Spitzer and sex, and Hillary
Can anyone explain to me why New York's governor Spitzer having sex with a prostitute is a bigger deal than, say, 384 civilian deaths in U.S. occupied Iraq this past week?
Or how about this: Is Spizter having sex with a prostitute *worse* than me, for instance, yelling at my wonderful four and six year old daughters because I was stressed out and lost my temper yesterday? How/Why or not?
Does anyone find it ... salacious that Hillary, who had to put up with her hubby's philandering back in the 90's, may lose a superdelegate vote due to Mr. Spitzer's philandering? (Com'on now, that is *totally* uncalled for!)
5 comments:
You're right Bens in implying that media attention does not equal the importance and/or moral gravity of an issue - perhaps these things are inversely proportional? Though nothing's that simple, eh?
But no one has compared these two matters. I don't understand.
Have you read some comparison somewhere where someone has claimed that the deaths in Iraq mean less then a visit to a Prostitute?
If not, then this is a rant, right?
:)
Not sure it was the sex itself - as much as the two-faced-ness of someone saying one thing and doing another.
Justin,
I was referring to news media coverage. Now just about everybody in America knows about the Spitzer thing.
Probably less than 10% of them know about the 384 thing.
So if by "Important" one means "What we notice/pay attention to" ...
Spitzer violated the public trust. He prosecuted prostitution rings, destroyed reputations of people who, in fact, were innocent victims of his vitriol. He bullied and calculated the demise of others to propel his own career forward. Now he is caught doing the very illegal activities he once crusaded against others for.
I doubt it's the sex that investigators are interested in. It's more likely cover ups and illegal money transfers that got their attention. Post 9-11 it's hard to move around $80K unnoticed.
But make no mistake. It was his sanctimonious and holier-than-thou attitude that makes this such a big story. When governor what's-his-name had that gay liaison come out last year it was here and gone within two or three days. This is different.
Trying to claim some moral equivalence in news stories on the basis of the amount of coverage is fallacious. Otherwise, we'd never hear a word about Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears. They would be irrelevant in a moral equivalence sense, yet they are highly relevant in the cultural sense. And no, I can't make sense of that...so I get your point! :)
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