Spitzer's in Freefall

An idol has fallen. Eliot Spitzer has admitted to participating in the same kind of pricey prostitution ring he's prosecuted in the past.

The New York governor and former state attorney general whose investigations of corporate corruption helped boost widespread reforms, has admitted to charges that he arranged to meet a prostitute while visiting Washington in February.

The news broke in a New York Times article earlier today.

It's not clear what Spitzer plans to do next, though he says he's focused primarily on winning back his family's trust.

Spitzer's campaign against corruption helped convict ex-WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and encouraged the legislation that toppled ex-Brocade CEO Greg Reyes. He was also a force behind the compliance reforms that boosted storage archiving and e-discovery in recent years.What can one say? It's shocking, even surreal. What have we come to?

In another vein, Spitzer himself offered an alternative view in his terse speech to the Times and other media outlets this afternoon: "I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals."

I'll have to mull that one over.