With the resignation of Eliot Spitzer as Governor of New York, new attention is being paid to the issue of prostitution. Nicholas Kristoff writes about it in this op-ed piece in the New York Times. The woman whose services were purchased by Spitzer has now been identified, and you can check out her MySpace page. Like so many others involved in that business, her story involves child abuse, running away from home, and drug use. It is the dreary sadness of such a story that has long driven efforts by reformers to curtail prostitution, but they have found such efforts to be of limited success due to the demand for the service by so many, including those like Spitzer who hypocritically pretend to be opposed to the practice.

One New York Post columnist says he knew Spitzer was a fraud and a hypocrite from the beginning.

In France, their last soldier from The Great War has died. A national memorial service is planned to honor him and all the "Poilus" who fought in that "War to end all wars".

Bob Novak writes about why the Vice-President has filed a brief opposed to the Administration's official position on a gun rights case.

More praise for HBO's The Wire as it ends its five-season run. Having watched every episode (some more than once), I believe it is the best TV series I have ever seen.

On the Presidential campaign front, Geraldine Ferraro has resigned from Hillary Clinton's campaign committee, but her comments, for which she remains unapologetic, deserve some analysis. I think that the reality of Barack Obama's race (and Hillary Clinton's sex) absolutely have had an impact on the level of support each has achieved. If these were two white men with absolutely identical positions on the issues, with one being more wonkish, aggressive and with a reputation for being tough-minded, as well as being somewhat unlikeable (Clinton), and the other being younger, less experience, but more likeable, more eloquent and more inspiring (Obama), the voting patterns would be far different, it seems to me. My guess is that it would still be a fairly close race, but the issue really boils down to experience and electability. But you would not see the voting patterns divide along race and gender lines. The Democratic Party has long built itself on identity politics, dividing people into interest groups based on sex, race and ethnicity. This concept has helped to win elections in the past, but is now causing potentially disastrous difficulties. That is because that unlike some policy differences, which oftentimes can be glossed over or compromised away, one cannot erase ones race or sex. Both candidates, and especially their surrogates, keep bumping into that reality. The Clinton people especially, it seems to me, are resorting to the race card in their efforts, and it has helped them with White working class voters. But their message goes beyond simply winning votes in the primaries. Their message to the superdelegates is...can we win with a Black man at the top of the ticket? Black voters overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic candidate, anyway. But White, working class voters have, in the past, swung the election to the GOP, oftentimes because of issues like abortion, gun control, or national security. Will they swing the election to John McCain because they won't vote for a Black man? It is a disturbing message, but it plays to the prejudices of the Liberal elites that make up the ranks of the superdelegates, who are, of course, convinced of the inherent racism of White folks, especially further down the economic ladder. While they might hope that a Barack Obama candidacy might drive a stake through the heart of the last vestiges of racism in America, perhaps they will wonder if it is realistically possible.

Finally today, the writer David Mamet has this must-read piece on why he is no longer a "brain dead liberal". In the piece, he praises the Founders for their brilliant Constitution...

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.
The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.

Heh. Having covered many a zoning board meeting, I know exactly what he means.