Radical dangers and Ashley the whore

Andrew Sullivan Michelle Malkin was right about those right-wing left-wing mobs in Kentucky Berkeley:

Eight people were in custody Saturday after a crowd of angry protesters broke windows and threw burning torches at UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's campus residence in protest of fee hikes and budget cuts, authorities said. . . .
The crowd, including a man taken into custody in a university protest a day earlier, chanted, "No justice, no peace," and began smashing planters, windows and lights.

Just as no sane person would take political advice from Andrew Sullivan, no one should take romantic advice from a hooker who does Democrats:

Sure, she's made some mistakes. But now Ashley Dupre, the former escort who brought down Gov. Eliot Spitzer, is sharing what she's learned in her new sex, love and relationship column -- exclusively in the New York Post.

(Hat-tip: Newsbusters.) Wonder if the New York Post would give me an advice column to balance the Ashley Dupre column? I'd call it, "Shut Up, You Stupid Whore."

Now, if only the Atlantic Monthly would give me a blog to balance Sully . . . well, let the reader imagine what I'd call that.

UPDATE: "Forget effigy . . . just go for straight-up martydom," says one blogger of the angry mob at Berkeley.

Understand that I have nothing against angry mobs, per se. Heck, I nearly got trampled when I was front of the line to buy tickets for Prince's "Purple Rain" tour, so I understand both mobs and anger.

However, it matters very much what you're angry about, and what your mob actually does. University of Alabama fans once burnt Bear Bryant in effigy after the coach benched Joe Namath for the Orange Bowl. That was understandable.

But "no justice, no peace" and attempted arson because of a tuition increase? Where's the Ohio National Guard when we really need them?

Best. Blog. Headline. Evah?

When Your Neighbor Loses His Job
It's A Recession.
When You Screw A Whore Behind Your Wife's Back, Get Caught, And Lose Your Job, It's A Catastrophic Economic Meltdown.

Via Memeorandum. About Eliot Spitzer.

Ashley Dupre is a whore

Which makes her different than other bloggers . . . somehow:

I read the front page of the NY Post this week . . . .

(News flash: The whore can read!)

. . .and was happy to see that Mr. Spitzer is moving on with his life and considering getting back into politics . . .

(Ashley Dupree: A Constituency of One!)

Everyone makes mistakes.

(Hiring call girls is a "mistake"? Maybe you should have thought of that before you became a vagina merchant, Ashley.)

Everyone deserves a second chance. Me too, right? Well, apparently not. Why? Because many people are liars and hypocrites. Let me give you just a few examples of what I keep encountering, despite my best efforts to move on.

(Move on to the next $4,000 client?)

First, I’m often referred to as the "woman who brought down the Governor" -- excuse me people, I didn;t call the tabloids, I didn't blow the whistle . . .

(OK, so what did you blow, Ashley?)

I did nothing to shine a light on my indiscretions . . .

("Indiscretions"? They're called "transactions," Ashley. You are a whore. You rented your vagina by the hour. Denial is not a river in Egypt.)

. . .or to "out" anyone else. Second, I keep being accused of "cashing in" on the scandal – wrong again.

(Actually, you "cashed in" on your vagina. Whatever you do from here on out, I think you shouldn't be so sensitive about accusations of "cashing in.")

People think I made money off music that was exploited when the scandal first broke, that I am doing reality television, and that I made millions posing nude for magazines. The truth is none of those things happened. This situation closed far more doors than it ever opened. I didn’t see a dime for my songs, but other people certainly did. I didn’t pose nude for a magazine, but other people made money off of photos of me that they sold to tabloids. Even photos I posed for ages ago were sold to the highest bidder. I never sold any photos of myself - but people who I trusted did.

(Once a girl starts hiring out her vagina by the hour, she's likely to meet a lot of untrustworthy people.)

And the "millions" for the nude pics? I was offered that, repeatedly – and turned them down because I didn’t want to perpetuate the problem or feed into the stereotype.

("Feed into the stereotype" about women who rent out their vaginas? Like they might be . . . I don't know, vacuous and amoral?)

Third, speaking of perpetuating the problem and feeding into the stereotype, let me tell you about most book publishers – they are worse than the tabloids.

(OK, Ashley, NOW you're doing some serious truth-telling!)

