“The governor of New York has been linked to a prostitution ring.” Something about that phrase just seems not right. Maybe it’s the words “governor” and “prostitution” in the same sentence.

Either way, when I heard that phrase, my first reaction was to laugh. Oh yes, another sleazy politician caught red-handed just like they always are. They deserved it.

However, as I researched further, although that just meant skimming a New York Times article, my smile faded. I even found a little bit of sympathy.

Why? I had put a face and name to an unknown, unfamiliar person. Added a family to that, as well as a righteous election campaign and a swarm of reporters. For me, there is something about giving a name a face that just makes things hit a little closer to home.

The problem is no longer an unknown political office conflict; it’s a person. A person who makes mistakes, appears to love his family, and is being publicly harassed and humiliated.

For starters, Eliot Spitzer is not just another one of those scumbag politicians we all love to hate. Or at the very least he doesn’t seem to appear that way. He began his career as a prosecutor, then spent eight years as New York state attorney general “relentlessly pursuing Wall Street wrongdoing,” as the article stated. He apparently also broke up a few prostitution rings.

His campaign and the beginning of his political career seemed spotless, and I wondered how a man who seemed that wholesome could go so wrong. But in this kind of case I couldn’t help but wonder if the fact that he is in the public eye is the only reason he is being so severely harassed.

However, I think the biggest shock to me was that he seemed like such a righteous family man. My sympathy went out not so much to him, the “frequent customer,” but to his family.

His wife was standing next to him while he publicly apologized for doing something unlawful. Usually when someone is caught cheating, their partner has the opportunity to collect their dignity and not have the whole world know. In this case, that is impossible.

His kids as well can’t be blamed for his actions, but sometime in the future someone may say to them, “Oh yeah wasn’t your dad busted for soliciting prostitutes?” I don’t think that there is any way such a statement could not be embarrassing.

The main reason that I was so struck by this incident, though, is that he appeared to be a good, pure, family man. If he could be so righteous in the beginning of his career, I have to wonder if the statement “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely” is possibly the most accurate sentence I have heard in my entire life.

The whole incident to me still begs the question: Was he pure when he started, and does power really corrupt, or should the saying be something more like “People are corrupted; power just reveals corruption”?