Comparison of Vices (Examining Eliot Spitzer)

3/29/08

Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, resigned last week after being caught spending $4300 on a high-class brothel’s services, with some reports indicating that he spent as much as $80,000 on female escorts over an undisclosed period of time.

$80,000 spent paying for live Kama Sutra lessons might seem to indicate an unhealthy appetite, but before the good people of New York pass judgment on Client 9, consider this: The impact on his performance as a politician would have been immeasurably greater had Spitzer’s spending on O.P.P been directed toward other enjoyable-but-none-the-less-illegal activities.

For instance, how high would Eliot Spitzer be if he had channeled that extraneous $80,000 budget item into weed rather than women?

For the sake of easy math, let’s assume a street value of $50 for an eighth ounce of chronic, which means 1600 sacks of weed over the "undisclosed period of time." Let’s give this philandering adulterer the benefit of whatever doubt still remains and assume that he’s been putting his log onto other fires for 8 years---that’s 200 eighths of green bud per year for 8 years, which means cracking a new sack every 42 hours for 8 solid years, without relent: Stoned on Christmas, stoned on election day, stoned, stoned, stoned. (And this math doesn’t even calculate that when you’re spending $80,000, you get a better rate than the guy who arrives at his dealer’s door every week with 8 fives and ten singles.)

For those of you unfamiliar with an eighth, that would mean chain smoking grippers from dawn to bedtime every day, a pace that would have changed his life completely, not to mention his physical appearance. (The photo below demonstrates Spitzer as he appears now, and how scientists predict he would appear now had he spent the last 8 years french-kissing a water bong.)

To physically find time to smoke all that weed would surely have required the hiring of professional smoking consultants, experts to maximize smoking efficiency and thus accelerate intake: Tommy Chong called in to make recommendations on proper water-pipe performance; Snoop Dog would have been on the payroll as Joint Production Specialist ensuring that Spitzer’s Marley-esque doobies display canoe-free burning; Paul McCartney would have been on retainer for help with maintaining a cute and professional image despite having julienned your short-term memory into a shredded stack of non-sequitors.

Frankly, even with the help of these able professionals, it’s a pace that would have been nearly impossible to maintain, especially considering that a $200/week ganja habit would have quickly spawned a the Playstation investment, and considering we’re talking about Eliot Spitzer, his appetites would have meant countless hours spent looking for the secret "Hot Coffee" scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The self-proclaimed Sheriff of Wall Street would have been home in his cowboy pajamas watching Grandma’s Boy while CEOs were shoveling money directly into their personal accounts.

New Yorker’s should consider themselves lucky---there are worse things a governor can do. Though on the other hand, it might be cool to have a Governor who semi-finaled at the national Halo III tournament.