I won’t give them the "tell all" they are demanding and won't glorify and sensationalize "how exciting the life of a high-priced NYC escort must be," as one major publisher put it. Sorry folks, my life wasn't like a “Sex And The City” episode. . . . Oh, and I also love how some publishers who were interested in my story and had offers on the table suddenly pulled them because executives in the company had "personal and political reasons” about publishing the book. What does that mean? Did this hit too close to home for you because your husband cheated on you with an escort? Or would your wife feel insecure if she heard you were working with me?

("Working with me." Heh. Heh heh heh.)

I will write the book regardless and do it for the right reasons.

(Because I'm a whore like that!)

Fourth - ladies, ladies, ladies - so many of you have been cool, supportive and loving. But there are those of you out there who just love to judge.

(As opposed to those "who just love" renting out their vaginas by the hour.)

Let me say this - most girls, to varying degrees of course, want to be pampered and have nice shoes, designer handbags and gorgeous clothes. I know many women who target guys with money and use them to get these things. They toy with them, flirt, go on dates, have sex and then drop hints about that new dress at the store down the street or being short on rent money – and the guys deliver it. This is a dishonest relationship. I see this all over New York City.

(Care to name names, Ashley? Because "Call Girl Puts Down Gold-Diggers" might be an interesting story.)

Some women aren’t as vindictive, but still dive into relationships with wealthy guys who they don’t love or even find attractive, but they stay in it because they have a nice home, a car and spending money – they would rather stay in an unfulfilling or loveless relationship than lose that security.

(Or hire out their vaginas by the hour.)

This, too, is a dishonest relationship. I see this type all over the suburbs of New Jersey with the housewives who are strung out on mood stabilizers or the couples who put all their attention on their children so they don’t have to deal with their own issues. What about going to those sugar daddy websites? Is that legal? Should it be? Is what I did any more dishonest? Get real and get over yourself.You’d be shocked at some of the messes I’ve gotten myself into....and, more importantly, how I got out of them. I have so much more to say, and I will – but it’s time for Yoga class! Om Shanti!

(Coming soon: Ashley Dupre joins George F. Will in calling for a tactical U.S. withdrawal from Texas!)

OK, I'll drop the italic snark riff now to make some serious points:

• Notice how our celebrity culture blurs the line between fame and infamy. Ashley Dupre is a whore -- if she hadn't been the sexual equivalent of a vending machine, nobody ever would have heard of her. And yet, as she says, major book publishers were willing to pay her to "write" a book.
• Not everybody is a professional writer. Thanks to the Internet, being a published writer has never been easier. Getting paid as a writer? Not so much. Getting paid as a writer -- being a professional writer -- usually involves either (a) getting hired for a staff job or (b) hustling freelance assignments. And it helps to be a good writer if you want to get paid for it. Exactly why Michael "Herewith, A Brief Primer" Gerson gets paid, I don't know, but Ashley Dupre is not Michael Gerson.
• Cheap grace isn't really cheap. There is a price to be paid for failing to make moral distinctions. When Jesus saved the woman caught in adultery from being stoned to death, he then told her, "Go, and sin no more." He didn't say, "It's OK, go be a whore." By misinterpreting "judge not, lest ye be judged" as a commandment not to make moral distinctions, the advocates of this bogus "Cheap Grace Gospel" invite us into a world without any standards or guidelines. It is in such an unlandmarked terrain of moral relativism that the Ashley Dupres of the world go so blindly astray.
• Sinners don't respond to the Cheap Grace Gospel. For all the vicious snark I've rained down on Ashley Dupre, I guarantee she's more like to be led into righteousness by someone speaking blunt words than by wishy-washy, touchy-feely stuff. Being myself a most wretched sinner, deserving nothing but destruction by a righteous God, I don't claim any personal standing of moral superiority vis-a-vis Ashley Dupre. Nobody ever offered me thousands of dollars for a night's companionship, so that's one temptation I've been spared.
• Book publishers really are swine. The fact that a "major publisher" would offer a book deal to Ashley Dupre is bad enough. That the publisher would then ask her to write "how exciting the life of a high-priced NYC escort must be" -- and turn her down when she wanted to tell her own story her own way -- tells you that they don't believe that truth has value.

That's what I despise about the publishing industry. If Friedrich Hayek submitted The Road to Serfdom to a major publisher today, nobody would be interested -- even though it was a bestseller and now, more than 60 years after its publication, it's still selling.

