Then. Now. 

A USA Today editorial tries a little too hard to be even-handed when it comes to asking for full disclosure for presidential candidates: For a campaign playing out in the glare of the 24/7 news cycle, it’s remarkable what’s still not known about the three leading contenders to be the next president. On matters ranging from Hillary Clinton’s finances, to Barack Obama’s dealings with an indicted businessman, to John McCain’s

The man poised to succeed Gov. Eliot Spitzer would not only become the first black governor of New York. He would also be the state’s first legally blind governor and its first disabled governor since Franklin D. Roosevelt. He’s also a pretty darned good poem.

One part of this affair that I haven’t yet seen properly addressed is the outrageous chauvinism of the Governor: as if there weren’t enough high-priced prostitutes in Washington, D.C.?  I mean, WTF? Here’s a list of the rates for “models” at the Emperors Club. I imagine that the Diamonds are awarded by Zagat’s. IowaHawk: Amid Charges of Spitzer Tryst, Embattled Prostitute “Kristen” Expected to Resign Experts Analyze Spitzer’s Thinking

Radar magazine’s “Fresh Intelligence” blog obtains expert advice on the Spitzer scandal from… former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss: “It’s so easy not to not get caught,” reformed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss tells Radar, adding that she provided service to many a well known politician her day. “I saw many famous people—more famous than Eliot Spitzer—and you know what, you pay people right, you treat them right, you don’t have a problem.”

To people like FDL’s Christy Hardin Smith, the fact that law enforcement officials gave the media the background of the Spitzer investigation — particularly that it arose from Spitzer’s suspicious financial transactions, not some politically-motivated witch hunt into Spitzer’s sex life — is of course evidence of a politically-motivated witch hunt: If this is a government source for these reports, that says to me that someone wants this story out

Clinton, Obama prepare for long, hard slog in Pennsylvania

At Harper’s, Scott Horton has his Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy mojo workin’: It looks like the Bush Justice Department just bagged themselves another Democratic Governor. *** …According to ABC, the whole investigation of the prostitution ring itself was triggered by an investigation of Spitzer. He then selectively quotes from the ABC News account, which refutes his conspiracy theory: The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov.

It’s the politically motivated prosecution!!!1!!eleventy! The suspicious financial activity was initially reported by a bank to the IRS which, under direction from the Justice Department, brought in the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad. “We had no interest at all in the prostitution ring until the thing with Spitzer led us to learn about it,” said one Justice Department official. C’mon, man.  Get with the real story here.  Do you think that

New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt and TNR’s volunteer flack for Barack Obama, Noam Scheiber, have weighed in with their takes on whether the media has gone easy on Obama and whether the media is getting tougher now. Hoyt limits his analysis to the NYT’s coverage of Obama, concluding that the paper “has not been systematically biased in its news coverage, even if it has occasionally given ammunition to those who