The Rich Are Different

A couple of people have sent me the link to this column in Pajamas Media. I have no comment at this moment. Just read it. Here's a taste:

Remember that scene from Casablanca, when Captain Renault declares that he is shocked, shocked to find gambling going on – just as the croupier hands him his winnings? I keep thinking of that scene when I read about all those politicians who are baying for Spitzer’s blood. Because I know, and they know, that almost all of them have been escort agency clients too. Show me a rich and powerful man between the ages of 35 and 60 who has never paid an escort for sex, and I will show you a man who is a very rare exception.

But why would a rich, powerful and handsome man pay for extra-marital sex? Aren’t there tons of women waiting to throw themselves at him for free? Yes, there are. But those women always want something: they want attention, intimacy and romance. They want to enjoy the high of sleeping with a powerful man. Escorts don’t want or care about any of those things. At least one of the articles about the 22 year-old escort who slept with Spitzer implied that she didn’t even know who he was. Based on my experience, I think it’s highly unlikely that she knew or cared. She was in it for the money, and she had as much to hide as he did.

She thought that Silda must have known.

Comments

[Amy P]

Not to get really judgemental here, but isn't it true that if one is involved in harmful/illegal/immoral/etc. activities, one of the easiest outs is to say or think that "everyone" is doing it, or at least something just as bad? If you are a tax cheat, an adulterer, an alcoholic, or a drug user, you may find it hard to believe or accept that there are people out there keeping to the straight and narrow.

[dave.s.]

Client 6: http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=8090

[Ailurophile]

I agree with Amy. "Everybody does it" is a convenient excuse. There's always the rejoinder: "If everybody jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?"

While I'm sure there are a considerable number of rich, powerful men who have visited escorts, "a considerable number" =/= "everybody."

[harry b]

I agree with Amy P and also question the scientific method being used by the author. How do we know such a person is a rare exception? By imagining? In fact I imagine that Spitzer is in a minority, maybe not a tiny one, but not a huge one. But all I have on my side is imagining. Anyway, as eveyone points out, not only has the man behaved like a shit (not, perhaps, surprising given that his public persona barely disguises that he is some sor tof shit) but a bloody fool, and while the former might be expected (but not, as Amy P says, forgivable), the latter is cause for resignation.

[dave.s.]

Now, Laura, you've been whining about the quants get all the jobs in poli sci. Still, numbers are pretty helpful sometimes. Let's get out the envelope and scribble on the back of it. The papers said Spitzer is worth half a billion. If so, and if he's making 5% on his money after taxes, that's 25 million a year, $2 million a month. So, to him, $4000 is a five hundredth of his monthly take home. If someone has a take home of 6000 a month, it's like $12 to that person.
I spend that without even thinking about it for a good-bye lunch for a colleague, or a new CD. It's not much. Would I spend $12 to have a luscious young thing rub against me? It would make my wife unhappy and cross, so I think not. But the money is not a big deal, for a rich guy like Spitzer.

[laura]

Since I know exactly zero multi-millionaires personally, I have no idea if they are more piggish than the average male. I have to admit that "Ruth" had me convinced this afternoon.

I do know that the escort section of the Manhattan yellow page is at least twenty or thirty pages long. I also know of a couple of bored graduate students who called these escort services one lazy Saturday afternoon. Let's just say one of the bored graduate students said that she was a student with some modeling experience (lies) and was interested in a job. When she asked whether sex was involved, they said they would tell her about it at the interview. At that point, the bored graduate student hung up and laughed about it with her friend.

[bj]

The real belief of the "Ruths" (haven't read it, but I'm using her to refer to the folks who basically think men are jerks because of evolutionary development) of the piggishness of the rich man is that all men are like that. The difference between the rich and the poor, is as Dave says what 4000 dollars v 12 cents means to them, and the opportunities they have.

So, pretty much everyone with opportunity does it, so the argument goes. I had a serious fight with a social psych friend about this after the fall out of Lewinsky, and the list that kept going on and on (Livingston, Gingrich, Hyde, McCain . . . ). I like Harry have a fond imagining that says that my friend was wrong, that not all, say Senators are, indeed, unable to resist the pleasures of their female smorgosboard out of allegiance to their wives, children, and constituency. But, what evidence that existed wasn't strongly in my favor, unfortunately.

Like Amy, though, I think the "everybody does it argument" a moral justification relied upon by the weak. If we actually oppose the behavior (and I only do so for those who lie about it, or who I love or care about), we have to make the opportunity cost stiffer. Spitzer has paid pretty heavily; Gingrich, not so much.

bj
(And, I have no interest in parsing the details of the betrayals -- prostitute v intern v lobbyist v . . . those might matter in the eyes of the law, but what I see is the betrayal and the lies).

[Amy P]

"Female smorgasbord"--I will have to tuck that phrase away for future use.

I'm finding the political process rather aggravating about now. It's only now that the weirdness surrounding Obama's church and old pastor is getting much of an airing. Even more egregiously, McCain has all but gotten the Republican nomination without really any airing of his issues. To me, it feels like the dirty stuff needs to be dealt with a lot earlier, before going ahead and nominating a fatally flawed candidate.

[dave.s.]

Obama has been spectacularly lucky in this: the chattering class has been riveted by the Spitzer mess while he jettisoned his pastor, and Spitzer was a superdelegate for Hillary. As well, I expect much of the NY political class will be jockeying for position in the new order rather than working to advance HClinton's interests, now.

Amy, I sort of share your views - but this nominating season has been about as long-drawn-out and fully heeded as any I remember. It has seemed to me that all the candidates have big problems, and none of the people who I would most like to have as President even ran (probably that list would include Bill Weld, Jeb Bush, Bob Kerrey, maybe Christie Whitman. Bredesen has done a good job, as far as I can tell). Sometimes I look longingly at parliamentary systems - Tony Blair! Wow! but when you think about the folks who our legislatures have elected to lead them you find Reid, Pelosi, Jim Wright, Trent Lott - the only visionary we have had in either house in my memory is Gingrich, and he has his own problems.

This season has gotten rid of John Edwards and Mike Huckabee, who seem to me to have been even less likely to be successful Presidents than McCain or Obama. It seems to be giving a 'no' to HClinton, who seems to me to have all the personality traits to reincarnate the Carter presidency. I think Romney was also sort of a Carter type - super-policy-wonk, a little bloodless - and likely to have been better at it than either Carter himself or HClinton. Vilsack was a good and successful governor, I'm not sure the Dems did well to discard him. McCain has more of a temper than I think is desirable in a President.

But, as a winnowing, and given who started out in the field, it hasn't been bad.

[Amy P]

Every now and then I see a McCain quote that makes me love the guy, but once he's nominated the press is going to drop him into a tank of piranhas. Does he know that? I'm all for the piranha treatment, I just think that it is unseemly to wait until the Republicans don't have any other options.

[MH]

Dave S.
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who misses Bob Kerrey.

[Jenkins]

I created a poll and was wondering what you all thought. Do you think Political wives should stand by their cheating spouses? Click on my name to vote in the poll and see the results.