Nah Nah Hey Hey to Eliot and other random items

The tv people all say that Eliot Spitzer is going to quit the governorship of NY today, apparently meaning that he has cut a deal with the feds to avoid jail time. This is shocking stuff. A real life soap opera. The alleged gruesome details that are being bandied about are 1) didn't use a condom, and 2) liked to slap the girls around a little. Of course, I have no idea if this is true, but I was freaked out by #2. If true, that tells me that something sinister lies inside this person, as opposed to just having some kinky predeliction for some otherwise ridiculous fun stuff.

Mrs. Spitzer, who has been called both "Silka" and "Silda" on my tv (which of course means that I do indeed need a new 1080p flatscreen tv), is getting all of the sympathy, while Eliot gets none. My money says that the "no condom" piece of the story is the straw that breaks her back, and she divorces freaky Eliot by Christmas. Silda (her actual name) doesn't need this crap. She's an incredibly accomplished attorney in her own right. As an added bonus, she's very photogenic. Maybe she could replace Tucker Carlson on MSNBC? I'd tune in to see what she has to say.

Silda Wall Spitzer

The other big news today involves 2 big surprises about Geraldine Ferraro. First, she's still alive! Second, people remember who she is. Apparently who she is is a bitter, old, ranting racist. So natch she's on Hillary Clinton's campaign team. Gerry (she prefers men's nicknames and haircuts) is a former mafia wife who was elected to 3 terms in the House of Representatives from Queens, Archie Bunker's old neighborhood. FYI, Archie Bunker was not a real person, but is dead. But Gerry is famous for being Walter Mondale's token woman running mate in 1984, and helping the Democrats lose 49 of 50 states that year. She then proceeded to lose elections for the US Senate, twice. So now she hates Barack Obama for being "who he is."

Gerry, Back in The Day

Despite rantings from Gerry and other bitter Golden Girls, Barack seems to have the nomination just about sewn up. It's time for Hillary to decide whether she still has time to be gracious about losing, in order to gain goodwill with hopes of winning the nomination next time around. Otherwise, she can go down swinging, so everybody will hate her for hurting the party's chances in November. I'm guessing she chooses the latter. For all her cleverness, she seems to have poor big picture vision.

In a somewhat premature retrospect, I think the early and long primary election cycle has been good for the country. It has given us time to see the candidates a lot, to questions their stories without unduly short news cycles that allow big and small lies to go unchallenged until after the voting is over. We've had time to sniff out the baloney and see who bears up well in the long term.

McCain mostly stuck to his guns throughout, even for the months that the conventional wisdom said that he was out of touch and his campaign was toast. But people respected him for it and in many ways time proved him right. Obama has maintained his dignity through a near constant barrage of Clinton garbage being thrown his way. Hillary has appeared to be schizophrenic as time goes on, most recently by claiming that her tea party solved Northern Ireland's Troubles. Must have been a realy good tea party.

Oddly enough, I had my tastiest cup of tea in the Middle East (which used to be the Near East), where the people really like tea. So maybe Hillary should have a tea party there and see what good things come of it. My tea was served to me in a tent, in the southern Jordanian desert, by Jordanian army officers. The soldiers lived in the tents, while tending to what appeared to be several hundred tanks, all in a line facing west. They triple brewed the tea, first boiling the water, then adding the tea and boiling some more, then adding sugar and boiling again. They served it in small glasses, not ceramic cups. Usually I don't like sugar, but the tea was delicious. I had this meeting in 1986. Using the new but widely respected Hillary Credit Criteria on Foreign Relations, I'd have to say that I am clearly reponsible for America's good relations with Jordan since then.

Now I mainly drink coffee. Milk, no sugar. Though if I'm at Starbucks I'll have a soy latte.

Also some more good news, Crazy Jim Cramer of TheStreet.com and Mad Money thinks Fed Chairman Bernanke has figured out how to lube up the capital markets with his government MBS insurance plan (call it a "wrap" if you want to impress your MBA friends), which I haven't looked at yet, but which appears to be in place already. Crazy Jim acts like an idiot, but he's really super-smart, so I'm feeling good about that. Basically this means that mortgage rates should actually go down again (though they are still pretty low by historical standards), and loan criteria possibly loosen, so that someone will be able to buy your overpriced house. That's good news!

Thanks for reading. I'm off for coffee.

Answer to Quiz

No guesses. Is anybody at all reading this thing?

The pretty young lady pictured (unfairly, I know) in the Eliot post below is:

Stephany Hohnjec

Stephany is a top Croation Rythmic Gymnast, and was voted the 3rd most beautiful Croation woman in 2005.

So Stephany is the real deal with a lot going for her. From what I can tell, she has a thriving modeling career and may also have an album out. She's not some trashy girl you'd find with the likes of Eliot Spitzer. She's the type of girl you'd take home to meet Mom.

I used Stephany's picture because I don't have one of "Kristin" (yet), and let's face it, New York girls aren't the best looking bunch. And I'm trying to increase my readership, not scare people away.

Sample NY Girl

Senator Hillary R. Clinton (Used w/o permission)

This begs the question of why Eliot is flying New York girls into DC for a two hour rendezvous.

Dancing on Wall Street

Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring

(Copied from NYT)

Holy Cow! At last some good news for our friends in the financial markets.

I absolutely cannot believe how cool this is. And I'm actually kind of a Spitzer fan. At last something fun to read about in the news. For some reason this headline has me picturing a group women of easy virtue holding hands in a circle singing, "Ring around the Rosie . . . "

Eliot, Eliot, Eliot. Didn't ET teach you that when you're feeling lonely, the best thing to do is just phone home?

I personally have always been frightened by prostitutes. Primarily because I'm a germophobe. But I also have this feeling that they have to be crazy, actually insane, to be in that line of work, and so might just inexplicably hurt me if I got too close to them. Let alone . . . you know.

But I do have a little prostitute story. I was in Vegas (natch) a few years ago when the Four Seasons was still in Manadalay Bay. So, there were only 2 floors to the Four Seasons, and I get in the elevator at 7:00 in the morning to go down one floor to a breakfast meeting at the hotel restaurant. A young lady, about 20 years old gets in with me. She's running down the hall barefoot to catch the elevator, chatting gleefully with her cellphone in one hand and holding her shoes in the other. A pair of clear, acrylic, backless, and very tall, stilettos. The stilettos were a big clue. In the time it takes to travel one floor by elevator, she looked me over while talking on her phone, wrapped up the conversation, introduced herself, whipped out a business card, and told me that if I was interested to give her a call later. She was a marvel of marketing efficiency.

This woman is not a prostitute. 10 points if you know who she is.

I told my wife about it when I got home because I thought the whole thing was so funny, and gave her the card. My wife then called the, well, "call girl," and gave her a lecture for propositioning her husband.

This is what passes for a wild story in my world. So thank you, Eliot, for spicing up my day.

He's supposed to have a press conference soon to discuss it. That just sounds like about the worst idea in the world. Or maybe the second worst at this point. Let's see what happens next.