Hey, New York Times: here's what inquiring minds really want to know about the Eliot Spitzer hooker scandal

I noticed with some interest that a New York Times blog is doing a running Q&A about Eliot Spitzer, the New York Governor who just resigned after getting caught patronizing a high-priced hooker. Yes. I'm talking about the once-dignified New York Times, now evidently the scandal sheet of record. The entire op-ed page for two days in a row has been all-hooker-all-the-time. As was the lead editorial yesterday.

Anyway, I’m usually too cranky to deal with tabloid-style scandals, but this one is different. It's raising questions that are unanswered because nobody has been alert enough to ask them. Well, hardly anybody. Anyway, these five don’t appear on the Gray Lady’s blog, at least as of this posting:

1. Am I mistaken or do we have a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, a nose-to-nose presidential nomination race and a national economic collapse going on that ought to be taking up most of the news these days – instead of what the now ex-governor shelled out for hookers? Oh, sorry I asked. As you were.

2. What’s with the price Spitzer is reported to have paid for sex – the $4,300? I can understand him paying four grand. I can understand him parting with $300. But $4,300? Sounds weird, unless…

3. Was the $300 a tip? If so, is Spitzer as cheap a bastard as I’m thinking? Cabbies in this town expect 15%, and please round it up to the nearest dollar. Waiters get at least 15%. In really upscale restaurants it's routinely 20% or more. Yet on a $4,000 hump, Spitzer tips the hooker seven and a half percent? Sheesh! His criminal lawyer had better demand payment in full upfront to avid getting stiffed, too..

4. The hooker in question has been reported to have two working identities with similar-but-different names. Under one name, she got $4,000 a throw. Under another, only $1,000. If this is so, may I extrapolate that the only difference between, say, a $5,000 hooker and, say, a $5 hooker is $4,995?

5. If our government is so deep in the national debt hole, and out to cut waste, how come the Feds spend their valuable time checking out governors who are into hookers instead of terrorists who are into bombs? Could it be that they only check governors who are Democrats?

Only asking.