Because we are on his delightful blast email list, we were alerted to today's StoneZone post wondering why Spitzer didn't face criminal prosecution for sleeping with prostitutes, with his socks on. Sure, most johns aren't prosecuted, but Spitzer violated the Mann Act!

What do Chuck Berry, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charlie Chaplin, and Eliot Spitzer have in common? Answer: All of these men violated the federal Mann Act, but only one - Eliot Spitzer - was not prosecuted.

The Mann Act prohibits taking women across state lines for immoral purposes. It was mostly written to prosecute black people who slept with white women.

And what do Berry, Wright, and Chaplin have in common? Unlike Eliot, they all violated the Mann Act more than fifty years ago, when the Mann Act was actually enforced.

But why bring this up now? Well, Vanity Fair is apparently on the case and Mr. Stone would presumably like to be a part of whatever that story ends up being.

Democratic voter fraud will be greater this year than in any Presidential election since Mayor Richard Daley stuffed the Chicago ballot boxes for JFK in 1960 while Lyndon Johnson had hundreds of thousands of Texas absentee ballots burned before they could be counted.

ACORN, a left-wing activist group that supports Obama, is literally dragging homeless people, people from drug rehab centers, soup kitchens and women in domestic abuse shelters to the polling places for early voting. In Ohio any warm body can register and vote on the same day-an open invitation for voter fraud.

Yes, Voter Registration Drives are indicative of massive fraud! Homeless people may be humans but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to vote. Some of them might be immigrants or something!

The conservative obsession with ACORN obsession has already crossed from the wingnuttier right-wing sites to the slightly less wingnutty right-wing sites and soon it'll be part of the almost-legitimate conversation. With FBI raids of ACORN offices already underway, the very name of the occasionally shady low-income housing community organization will soon become shorthand for the voter fraud that stole the election for Obama.

While Democrats complain of Diebold and voter suppression, Republicans have their terrifying visions of poor black homeless junkies dragged to polling places in exchange for needles. Republican state legislatures have been passing or trying to pass Voter ID laws for years now.

But their campaigns are barely concealed rehashes of the Poll Tax. There's no epidemic of voter fraud, and, as Slate pointed out in 2006, where there is voter fraud it's the kind that isn't stopped by asking everyone to have a birth certificate and drivers' license.

Regardless! It's an easy line for people shocked, shocked that 51% of the country likes Barack Obama. And so, just as for four tedious years liberals bitched about how Bush stole the election just because he lost the popular vote, conservatives have already pre-approved their anti-Obama argument. And more power to them! Because it worked so fucking well for us in 2004, right?

I saw two options. Either start snapping the shutter and pressing the flesh and risk the old "Who the fuck are you?" treatment, or attempt to be above-board and identify myself as a freelance photographer and writer, which I am. In the sweltering jungles of Cambodia, where I received my baptism by fire as a journalist and aspiring heroin addict, I learned that, as a reporter, you play it straight with your subjects, and that's exactly what I did with Ronn (sic) Torossian.

BAD FUCKING IDEA!

I walked up to him and said, "Hey there, I'm a freelance writer and photographer, you mind if I start taking some shots?"

He asked me who I write for, and I told him I've written for the New York Times, the New York Post, and Time Out, all of which is true. But then he asked me if I was there on an assignment, and I hesitantly replied in the affirmative.

"Who assigned you," Mr. Grammar (sic) Torossian pressed.

It was like the world went dark, and I heard the cries of a thousand anguished souls burning and writhing in the Spirit World.

"Gawker."

I honestly thought he might serve me an ass-kicking right on the spot, but at first all he did was tell me not to take any pictures. He then disappeared from the conference room, though, and I had a feeling he was about to affect my ejection, which he did.

"Nothing personal, but do you read Gawker's posts on me?"

I did not say, "Yes, and they're just delicious!"

I did not say, "Yes, it's really refreshing to see an asshole actually being held accountable for his ineptitude, meanness of spirit, and thuggish behavior."

I tried to reason with him, to explain I was just there to ask questions, not do a back-alley hatchet job. That I wrote for the Times in 1958 once, and that I have my reputation as a failed journalist to protect.

