Hypocrisy at its ‘finest’

New York City is abuzz with the latest scandal involving its governor Eliot Spitzer, who was allegedly wiretapped negotiating for the services of a prostitute named “Kirsten,” asking her to be transferred from New York to a hotel in Washington DC sometime last month. Spitzer, who was referred to as “Client 9,” was said to be a repeat customer of a high end international prostitution ring that charged as much as $5,500 an hour to its clients. Hoping to contain the damage, Spitzer made a rather vague public apology about a “personal” misdemeanor four days after authorities announced the arrest of some unnamed people running an international call girl ring.

From being New York City’s “Mr. Clean” who was even touted as a potential future presidential candidate, Spitzer is now being vilified as a big hypocrite who made a show of busting up prostitution rings when he was the attorney general. At one time, he even accused several people of using their tour company as a front for promoting “sex tours” in Thailand and the Philippines.

This has become such a big scandal and humiliation for Spitzer that everyone in Wall Street is clapping in glee, with traders breaking into loud cheers when the Spitzer scandal broke out. Business executives are jumping up and down and grinning from ear to ear. No doubt Maurice “Hank” Greenberg is particularly pleased at this recent turn of events. It can be recalled that Spitzer hogged headlines in 2005 for going after the American International Group (AIG) for alleged violations of insurance and security laws, which forced the resignation of Greenberg as AIG chairman and CEO.

Spitzer built up his reputation as a gung-ho attorney general going after big businesses suspected of financial wrongdoings, zeroing in on Wall Street executives and their inordinately high compensation packages. Apparently, the former New York attorney general rubbed Wall Street honchos the wrong way with his dictatorial and strong-arm tactics, described by some as “savage” the way it ruined people’s character and integrity, going after his targets until they were forced to resign in disgrace.

There are rumors that some wealthy people planned and funded the whole operation as an act of revenge. After all, a self-made billionaire who was dragged down in one of Spitzer’s operations promised that the former attorney general was “going to pay for what he’s done to me and the havoc he’s caused in the New York business climate.”

New Yorkers eventually elected Spitzer into office on the strength of his “ethical reform” platform. But the scandal has turned Spitzer – who referred to himself as “the steamroller” – into the butt of jokes, providing comedians a lot of material for their shows, with gag lines like “from Eliot Ness to Eliot Mess.”

Apparently, Spitzer got caught engaging into the same accounting shenanigans that enabled him to go after big companies. Reports said the New York governor raised the suspicion of federal investigators when a series of cash payments below the $10,000 limit, eventually traced to Spitzer – were made to an account operated by a call-girl ring – prompting authorities to monitor his financial transactions and tape his phone calls.

Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot, with the reputation of the “Wall Street Sheriff” now in tatters as more and more people are beginning to see him as a big hypocrite.

There is quite a lot of hypocrisy going on all over the world, and mostly you see it in places like New York, but many scandals are kept under the rug because those involved are making a lot of money and no one wants to rock the boat.

In the Philippines, we also have a lot of that, too, but the worst kind are those who go to mass everyday, putting up a benign, morally upright, holier-than-thou public image. But inside, they are a mass of bitterness, their thoughts filled by revenge. A lot of them even go out in the streets, demanding for reforms but in reality are just protecting their own businesses, with a number of them most likely involved in shenanigans themselves.

In all likelihood, this kind of hypocrisy came from the Spaniards, particularly the Spanish priests who would be going around taking private confession from the women – hiding behind priestly robes but having illegitimate children on the side.

The case of Eliot Spitzer has turned out to be one big case of hypocrisy. No matter how much one tries to camouflage it, hypocrisy will eventually rear its ugly head. The Bible says, “He who is without sin, should cast the first stone.” Or as they say, what goes around, comes around.

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