Truth has value, but you wouldn't know this by talking to a book publisher. There have been times when I've informally proposed a book idea to a publisher who then responds to the effect, "Hey, that's a great idea. But instead, why don't you write this . . ." and then they proceed to tell me their idea for the book they want me to write.

And I actually used to let crap like that get to me. At some point, however, I just said screw it. If you're such a genius you know better than me what kind of book I should write, write it yourself and stop wasting my time.

If you cooperate with swine -- bending over backward, offering to write anything at all, just to get that book deal -- you are helping neither yourself nor your publisher. You are also doing a disservice to other writers, because you're enabling publishers who have developed an abusive habit of pushing writers around.

If a publisher really wants to publish you, if they really believe in you as a writer, they'll treat you right and show some respect for your judgment. The fact that you're not being treated right is therefore your own fault, because in your desperation to make a buck, you are willing to tolerate insulting behavior from publishers.

Don't be a book-whore, Ashley Dupre. Whatever the truth of your story is, the truth has more real value than whatever lies a publisher wants to buy.

Spitzer's hooker speaks!

(Via Hot Air.) Let's face it, at least Spitzer got his money's worth, compared to whatever action "Truckstop Jim" McGreevey was getting . . .

UPDATE: I find myself anonymously accused in the comments of a "sexist and offensive" attitude, because my "cavalier comments" are a "thin disguise for admiration for Spitzer's sexual prowess," an endorsement of the "exploitation of young, beautiful women in the sex trade," etc.

Lighten up, Anonymous. Nearly all my comments are "cavalier," and the destruction of the crusading anti-capitalist Spitzer in a hooker scandal was one of the most richly ironic political stories of the year. He hates capitalism -- those evil, greedy, big corporations! -- yet he's paying thousands per night to shag a high-priced call girl?

I certainly don't "admire" Spitzer for his "prowess." Paying for the companionship of a prostitute is the opposite of "prowess." But at least, as I said, he got his money's worth. If a politician is going to destroy his career with a sex scandal, the means of his destruction ought to be something extravagant and glamorous, rather than McGreevey's sordid truck-stop assignations or Tim Mahoney's tepid affair with a middle-aged Hill staffer. Wilbur Mills and "the Argentine Firecracker" splashing around the Tidal Basin -- that's what I call a sex scandal.

And, please, Anonymous, spare me this crap:

I just feel sad for Dupree; as sad as I felt for Monica Lewinsky. Both were exploited by powerful men and learned a painful lesson about bad choices and narcissistic men.

Dupre was engaged in a fee-for-service transaction. Who was exploiting whom? She goes on TV with Diane Sawyer and does the poor-victim routine, and everybody's supposed to feel sorry for her. Not me. Let's call a money-grubbing whore what she is, OK? The whore and her john are equally contemptible, and if I express my contempt through sarcastic humor, well, that's pretty much how I express everything.

Finally, as to Miss Lewinsky: She was a spoiled-rotten rich girl who grew up in Bel Air, Calif. I try to make a point of never feeling sorry for people like that -- given every advantage and every opportunity in life, petted and pampered and sheltered from harm, and ultimately failing because they lack any strength of character. Oh, I know the type well: Selfish, weak, superficial and filled with self-pity. What act of charity or generosity did Monica Lewinsky ever do that would recommend her as worthy of 1/10th of what was lavished on her? And now, on top of everything else, we are supposed to pity her? It seems to me she's had entirely too much of that.

UPDATE II: Little Miss Attila calls me a whore. I think she means that as a compliment.

His daughter, the whore

William Youmans speaks out about his daughter, Ashley Youmans, a/k/a Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a/k/a, "Kristen" the high-priced call girl:

"Everyone makes mistakes, and this was a very large mistake," the stonemason said. "I love her tremendously and support her, but I am just in so much shock right now."

That's it? A "mistake"? Kind of lame.

Dude: They pimped your daughter. Where is the rage? Where is the bloody vow of vengeance for outraged honor? Where are the threats of retaliatory violence?

If her father's not howling with rage over all this, something's wrong with him.

Lawyer: Media unfair to whore

Well, this is rich:

The lawyer for the call girl linked to the downfall of Gov. Eliot Spitzer lashed out at the media on Friday for thrusting the 22-year-old woman into the "public glare" without her consent and publishing revealing photos.
Since her identity was disclosed, newspapers and Web sites have splashed photos of Ashley Alexandra Dupre in suggestive poses on front and inside pages. Dupre was known as "Kristen" in court documents accusing Spitzer of paying thousands for prostitutes' services.
Her attorney, Don D. Buchwald, said she did not consent to the use of her photos in this manner, and the usage may be a violation of federal copyright laws.

