Photo by Stephanie Costa

Photo by Stephanie Costa

Guess all the right-wingers gleefully anticipating Eliot Spitzer's learning to pick up soap with his toes in prison are going to be woefully disappointed:

Ever since the prostitution scandal shoved Governor Eliot Spitzer out the door, people have wondered: Did he spend taxpayer dollars or campaign money to subsidize trysts?

An analysis by the Associated Press of a year's worth of expense reports for Spitzer's office and his campaign committee shows little sign the money was used for illicit activities.

Federal prosecutors have yet to weigh in on the matter; so far, only the alleged organizers of the high-priced call girl ring have been charged.

[...]

The committee's lawyer, Kenneth Gross, said he has seen no evidence that the organization paid for hotel rooms for people who weren't on legitimate campaign business.

"We had a really good system, and we carefully reviewed not only the contributions coming in . . . but also on the expenditure side," Gross said.

Spitzer's state-issued credit card also shows no outward sign of having been abused for extracurricular pursuits.

[...]

Spitzer has told aides and his legal team that he never spent public or campaign dollars on prostitutes. The scandal collapsed his career last week, just days after the married father of three was identified by federal authorities as "Client 9" of the prostitution ring.

Even if authorities find that Spitzer had trysts in hotel rooms that were paid for by his campaign, a prosecution may be difficult. Using campaign money for private purposes is illegal, but candidates are generally given wide leeway on spending that may have a dual purpose.

So what it comes down to is a simple prostitution bust -- a bust that, strangely enough, the Feds were involved in from the start thanks to a tip from notorious New York Republican dirty-trickster Roger Stone, pursuing with an aggressiveness that is singularly lacking from their handling of a case involving another prostitution-linked politician, Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana).

This brings me to mind of the near-decade, and $100-million-odd dollars, spent by the GOP Congress and their pet attack dog Ken Starr on ripping into the lives of not only Bill and Hillary Clinton, but of everyone who knew them.

And it also brings me to mind of the bizarre attack launched by Bush's IRS against Obama's religious denomination, the United Church of Christ -- an attack based on such thin material that even Joe Lieberman, who backs Obama's Republican rival John McCain, felt moved to protest it.

Ah, the fishing expedition. When you have a target but don't yet (and may never) have a crime. This is yet another specialty of the GOP.