Glenn Greenwald on Spitzer Scandal

"People who work at an unpleasant job in order to support themselves, rather than because they enjoy it, are the functional equivalent of brutalized, exploited slaves and therefore should be barred by others from choosing that job -- when the job in question is prostitution, but not when it's factory work or fast food cashier or large corporate law firm associate or massage therapist or porn actor."

"Because Eliot Spitzer is a wretched hypocrite who mercilessly and cruelly prosecuted others for the very acts in which he himself engaged, and because he's so very sleazy, there's no reason to question the vast, extraordinary law enforcement resources expended -- under highly unusual circumstances -- by the Bush DOJ and FBI to investigate a crime that the Federal Government almost never prosecutes."

"Governors who hire adult prostitutes must resign immediately lest the public trust be forever sullied. Presidents who break the law by spying on Americans with no warrants, who torture people in violation of multiple treaties and statutes, who start hideously destructive wars based on false pretenses, who repeatedly proclaim the power to ignore laws, and who imprison people -- including Americans -- with no charges of any kind, should remain in office for as long as they want. Anyone who suggests otherwise is an irresponsible, shrill, partisan radical."

I obtained the three quotes above from today's Glenn Greenwald article in Salon. It's titled Misadventures in logical reasoning--and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal. Greenwald says at the end that he has "no sympathy for Spitzer personally given how aggressively he prosecuted multiple prostitution cases and how guilty he is of rank hypocrisy and overzealous prosecutions," but he doesn't believe that this has any bearing on the points he raises in his article, including those above. I'm inclined to agree. And I would like to see the media conduct a thorough investigation of how and why the federal government became so involved in investigating Spitzer's financial transactions, for this is what apparently led to his being exposed for his involvement with prostitutes.