"You could tell CNN that I am God, but I'm not going to let you cover this event. You'll get a good story out of this about how you were bounced." (I hadn't considered that angle until he suggested it.)

"There's no discussion about this," a security guy in a bad blazer chimed in.

So, I left, disoriented. I looked at my hand and saw I still had a water bottle from 5W's kitchen.

I walked down 6th Avenue feeling like I had let the readers of Gawker down, that they now had to pay the price for my naïve, mid-western inclination – an inclination burnished in the sweltering jungles of Cambodia – to speak Truth to Publicists, and in particular to a publicist named Ronn (sic) Torossian.

Journalism!

National Review says on its blog The Corner:

The similarities are striking, the most egregious of which is a device Labash uses throughout his piece. He repeatedly breaks up anecdotes with "Stone's Rules" — things like "Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack," as well as "White shirt + tan face = confidence."

Toobin does the exact same thing throughout his profile, even including the same mathematical equation and, like Labash, basing his conclusion on yet another rule. The cover art on The Weekly Standard is a photo of Roger Stone with his shirt off, showing his Nixon back tattoo. Whaddayaknow? In The New Yorker's print edition (not online), they run a photo of Stone with his shirt off, flashing his back tattoo.

We can't quite agree with this. Stone's tattoo is probably the most obvious photo of him for any profile. And as for "Stone's Rules"—they're really quotable slogans that the man has honed to a fine point over decades of working with the media. To expect any profiler not to quote them is ludicrous. But judge for yourself: Toobin's profile is here. The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash profile is here.

(Further story-stealing sensitivity: a tipster accuses the New York Times of ripping off a year-old Washington Post story today. The Post's piece was on shrinking portion sizes at restaurants; the Times today talks about portion sizes as well as rising prices as a byproduct of increasing food costs. Again, we have to say this one is clean. The Times' story was broader, and has a solid current news peg. Disagreements in the comments, please.)

[pic via NYer]

Roger Stone! Republican political mastermind! Nixon acolyte and dirty tricks specialist! Creepy old perv who goes to swingers clubs! He is largely forbidden from meddling in national politics anymore, because he's an embarrassment, but he still manages to keep himself involved (often in name and by reputation only) in Florida doings and goings-on.

As always, take everything Roger Stone says with massive doses of salt. But he's right almost as often as he's full of shit, which is his only actual genius. Stone claims he has surveillance camera footage of Crist making out with a lady on an elevator. That's it. There's kissing and groping, between the governor and some biologically female human, captured on CCTV, and in Roger Stone's hands, for some reason. No one has seen it yet, as he is "saving it for the national shows."

We're not sure who the purported girlfriend is, but it may be Kelly Heyniger, the beard trotted out when Crist was running for governor. She is an actress who was in a "Hottest Mom in America" contest, once. And also on Fear Factor.

It's a bizarre story. Basically Crist is an ideal candidate because he'd lock up Florida for McCain but, you know, men keep claiming they've had sex with him.

(Yes, that is a photo of Crist with disgraced congressman Mark Foley.)

Report: Crist Circulating 'Make Out Tape' To Squash Gay Rumors [HuffPo]

The National Enquirer, in a story headlined "Top Dole Aide Caught in Group-Sex Ring," reported that the Stones had apparently run personal ads in a magazine called Local Swing Fever and on a Web site that had been set up with Nydia's credit card. "Hot, insatiable lady and her handsome body builder husband, experienced swingers, seek similar couples or exceptional muscular . . . single men," the ad on the Web site stated. The ads sought athletes and military men, while discouraging overweight candidates, and included photographs of the Stones. At the time, Stone claimed that he had been set up by a "very sick individual," but he was forced to resign from Dole's campaign. Stone acknowledged to me that the ads were authentic.

So. He wrote a letter to the FBI about Spitzer's hooker patronage. We know that. Also he has advice on how McCain can win the election that would probably actually work, if McCain is smart enough to run a Nixon campaign.

Stone also seems to have enjoyed Angels in America, as his description of legendary scumbag Roy Cohn closely matches a monologue the Cohn character delivers in that play. "'Roy was not gay,' Stone told me. 'He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate.'" Glad we got that cleared up.

