Eliot Spitzer, Harvard

Client #9 to Speak at Harvard's Center for Ethics

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Fact: Eliot Spitzer had sex with prostitutes.
Fact: Eliot Spitzer is a hypocrite.
Fact: David Paterson has been a horrible Governor.
Conclusion: Having sex with prostitutes and being a total hypocrite isn’t the worst thing in the world?
And so, the rehabilitation of Eliot Spitzer continues. He’s on T.V., he’s writing, he’s teaching a class. I think the lesson here is supposed to be that a man’s inability to keep it in his pants doesn’t mean that he can’t be a useful voice about the economic crisis and regulatory reform.
So it’s not entirely surprising that Spitzer has been invited to speak at Harvard University by HLS professor Lawrence Lessig. The ABA Journal reports on the focus of the talk:

Spitzer’s lecture apparently will focus on law and policy: It is titled “From Ayn Rand to Ken Feinberg–How Quickly the Paradigm Shifts. What Should Be the Rationale for Government Participation in the Market?” according to a Harvard website listing for the free public talk.

Fair enough, but Professor Lessig is the director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. And it’s the Center for Ethics that will be hosting the event.
Ethics + Eliot = Ewww.
You know things are off when a pimp is writing to a Harvard Law School professor to complain. That is precisely what is happening here, according to the Daily News. Details after the jump.


The “madam” who provided Spitzer with hookers is protesting Spitzer’s invitation:

“I am greatly intrigued as to what Mr. Spitzer could contribute to an ethical discussion when, as [governor], he broke numerous laws for which he has yet to be punished,” Kristin Davis wrote in a protest letter to Prof. Lawrence Lessig at The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.
“As attorney general, he went around arresting and making examples out of the same escort agencies he was frequenting.”

I mean, that is a fair point isn’t it? Ms. Davis goes on to call Spitzer a “man without ethics,” the Daily News reports. Of course, as between the female pimp and the Attorney General john, I think it is safe to say that both of their glass houses have been thoroughly stoned.
Professor Lessig makes the point that “ethics” is a broad term:

Lessig said Spitzer is not giving “a lecture on ethics.”
“He has instead been invited to speak as part of a series on the topic of ‘institutional corruption’,” the professor said.

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That’s sounds like a great point, until you remember that Eliot Spitzer isn’t exactly the most qualified guy to be speaking about institutional ethics either. Troopergate was stalling his gubernatorial agenda long before his sexual agenda was a matter of public record.
Eliot Spitzer is kind of like a VD. He’s not going away, so we better get used to him.
Madam Protests Planned Lecture By Ex-AG Spitzer at Harvard Ethics Center [ABA Journal]
Disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer to lecture at ethics center; Madam says it’s dumb move by Harvard U. [Daily News]

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