Thoughts on the Pulitzer Prize

The New York Times won five Pulitzer prizes, including one for breaking the story on the Eliot Spitzer scandal.

Now that the New York Times has a surplus of prizes, can it finally give up the prize for Walter Duranty's reporting from the Soviet Union?

If the New York Times is going to win the Pulitzer for breaking the story of Spitzer and the call girl, does the National Enquirer have a legitimate gripe about being passed over for breaking the adultery scandal involving former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards?

According to CNN, this is the first year all of the prizes were open to online-only journalists and publications. Of course, none of them won.

(Of course, Wisconsin bloggers can win the MacIver Institute prize worth $500.)

This week's idiot politician of the week

What a slow week and what a tough choice. Who could possibly have been the idiot of the week for last week?

Was it New Berlin Alderman Bill Moore?

Highways only provide a means of transportation to one segment of society: those with enough money to have a vehicle. And so we put more money into providing transportation options for the people who already have money, leaving the poor relatively stranded. The objective of government should be to help spread the wealth around, to make life just a little easier for those without the wherewithal to have just a little bit better life. Putting money into more lanes while the mass transit situation in southeastern Wisconsin is among the worst in the world is an abomination and ignores the equality clause of the 14th amendment. We still have not learned the lessons of the Civil War.

Wow, what an idiot. And any other week, we would be laughing hysterically.

Nope. There is no suspense this week at all, is there? Dave, could you please reveal this week's idiot politician?

Good lord, she sings

A prostitute/singer named Ashley Alexandra Dupré? Did she ever use the name Susan Alexander?

Seriously, didn't Eliot Spitzer see Citizen Kane? Now the story has gone from funny to being a bad movie remake.

The big Spitzer picture

As we consume every salacious detail of the Spitzer story, there is a larger point to all of this.

But as much as we would wallow in the details, can we ask ourselves if there still is a line between the private lives of politicians and their public lives?

As much as that line ever existed, it was a 20th century invention.

Thomas Jefferson’s affair with Sally Hemings was frontpage material in the opposition newspapers. Andrew Jackson was accused of bigamy. When Grover Cleveland ran for president in 1884, his opponents chanted “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?” referring to Cleveland’s possible illegitimate child. Cleveland’s supporters had the last laugh when Cleveland won, “He’s gone all the way to Washington.”

Less than 30 years later Woodrow Wilson’s personal life was mostly off limits.

So it was until the Miami Herald photographed Sen. Gary Hart onboard a yacht conveniently named the “Monkey Business” in midpresidential campaign, um, relaxing.

Of course, we had the momentary backlash during the Clinton era, with Hillary Clinton standing by her man even as he committed perjury. But we forget that at the height of the scandal, Congressman Bob Livingston was forced to resign due to his extramarital affair rather than succeed Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House.

So what’s our standard for interest in politicians’ lives? Does it matter how many divorces Sen. Russ Feingold, former Sen. Fred Thompson, former Speaker Gingrich, Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had collectively? Probably not, any more than it mattered President Ronald Reagan was once divorced and had strained relations with his children.

As long as we’re limited to mere mortals for candidates, we know that all will carry some flaw. Perhaps a reasonable standard should be if they yield to temptation we should let it remain a private matter unless it involves breaking the law, abusing the trust of their office or somehow impedes their job performance.

But we’re in a celebrity age, and insisting on a reasonable privacy standard is like the Dutch Boy with a finger in the dike. So long as politicians use their families as props and fodder for stock campaign photos, the temptation will be to probe for hypocrisy, or at least entertainment value. Politicians should be warned if they don’t want a Jerry Springer reputation, they should avoid a Jerry Springer lifestyle.

Final thoughts about Spitzer...

...until tomorrow.

But seriously, if a governor is engaged in behavior that is putting someone else at risk of physical harm, isn't it incumbent on the media to ask what that behavior is? There seems to be a lack of profiles in courage among the press corps, for not one article I have seen mentions the type of behavior that would cause a prostitute's controlling agent to ask whether the encounter occurred without incident or harm. Aside from the prurient interest (I'm not going to lie) surely there might be some clue why Spitzer would risk everything at such financial cost for a brief encounter.

The other thought, didn't Spitzer see Citizen Kane?