The Dirty Trickster [New Yorker]

Seemingly self-appointed Republican "strategist" Roger Stone began his illustrious career pulling dirty tricks for Dick Nixon at the age of 19. He later served as post-resignation Nixon's "man in Washington," and competed with noted asshole Lee Atwater to see who could be more repellent and quasi-legal in support of Ronald Reagan's reelection. According to, well, Stone himself, he was responsible for disrupting the 2000 Florida recount. Recently he started an anti-Hillary Clinton organization called C.U.N.T.. That little scheme followed Stone's perfected model of gaining attention and press for himself, generally to the detriment of whatever cause he is ostensibly supporting, which is why it is best to take all of his grandiose claims of political sophistication with large grains of salt.

Last August, someone calling from Roger Stone's New York apartment called Eliot Spitzer's dad and left a crazy, sweary message. Once the details of the call were released to the media, Stone declared that it wasn't him at all, as he was attending a performance of Frost/Nixon the night the call was made. Frost/Nixon didn't have a performance that night, but whatever. Then Stone claimed to have gotten a tattoo of Richard Nixon's face, because the story was not yet crazy enough for his liking.

Stone sent the letter after the FBI called him up to maybe ask about that sweary phone call. Stone's response, of course, was to have lawyers send them a letter about Spitzer's whoring. "'Mr. Stone respectfully declines to meet with you at this time,' the letter states, before going on to offer 'certain information' about Spitzer." Of course, the banking investigation that eventually led to the Emperors Club bust was already underway by November, so even if the date on the letter is accurate, who knows if it had any effect.

The whole thing could be bullshit, but at least it's well-crafted bullshit. The socks!

Beach man told FBI of alleged Spitzer sexscapades [Miami Herald]

The question everyone is asking is what was Roger Stone under the influence of when he left that crazy message? There was no slurring, so not booze. Cocaine is the obvious guess, but he also has a well-documented swinger past, so I think crystal meth has an outside chance.

Back in 1994, when Spitzer made his first, unsuccessful run for Attorney General, his dad loaned him $4.3 million for the campaign; during his 1998 run, Spitzer admitted that he had lied about repaying the loan. Cut to the present: Senate Republicans, seeking to damage the governor, are investigating the loans. Stone's phone message to the elder Spitzer, using the kind of language one usually expects from the governor, went like this:

You will be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Committee on Investigations on your shady campaign loans. You will be compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms. If you resist the subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany. And there is not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece-of-shit son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth and the fact that your son's a pathological liar will be known to all.

Stone tells the Times that:

[H]is apartment building on Central Park South is owned by H. Dale Hemmerdinger, a fund-raiser for Mr. Spitzer who is the governor's nominee to be chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and suggested that allies of the governor might have given access to his apartment to someone who made the threatening call. An official at Mr. Hemmerdinger's company said she was not prepared to comment.

Mr. Stone said: "They have unfettered access to my apartment. I am on television constantly. As Gore Vidal said, never pass up the chance to have sex or be on television. Putting together a voice tape that sounds like me wouldn't be hard to do."

Mr. Stone said he could not remember where he was on the date of the call and had no specific evidence that his apartment had been entered without authorization. But he said he believed that things have been missing from his apartment recently.

He's not the only one. Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf also thinks there might be a cunning strategy at play, but on the part of the Republicans: "The loan story is revived and Stone gets a black eye. Stone can live with a black eye but the governor doesn't need another bad story. Some people say bad things about Roger Stone, but he doesn't care. Stone can't be hurt, but the governor can. It's not the wackiest theory I ever heard."

And that pretty much sums up Albany for you: Everyone is so crooked and corrupt and looking to screw everyone else that it's not only believable that the governor might orchestrate an angry call to his father in an attempt to gin up sympathy, but it's equally credible that the opposition may have committed the act simply to keep the governor's tarnished image at the top of the news. If we're Andrew Cuomo we're going to sit back very quietly for the next three years and wait for our shot at the mansion.

Also, if you're scoring at home, the Times was the only paper out of the three major dailies and The Sun to spell out the word "shit." Good for them.

Gov's dad threatened [NYDN]
The Phone Call That's Rocked the Capital [NYS]
Politics Seen in Nasty Call to Spitzer's Father [NYT]
PSYCHO RANT AT GOV DAD [NYP]
[Image: NYP]