
	Divorce? She should be able to get an annulment!
pollcode.com free polls

"Obama wants to take our penises."

One of many out of context quotes — 2 of which are from me — in this montage of sexy highlights from the last 5 years of Bloggingheads:



ADDED: Here's the context of my reference to "masturbating boys":

"Sorry. I knew Icarus—Icarus was a friend of mine. Eliot Spitzer is no Icarus. Prickarus, maybe."

Snazzy writing, of the Esquire kind. Not sure if it's fair or if it even makes much sense, but one feels stimulated and vaguely smart.

"I tuned in to see how bad Spitzer would look, and the dude was great."

"He asked hard, pointed questions to liberals and enjoyed it. The liberal guests seemed to accept being killed by a famous bad boy Democrat that they expected to be one of their own. But Spitzer was harder on the facts than O'Reilly ever pretends to be. His side kick, Parker used a sickening southern lady act to ridicule everything that she could pretend to be shamefully GOP. But Spitzer went after the Dems talking points with direct contradictions like a good cross examiner should. If CNN leaves him on, a star has been born."

Says traditionalguy.

Let's check it out.

"Other cable news channels force-feed viewers one narrow, predictable point of view; in contrast, CNN will be offering a lively roundup of all the best ideas..."

Assuming you're eating points of view, are you hungry for more variety in your diet? Great! CNN is serving up a yummy plate of Spitzer.

There's a big epidemic, no, not of sex addiction...

... but of wives deciding their husbands are sex addicts who must get treatment.

I’ve been a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist for 30 years.... But until about three years ago no one ever came in claiming to be a sex addict, or saying that his partner told him he was one....

I don’t treat sex addiction. The concept is superficial. It isn’t clearly defined or clinically validated, and it’s completely pathology-oriented. It presents no healthy model of non-monogamy, pornography use, or stuff like S/M. Some programs eliminate masturbation, which is inhumane, naïve, and crazy....

Oh, I observe people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and a few other exotic states. That accounts for some of what laypeople call “sex addiction.”

What I mostly see instead of “sex addicts” is people who are neurotic or narcissistic....

Thanks to regular commenter Julius Ray Hoffman, for sending me that link.

Read the whole post by Dr. Marty Klein. It's pretty funny, these men sent in by their wives to get treatment, after learning from their wives that "either I’m a sex addict and I couldn’t help it and I need treatment, or I’m just a selfish bastard and she wants a divorce."

How come so many women have gotten the idea they can diagnose this ailment? It's easy to figure out that wives grasp at the idea of addiction instead of facing the pain of rejection and betrayal, but why the big change in the last 3 years? There are people — not Dr. Klein — who make money in the addiction treatment racket, and they've managed to get their pitch out to the public, but how and why now? Some "Oprah" show?

I looked back into my blog archives to see what relevant things started 3 years ago. In 2007, there was the Larry Craig story. That got processed as "sex addiction" to some extent. In 2008, there was the Eliot Spitzer thing. Hmm. I wonder why something so inherently unbelievable gained traction when politicians were using it. It's testimony to the strong appeal of the sex addiction theory of marital infidelity that women bought it when they heard it from such low-credibility sources.

***

Is "sex addiction" one of these things that's going to be treated under the new health care regime, even as Medicare patients are given pain pills in lieu of hip replacements and heart valves?

ADDED: Why aren't wives more worried about treatment for sex addiction? You want the man to be "sexually addicted" to you. How would health workers remove the part of his sexuality that's goes toward other women and leave the part that goes to you? Even assuming this is a disease, the cure seems dangerous, unless you want a desexualized husband.

"[L]adies, ladies, ladies..." — *you* are the whores!

"[S]o many of you have been cool, supportive and loving. But there are those of you out there who just love to judge."

Love to judge Ashley Dupre, the prostitute who did business with Eliot Spitzer.

Let me say this - most girls, to varying degrees of course, want to be pampered and have nice shoes, designer handbags and gorgeous clothes. I know many women who target guys with money and use them to get these things. They toy with them, flirt, go on dates, have sex and then drop hints about that new dress at the store down the street or being short on rent money – and the guys deliver it. This is a dishonest relationship. I see this all over New York City. Some women aren’t as vindictive, but still dive into relationships with wealthy guys who they don’t love or even find attractive, but they stay in it because they have a nice home, a car and spending money – they would rather stay in an unfulfilling or loveless relationship than lose that security. This, too, is a dishonest relationship.

You, ladies, you are whores too.

I see this type all over the suburbs of New Jersey with the housewives who are strung out on mood stabilizers or the couples who put all their attention on their children so they don’t have to deal with their own issues. What about going to those sugar daddy websites? Is that legal? Should it be? Is what I did any more dishonest? Get real and get over yourself.

Yeah, get over yourselves, ladies. Judge me? I judge you!

You’d be shocked at some of the messes I’ve gotten myself into....and, more importantly, how I got out of them. I have so much more to say, and I will – but it’s time for Yoga class! Om Shanti!

Om Shanti!

Can Eliot Spitzer make a comeback?

"Two sources said Spitzer had thought about a gamut of different electoral choices in his months of political exile. But one ally insisted he's realized he can't do anything, at least not next year, saying, 'There are people around him who want to see him [in office], and he sees himself there, too. He loves to be in the limelight. But he knows it can't happen.'"

Oh, why not? Does anyone care anymore?

"Behind Eliot Spitzer's flaccid attempt at re-erecting his public persona..."

The Daily News goes all phallic for some reason.

CORRECTION: I mean The New York Post.

Let's show Eliot Spitzer some love!

"Can't we just say you had a really humiliating 'time-out,' and all's forgiven?"

(I know. I know. It's not just adultery. It's prostitutes. And hypocrisy. But they're all hypocrites, and there will always be prostitutes...)

"I resigned my position as Governor because I recognized that conduct was unworthy of an elected official."

"I once again apologize for my actions."

No charges against Eliot Spitzer. Who must be cursing in private now. Remind me why this elected governor had to resign.