Ho! Ho! Ho!

The media, and its audience, love the Spitzer disaster. From a certain point of view it is deplorable that the human race is so fascinated by the tawdry and criminal, but it's an irresistable story. Power, hubris, the downfall of the mighty, hypocrisy on a cosmic scale, and sex - what drama could ask for more?

There is also a completely natural curiosity about an aspect of human behavior outside the experience of most. Questions like "what do sex workers do" and "how much do they get paid" and "who hires them" are usually not quite considered subjects quite appropriate for polite discourse. Clinton, Spitzer, Larry Craig, and all those other political perverts thus serve as part of a national sex education program for the country.

After all, most of what we learn about those subjects is heavily filtered through the ideological lenses of various crusaders. Pimps, madams, and call girls on the Larry King show are at least as interesting as his usual crap.

Oh well.

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