A week after Eliot Spitzer’s ongoing fling with a prostitute was found out, his successor David Paterson, who was sworn in yesterday, has confessed that both he and his wife have had extramarital affairs. “This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point,” Paterson told New York’s Daily News. “But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on.”

The Patersons should be praised for admitting to their past indiscretions and for staying together and working out their problems. One has to wonder, though, whether in another time or place they would’ve had to go public with their confession. It’s no doubt the press or a future political opponent would have dug up these skeletons in his closet at some point.

Did Rush Limbaugh’s Hillary-voting Republicans break Ohio law? In Ohio, voters who switch parties and lie about their sincere commitment to the party’s principles are committing “election falsification,” a felony punishable by a six to twelve month jail sentence and a $2,500 fine. Fortunately for crossover voters, the law is unenforceable.

Obama wins Mississippi. Exit polls showed racially-polarized voters, with only 9% of black voters going for Clinton and 27% of white voters supporting Obama. Exit polls also showed that Clinton voters seem less attached to their candidate: 15% said they’d be disappointed if she was the nominee, while 4% of Obama voters said they’d be disappointed.

Geraldine Ferraro played racial politics this week for Hillary Clinton, who dumped her in the controversy. Ferraro told Daily Breeze, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. … He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.” Mickey Kaus says Ferraro’s right. Ta-Nehisi Coates says she’s racist. Jonathan Cohn says it’s best to ignore her.

New York loses a governor and Hillary Clinton loses a superdelegate as Eliot Spitzer falls.

Democrats nixed the idea of a mail-in revote for the Florida primary. Michigan Democrats are deciding whether or not to have a revote in June.

The Pew Research Center conducted a pre-March 4 poll that found Barack Obama “riding high.” However, voters question his toughness and say he hasn’t provided policy specifics. News that may help John McCain: voters seem to be more optimistic about Iraq.

In news of religious leaders, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins says McCain should work harder to get social conservatives excited about his candidacy. Obama’s pastor stirs up controversy with inflammatory remarks about America — remarks Obama says “I vehemently condemn.” Read WoW’s coverage here and here.

Here’s an interesting take on Eliot Spitzer’s behavior from evolutionary biologist David P. Barash, who argues that it is natural for men, especially successful men, to seek multiple sexual partners, as “they are responding to the biological pressures that whisper within men.” But …

Some readers may bridle at this characterization of Homo sapiens as EPC [extra-pair copulations]-inclined, but the evidence is overwhelming. That doesn’t justify adultery, by either sex, especially because human beings — even those burdened by a Y chromosome and suffering from testosterone poisoning — are presumed capable of exercising control over their impulses. Especially if, via wedding vows, they have promised to do so. After all, “doing what comes naturally” is what nonhuman animals do. People, most of us like to think, have the unique capacity to act contrary to their biologically given inclinations. Maybe, in fact, it is what makes us human.

Wow. An evolutionary biologist takes a moral stance on sexual behavior in the L.A. Times. Praise God!

On his Consumed blog, Owen Strachan adds:

Men have been attempting to control themselves (to follow Barash’s moral guidance) for millenia, and we can all see where that’s gotten us. No, we must have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, willing us away from Internet ads and tv shows and stray glances at the mall and extended consideration and appraisal of other men’s spouses and meditation on past objects of lust and spending time alone with women who are not our spouses and so much more. We must have the Spirit, men, and we must strive for holiness, both personally and in the embrace of the local church. It is a difficult thing to be a monogamous man, armed with a sinful nature and existing in a sex-saturated world, but we can resist temptation. We’ve got to fight for holiness, we’ve got to prize Christ and find our joy in obeying Him and turning away from the world, and we’ve got to celebrate marriage and cultivate happy, romantic marriages. Only then will we avoid Mr. Spitzer’s mistake; only then will we avoid his tragedy.

HT: Justin Taylor

After his expensive, long-term prostitution habit was discovered earlier this week, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer found that he had no choice but to resign this morning. He will remain in office until Monday, when Lt. Gov. David Paterson will assume leadership of the state and become New York’s first black governor. Paterson is also legally blind.

In his resignation statement, Spitzer paraphrased Luke 12:48: “From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much: the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.”

Here’s an interesting scenario: If Hillary Clinton becomes president, Paterson, a Democratic superdelegate pledged to Clinton, will be charged with naming her replacement to the U.S. Senate. Before this scandal hit, Paterson was considered a likely replacement for Clinton, so he just might appoint himself. Should that happen, Spitzer political rival Joe Bruno, the Republican majority leader of the New York State Senate who Spitzer had state troopers spy on last year, would be next in line to run the state. Meanwhile, Bruno will take on the responsibilities of lieutenant governor.

Also, this scandal means that Clinton, who only picked up a handful of delegates yesterday in Mississippi, likely will have one less superdelegate (Spitzer) voting for her at the Democratic convention in Denver.

Thanks to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution scandal, people are debating prostitution’s legality again — and with an unsettlingly clinical tone.

Over on National Review’s The Corner, bloggers are heaving ponderous theoretical terms like “legal positivism,” “minarchist,” and “utilitarian.” John Derbyshire says, “To a lover of liberty, it’s hard to see why a woman shouldn’t sell her favors if she wants to.” Andrew Stuttaford asserts, “The idea that the state can stop an adult freely deciding to prostitute what is, after all, his or her own body is yet another example of big government run wild.”

Mark R. Levin disagrees: “But is not the better view that law is supposed to reflect the traditions of society, which have developed over time?” Lisa Schiffren says women don’t choose prostitution freely, and legalizing it “will only make it harder to make a convincing moral argument against selling one’s body or giving it away too freely.”

On Slate, Emily Bazelon writes, “You don’t have to be a moralist or a prude to buy the argument for banning prostitution. But if you’re so inclined, it’s an easy one to take apart.” People like Bradford Plumer suggest that prostitution is here to stay, so we might as well decriminalize it, regulate it, and improve working conditions. Some advocate Sweden’s system, which punishes the men who pay for sex but not the women who sell it.

What seems lost in all the Adam Smith-quoting and argument-dissecting, however, is compassion for the men and women trapped in prostitution. One prostitute says, “We all know it’s dangerous. But … people need money to live.” An ex-prostitute says men paid to rape her: “Getting out seemed impossible because my sense of self-worth was non-existent. I have no solution as long as men pay to do this terrible thing to us.” Another prostitute’s defiance may be even more tragic: “I believe that my body is my property and I do what I wanna do.” MotherJones.com says some women are so desperate they refuse to be rescued from brothels.

Of course, those in favor of legalizing prostitution twist all of this into a chilling argument: People choose prostitution, and they need it to survive. Should this argument satisfy Christians seeking to mend a sin-ravaged world?