Hoist by his own petard

A petard, literally, is an explosive device, in 16th-century lingo. People, especially us little people, have always enjoyed seeing their betters being hoisted, i.e., blown up, by bombs of their own making. Nixon and his tapes, Bill and his intern, Spitzer and his prostitute. I, for one, took more pleasure in the tapes than in either of the latter. But there was hubris in them all, a sense of being above it all, untouchable. Notice, too, it is the ones who challenge others the most who are brought down hardest.

If Jimmy Carter had not been such a holy man, his lusting heart would not have made the news. Now, our governor wishes he had taken Jimmy’s cue and kept his lust where it belongs—in his own private fantasies. Settling with God is so much quieter.

Only days before this recent scandale appassionata broke, I had been listening to complaints of a friend who works for New York State. A registered Democrat, she was ruing the reign of the current administration. Her office was scheduled to attend a sexual harassment seminar—a state mandate. Short-staffed by budget cuts, the small office works harder than ever under the Spitzer lead. “We’re too tired to harass each other sexually,” my friend complains. Not so the governor. He fits his nookie breaks in between congressional hearings. But sexual harassment, a serious issue in public and private workplaces, is not sex. It’s harassment. And the issue of governors using prostitutes is not about sex, it’s about the law.

We’re supposed to tell our children that smoking pot funds terrorists. What about pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into drug and prostitution rings every year, as the gov’nor is alleged to have done?

Elliot Spitzer can’t cry ignorance of this potential conflict of public and private interest. As chief prosecutor of New York State, he was intimately aware of the crime status of prostitution. And he certainly knew better than to violate the Mann Act by ferrying young prostitutes across state lines. What’s he got against DC whores? Oh, yeah, they can’t vote.

We’re supposed to teach our children to control their impulses. It is the sign of maturity, we tell them, to have an impulse and not act on it. It is a fast trip, for example, from a playground fight to a bar brawl. If a child’s emotional maturity doesn’t grow along with the years, that 10-year-old in the playground will be throwing punches that can cause real harm before long.

Watching the evening news as this story broke, I observed the reactions of teens and 20-somethings among us. Their concern centered around Spitzer’s family. How would his daughters deal with their anger and humiliation? Would his wife leave him? They debated the differences between extra-marital love affairs and prostitution.

Some thought it would be easier for his wife to accept his use of a prostitute than it was for Hillary to forgive Bill his exploitation of an intern. But Bill’s dalliance did not break the law. The governor’s apparently did. Yet he is not likely to be prosecuted for it. Johns rarely are. Still, I doubt that gave Spitzer any comfort in his behavior. I doubt he ever imagined being caught. It is the hubris of the powerful, the undoing of the mighty.

Sex is a complex subject—more so for some than for others. It is always better left private. This may speak well for another look at legalized prostitution. In a licensed profession, prostitutes would be subject to medical evaluation and free from the financial exploitation of pimps. Even better, the state would derive taxes from it. Then people like Elliott and Bill could sleep easy with their petards intact.

- Cass Collins