T.S,, Eliot!

A week ago, I couldn't have told you who Elliot Spitzer was. And I'm fairly sure that neither could most of the people who live in the USA.

But now this governor seems to be all that the news media wants to talk about.

If the allegations are true -- if the man who preached ethics while running for election has indeed be a repeat customer of certain high class prostitutes -- then he is indeed a true scumbag. And he should resign from office, not for visiting prostitutes (which I believe is a matter between him and his family) but for being a first class hypocrite. I'm not in the least going to defend the so-called "Sheriff of Wall Street."

But let's have some balance and perspective here.

Elliot Spitzer frequents whores and is pressured to resign. Bill Clinton lies to Congress about screwing some pathetic office girl and is impeached by the House. In both cases, the media talked about the story until every USAmerican with a pulse had heard about them, and then those people talked about the stories, inspiring still more media coverage. Even today, nine years later, more people can identify Monica Lewinski's name than can name their own congressman.

Meanwhile, there is evidence to suspect people in the Bush Administration of telling lies to start a war,
of reaping huge amounts of money as war profiteers,
of holding secret meetings before 9/11 to find a justification for that war,
of getting revenge on an ambassador by revealing that his wife was a CIA agent,
of illegally spying on American citizens and pressuring businesses to cooperate,
of tampering with voting procedures to determine the outcome of national elections, and
of hiring and firing government workers with greater concern for their politics than their competence.

In 1983, the majority of news media in the USA was controlled by 50 corporations. By 2004, it was controlled by only 5. Read more about this at Take Back the Media

And please notice that I said there was "evidence to suspect." None of these charges has been proven. Because none of them has been completely investigated.

If any of these stories got the kind of relentless corporate media attention that Elliot Spitzer has been getting, then the public outrage would probably demand at least an investigation. That this media attention has not been given to the Bush Administration is probably a direct result of media conglomeration, of the changes in regulations that allow fewer and fewer corporations to control more and more of the news media. Put the media under the control of a handful of very wealthy people, and they'll use that power to protect their own interests, no matter how much it hurts the nation.

We've been so disinterested, so distracted by American Idol and Britney Spears and their superficial ilk, that we've allowed a sort of de facto American politburo to develope. Like a combination of William Randolph Hearst and the Ministry of Truth.

Ultimately, I don't care what party a politician belongs to, or what political philosophy he espouses. If he's guilty of hypocrisy, I want him out of office. If he's guilty of corruption, I want him kept in a tiny, uncomfortable cell at night and chained to a tree near the Jefferson Memorial during the day, so ordinary citizens can line up to punch him in the gut.