(Via Memeorandum.) Oh, that dreadful "public glare"! Oh, the shame of those "revealing photos"!

Hey, Buchwald: Your client is a whore. She was peddling that stuff to the highest bidder. And since prostitution is a crime, Ashley Alexandra Dupre's "revealing" photos -- to the extent that they were used to advertise her illegal services -- were arguably instrumental to her criminal conduct.

Jammie Wearing Fool shares my amusement:

She's an attention-seeking whore, yet somehow now has a problem everyone is seeing her photos?

Buchwald, you don't have a leg to stand on, and you know it. If you ever dared to bring any legal action on this pathetic claim, you'd be laughed out of court. Why don't you concentrate on trying to keep your whore client out of prison, which is what I presume you're getting paid to do?

Better yet, Buchwald, why don't you get creative? Contact MTV and try to sell them on a new reality series, "High-Priced Whore." If you work the deal right, Ms. Dupre could soon be an even more infamous whore than she already is.

UPDATE: While looking for more photos, I came across this story in the Boston Globe, which might be called "A Whore's Tale":

She left a broken home on the Jersey Shore at 17 and came to New York City to work the nightclubs as a rhythm-and-blues singer. . . .
In a series of telephone interviews on Tuesday night, she said she had slept very little over the past week due to the stress from the case. "I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," the woman said.

(Not a monster, just a whore, Ashley.)

Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, she spoke softly and with good humor as she added: "This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated." . . .

(I'm sure all the guys who went to high school in New Jersey with Ashley Youmans are now laughing themselves silly: "Spitzer paid $4,000 for that? Man, I used to get it for free -- and it wasn't that good.")

She left "a broken family" at age 17, having been abused, according to the MySpace page, and has used drugs, "been broke and homeless." . . .
Carolyn Capalbo, 46, Dupre's mother, said that she attended Wall High School in Belmar until her sophomore year, when she moved to North Carolina. "She was a young kid with typical teenage rebellion issues, but we are extremely close now," Capalbo said in a telephone interview yesterday. . . .
Capalbo said that she was "shell-shocked" when her daughter called mid-last week and told her she had been working as an escort and was now in trouble with the law. She said she was not sure Dupre realized who Spitzer was when he was her client.
"She is a very bright girl who can handle someone like the governor," Capalbo said in a telephone interview yesterday. "But she also is a 22-year-old, not a 32-year-old or a 42-year-old, and she obviously got involved in something much larger than her."

Add your own punchlines, folks.

UPDATE 12:50 p.m.: My friend James Joyner at Outside the Beltway appears to take seriously the legalistic arguments that newspapers that published MySpace photos of Ashley/"Kristen" are guilty of copyright infringement. Nonsense.

Look, I've got a 3 p.m. appointment 100 miles from here, so I'll have to make this quick:

Ashley/"Kristen" is a criminal, who is in a world of legal jeopardy. She has engaged in prostitution as part of what prosecutors say is an interstate (and perhaps international) prostitution ring. She is implicated in potential federal money-laundering charges, as well as possible violation of the Mann Act. As far as we know, Ashley/"Kristen" used her MySpace photos to advertise her call-girl services.

Furthermore, by the highly-publicized nature of her crimes -- which destroyed the career of the governor of New York -- Ashley/"Kristen" has arguably become a public figure. Thus, all photos of Ashley/"Kristen" can be considered fair game at this point.

Remember those pictures of the Columbine killers brandishing their weapons? Do you think anyone got permission or paid a royalty to publish those photos? I don't think so.

The same principle applies with photos of Ashley/"Kristen." Who would be the plaintiffs in a copyright suit? The whore herself? Authorities are going to let her out of jail so she can testify in freaking copyright case? And what kind of judge or jury would award damages in such a case?

So, yeah, Buchwald can sue the NY Post and cause them to have to spend money hiring lawyers to handle the case, but it would just be a nuisance action, and would never result in damages?

Whatever the fine points of the law in this case, the practical reality is that the newspapers that published the photo are in the clear -- and they know it, which is why they didn't hesitate to publish them.