Politics is a strange business. Spitzer must look at guys like Clinton, Barney Frank, David Vitter, et al and wonder how they can skate by on stuff that is at least as bad as what he did, yet he gets the axe. Part of it is the hypocrisy aspect, part of it is he used up all his political capital on that earlier scheme to embarrass republican lawmakers and part of it is that a lot of powerful people despise him. Other than Alan Dershowitz, not too many people rushed to support him. That is a critical factor. Clinton got Gore to stand by him, then used his surrogates to make Ken Starr the issue. It was despicable, but it worked. The irony is Al Gore would have served out Clinton's term and been elected on his own if he had done the right thing and refused to give Clinton cover.