steamrolled

Another politician has fallen prey to the force of puritan values. But this one, Eliot Spitzer, is also a special case of stupidity. The Governor, a veteran prosecutor of prostitution rings, somehow forgot that surveillance does work. A potential U.S. Attorney General under Clinton or Obama, Spitzer now must contemplate that his name may be forever linked with Jack Johnson as the most notable "perpetrators" charged under the Mann Act (i.e., the White Slave Traffic Act).* As Liz Benjamin writes, "You can't make this stuff up".

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Leaving aside the obvious harm done to Spitzer's wife and children, one can still ask the obvious question: why is the Mann Act still on the books? Brian Donovan's excellent study shows how public hysteria over "white slavery" (fueled by a tabloid press that doesn't take a backseat to TMZ) led to questionable prosecutions in the first decades of the 20th century. Part of the Progressive Era's WASPish preoccupation with "vice" (which can be treated as a code word for those entertainments and social diversions of the lower Tenth: working class, ethnic whites and entrepreneurial blacks), the fear that innocent farm girls were being lured to the big city under false pretenses and then forced into prostitution (i.e., white slavery) was the context for the Mann Act, which proscribes the transportation of individuals across state lines for the purpose of engagement in sexual activity. It appears that Spitzer might fall prey to this Act since he allegedly arranged for the transportation of a woman from New York City to Washington D.C. However, because it appears the woman was not coerced (Catharine MacKinnon notwithstanding), what the mere mention of this Act calls to mind is legal paternalism.

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It is curious how some of the most devout, holier than thou types (Spitzer and Giuliani come to mind) have failed to live up to the standard of behavior they sought to impose on others. But then the Old Testament God, who forbade murder, facilitated a fair amount of killing.

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* Apparently what is at issue is not "sex".  Legal problems may arise if Spitzer hid the source of the money used in these transactions in order to evade reporting requirements. This is known as structuring.