Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Kwame, Eliot, and Getting What You Pay for
I hate how liberal I'm going to sound when I say this, but America needs to get over its prostitution hang-up.
The reason I've ended up at this conclusion is Kwame Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick is the disgraced mayor of Detroit, who, so far as we know, did not have sex with any prostitutes. What he did do was have an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty (and, it has been alleged in court, at least three other women, in addition to throwing stripper parties at the city-owned mayoral residence). He then allegedly had fired, and thus ruined the careers of, those policemen investigating both his misconduct and abuses by his security team. When those officers fought back and won a Whistleblower Protection Act lawsuit against the city worth $6.5 million in damages, Kilpatrick (who is black) publicly pulled the race card and vowed to appeal. But in the end, he quietly offered a settlement of $8.4 million.
If that sudden change of heart doesn't make sense to you, it's because, as The Detroit Free Press discovered, the $8.4 million settlement included a secret deal in which all parties agreed to hide the existence of incriminating text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty. In other words, Kilpatrick tried to spend $8.4 million in taxpayer money to cover up an affair. (Well, one could say that the $6.5 million was for the illegal firings - which, remember, he was allegedly responsible for in the first place - and the extra $2.1 million in taxpayer money to be the actual price of silence.)
I first heard about this when Slate ran some of the text messages on its website almost two months ago. Unbelievably, Kilpatrick is still mayor, despite being indicted on Monday with eight felonies, including perjury. The media coverage has been widespread, but certainly not scandalous. There's none of the national moral outrage that was so fervent just two weeks ago.
Eliot Spitzer had sex with prostitutes.
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6 comments:
America needs to get over it's sex hang ups in general. You can say whatever you like about extramarital/marital/purchased/cigar/etc sex. If you think it's wrong, no one's making you do it. But the act itself isn't what causes all the problems - it's all this cover up nonsense. I'm amazed at the lengths that people go to to make sure that no one finds out about their "improprieties" (in quotes because the word can cover so many things - to go to an extreme, I could say it's improperly sexual to pet your dog), including all of the abuses of power and taxpayer money, but I'm also amazed that the public seems so surprised every single time. While I find the Kilpatrick and Spitzer's cover ups morally reprehensible, I can understand why they'd try - any whiff of scandal and their careers are pretty much over. What would you do?
People have sex. They don't always do it in ways everyone approves of. Americans in general need to get over it.
I actually am surprised at Kilpatrick's cover up - not because it's morally reprehensible, but because it didn't make sense as a risk. His political career would certainly not have ended had it been revealed he was having an affair. Look no further than our own mayor as proof, or Gavin Newsom up in San Francisco.
The alleged stripper parties on city property are another thing entirely as far as political kryptonite goes, but the $8.4 million was about the text messages between him and his chief of staff.
Your argument seems to be less about prostitution and, more, as catherine says, about Americans getting over sex hang-ups. The big shocker with Spitzer was, "What?!! People don't expect that politicians in powerful positions visit expense prostitutes?"
Sex crime? Whatever. The cover-up, the millions of dollars bothers me way more. But that's just not how American politics work. It is shocking what lengths Kilpatrick went to in order to cover things up. And to be fair, Villaraigosa's affair did require him to take some time off and out of the public spotlight for a bit. These sex scandals are do-able, but still quite a bit of trouble.
Someone just asked Chelsea about Monica today. I mean, really? But, yeah. Really.
I think Alfred's presiding point is that a much greater crime was committed by Kilpatrick than Spitzer, and though both their wrongdoings involved sex, Spitzer was "punished" more harshly, presumably because the public judges prostitution to be worse than massive bribery.
While I agree with the point that Spitzer has been grossly overpunished and Kilpatrick underpunished when their crimes are taken alone, there are external factors to consider in the public's judgment of them. To wit: Spitzer has always made himself in the image of a Boy Scout, so his relatively minor transgression has the feel of hypocrisy.
Kilpatrick, however, billed himself as "the hip-hop mayor." As a result, people began to view him as morally questionable – due in part to his lavish parties, bodyguards, etc. When your constituents already think you're questionable – especially when that's an image you aim for – I think you're judged less harshly if you actually do something questionable. That is all to say, Kilpatrick doesn't look like a hypocrite, so he reaps less public scorn.
As per Catherine's point: "If you think it's wrong, no one's making you do it." I can't agree with this as a moral stance. While it might seem intuitive for sexual and other "victimless" behaviors, it doesn't work so well for other behaviors.
Imagine someone saying, as some sort of moral justification, "If you think murder is wrong, don't do it." That seems to leave a big hole for someone who doesn't think murder is wrong.
Yeah. On a scale of one to ridiculous, I would say it gets at least 6.25 guffaws to suggest that sleeping with prostitutes is worse than using public money to hide things from the public. That seems backward somehow.
And maybe it's just me and a certain desensitizing brought on by glossy covered magazines in the checkout line of Ralphs,but who really cares about these so called sexual improprieties? Spend half an evening on the Row and you'll see as much. The public should worry about problems of governance... leave the cheating to the wives.
Sorry Greg - should've been more clear that I was talking about sex when I said "If you think it's wrong, no one's making you do it." There's a hell of a lot less gray area in other cases (unless you want to go off on an extensive philosophical tangent in which everything is gray area, which has never really been my thing - societies have social/moral norms for a reason). I do believe that murder is, wrong no matter what, as is using taxpayer money to cover up your affair.
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