When very serious things are happening in Iraq, Afganistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe and the American economy is in free-fall, more than a few words on the Spitzer situation seem to just feed into the eternal distraction from what matters. Still, for us, his only real crime is his hypocrisy. George Carlin has a great bit on prostitution where he asks how prostitution can be illegal when both sex and selling are perfectly legal (you can find it here -- warning: spicy language).

It comes down to economics. If women are selling or giving away sex, the market value of sexual access drops precipitously. Ideally, we would evolve culturally to a point where women had access to economic security, child-care, and so on without needing to resort to bartering their sexual autonomy to get these things, but we're not there yet.

As for Spitzer, if he hadn't trumpeted his disdain for prostitutes and their profession in his previous prosecutions, we'd feel sorry for him. As it is, he appears to be hoist by his own petard, as they say.