Eliot Spitzer Prostitution

Donn Esmonde: Silda stood nobly amid humiliation

By Donn Esmonde
Updated: 03/16/08 1:42 PM

My new favorite person is named Spitzer.

No, not Eliot. Silda.

The soon-to-be-ex-governor’s wife is taking heat, mainly from understandably exasperated women, for standing next to her disgraced husband during his pair of press conferences last week.

It is a too-familiar story, and I understand the point of view: Politician husband fesses up when caught with his pants down. The screw-up submarines his political career and inflicts pain on the people closest to him. It is his horrible mess, yet — when it comes time to come clean — there is the suffering spouse, dutifully positioned at the sinning husband’s side. Not only does she shoulder a personal humiliation, she — by her presence — shares in the public punishment for a trespass that victimized her.

“Just once,” said one of my female coworkers, “I’d like to see one of these wives say, ‘Forget it, buddy. You made the mess. Walk out there on your own.’ ”

I have no doubt that a part of Silda Wall Spitzer wanted to say exactly that. And I suspect that, behind

closed doors, she had plenty to say to her hooker-habit husband.

But I think Silda stood with him out of something other than blind loyalty. I think her presence was a statement, and a tough, noble one. It said that, on balance, the love and emotion of two decades of marriage matters more than sporadic trysts in hotel rooms. It said that the life they built, the three daughters they raised, the family they created, is bigger than the bizarre character flaw in the man she married. It said that the mainline of a marriage matters more than any random, randy detours.

Her message, as I read it: It will take more to bring down all that we have built than a a series of trysts with nubile young women.

Nobody was more stunned by Spitzer’s vice than his staff
By Tom Precious - NEWS ALBANY BUREAU
Updated: 03/16/08 10:39 AM

ALBANY — Over the years, Eliot Spitzer often showed his staff new photographs of his wife. In public, the couple held hands.

At night on the road, aides recalled, Spitzer was on the phone, helping his three teenage daughters with their homework.

Aides who pointed out a pretty woman walking by in the Capitol were quickly rebuked, told to grow up and think about their work.

When office talk digressed into rumors of state officials having extramarital affairs, Spitzer appeared shocked.

“That’s appalling,” he said to an aide, expressing his moral outrage. “Do you think that could be true?”

So when Eliot Spitzer, whose political career rose by accusing others of behaving unethically as well as criminally, last week was toppled because of his involvement with a prostitution ring, those closest to him thought they were dreaming.

Full Story in the Buffalo News

Spitzer linked to prostitution

ALBANY — Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, who came to office promising to change the ethical ways of Albany, has been caught up in a prostitution ring — a move that may cost him his governor’s post.

In a brief appearance before reporters this afternoon in Manhattan, he apologized to his family, and added, “I apologize to the public, whom I promised better.”

Spitzer did not mention a report in the New York Times of his involvement in a high-end prostitution ring, which federal prosecutors recently broke up.

The governor described his actions as a violation of his sense of “right and wrong,” and that he “failed to live up to the standard I expected for myself.”

Full Story Buffalo News