"Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it?" - Cole Porter, "Let's Fall in Love" POLITICIANS do it, too, though love doesn't seem often to have a whole lot to do with "it." Eliot Spitzer's business with a prostitute has faded from the news for now, but expect a comeback. The feds are pondering whether to make a literal federal case of the matter by filing criminal charges. After using the dalliance as a noisemaker, the government can hardly just walk away with a ho-hum and shrug. And you can bet we'll be seeing and hearing more of Ashley Alexandra Dupre, formerly just Kristen. The negotiations must be fierce for a photo shoot and a tell-all. Hustler Larry Flynt has already bid a million dollars but suspects that will be too low even as an opener. The stock market may be down, but the futures in prurience never flag. It has been ever thus. Our very founders were busy boys. Benjamin Franklin had a son on the side. Alexander Hamilton admitted to an affair with the wife of a con man. DNA tells us Thomas Jefferson almost surely had at least one child with his slave Sally Hemings, herself the half-sister of Jefferson's wife. Presidents have kept the tradition going. Grover Cleveland, in the late 1800s, had an out-of-wedlock child. His political opponents mocked him with the ditty "Ma, ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White House ha-ha-ha." Warren Harding had his Nan Britton; Franklin Roosevelt, Lucy Mercer. Bill Clinton had Monica, or was it vise versa? John Kennedy was spared notoriety in his lifetime by the long-standing gentlemen's agreement between reporters and elected officials that private hanky-panky was none of the public's business. (Unless, that is, a politician made it so, as Congressman Wilbur Mills did in 1974 when he was caught splashing it up in D.C.'s Tidal Basin with stripper Fanne Foxe in a bad remake of "La Dolce Vita.") The last few years have harvested a bumper crop of philanderers - Sen. David Vitter, House Speakers Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston, Reps. Mark Foley and Randy Cunningham. Sen. Larry Craig was caught doing the men's room tap dance. James McGreevey quit as New Jersey governor when he was outed as gay, and now a long-time aide says he, McGreevey and McGreevey's then-fiancC), later wife, used to do threesomes. Despite those and many more such tales, Americans remain peculiarly vulnerable to surprise when a new sex scandal breaks out. We still haven't cleared our civic genes of their seminal Puritanism. Europeans enjoy their sex scandals for whatever trinkets of titillation they bring and then are done with them. Here, the media solemnly convert scandal into pop psychology. Was the woman abused as a child and thus denied a sense of self worth? Are A-type men wired for daredevil sex? And thus a perfectly good spicy story gets dragged off into phony introspection. We could finally have our full due of vicarious whoopee if we'd quit fretting so about other folks' sin maybe going unpunished. As Cole Porter put it in another song - "Love for Sale" - "Who's prepared to pay the price / for a trip to paradise?" Four thousand, three hundred dollars an hour isn't punishment enough? 
“Bad Girl,” screamed The New York Post a week ago Friday, sporting a front-page photo of the prostitute who was the instrument of Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s self-destruction. She wore nothing on top but her hands.
“Bed Fellow, Love Gov’s boy toy bares 3-ways with wife,” said The Post on Monday, airing steamy charges by a former driver for James McGreevey, who resigned as governor of New Jersey in 2004 after saying he was gay and had had an affair with a male state official.
“Exclusive: Albany Bombshell, New Gov: I Had Affair,” shouted The Daily News the next day, after David A. Paterson, within hours of replacing the disgraced Spitzer, sat down with one of the newspaper’s columnists and acknowledged his own past infidelity.
“Girls! Girls! Girls!,” screamed The Post on Wednesday, after Paterson said at a press conference that it was several affairs, not one, and that his former lovers included a woman on the state payroll.
Through this fetid swamp of sexual misdeeds — real and alleged, involving three governors in two states — The Times has threaded its way with both careful reporting and good judgment over the past two weeks. It broke and stayed ahead on the most consequential of the stories, the stunning news that Spitzer, who brought a moralistic approach to government, was “Client 9” of an international prostitution ring. It handled the Paterson story with appropriate restraint. And it tried hard to ignore the seamy McGreevey story because he is no longer in office and the charges came in the midst of an ugly divorce, hardly Times fare.
The episodes have presented interesting challenges for a newspaper that normally steers well clear of the salacious and only a month earlier had made what many regarded as an embarrassing misstep by reporting allegations it could not prove of an extramarital affair involving a lobbyist and John McCain.
With the Spitzer story, The Times had the goods, and the issue was of undeniable public interest. When the newspaper asked the governor’s staff two weeks ago, on a Sunday, for records of his travel between Feb. 11 and Feb. 15, he knew the game was up. In that period, he had had a tryst with a call girl, “Kristen,” later identified by The Times as Ashley Alexandra Dupré, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, the night before he testified at a Congressional hearing.
At 1:55 p.m. on Monday, March 10, the day after The Times requested the records, it posted on its Web site a headline that took away New York’s collective breath: “Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring.” The newspaper said he was expected to make a statement shortly. Within two hours, a grim Spitzer stepped to a lectern in his Manhattan office and said: “I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and that violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong.” He gave no details. Two days later, he resigned.
Readers were transfixed. “You could not make this stuff up,” said George Goodburn in a comment on the newspaper’s Web site. Nic Leobold said: “This is probably the greatest article you’ve ever published,” though he could not resist adding, “(considering you’re a leftist publication).”
A few readers complained that the story was diverting attention from more important news like the war in Iraq or the swooning economy. But that’s like saying a newspaper cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. On the same front page with the first Spitzer article were stories about a bombing that killed five American soldiers in Baghdad and the problems of private equity firms.
Some readers were distressed at the initial Spitzer headline on the Web site because it did not make clear that his “link” to the prostitution ring was as a customer. Steven Brant of Flushing, Queens, said that when the headline was shown on cable television news, he thought Spitzer “was involved with running a prostitution business on the side.”
A video surfaced on the Internet Thursday purportedly showing Lindsay Lohan performing a sex act on her ex-boyfriend Calum Best, but both stars reportedly deny that they appear in the tape.
Lohan's representative's office told FOXNews.com that there is no statement at this time. A representative for Best told Us Weekly magazine it's not him.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's not Calum in the tape," his rep told Usmagazine.com.
Lohan is telling pals the woman in the film is absolutely not her, "But privately, nobody believes her. It is her," one told the New York Post's Page Six gossip column.
Best, a model and the son of English soccer star George Best, has a history of taking videos of women in intimate acts. Last May, Britain's Sun newspaper reported how Best, while partying with two prostitutes, "used his mobile phone to film a girl pleasuring."
Dupre, a would-be singer, achieved instant infamy when she was named in an online call-girl scandal which led to the resignation of then New York governor Eliot Spitzer.
Now, a lawyer for Ashley Alexandra Dupre, 22, told the Associated Press Dupre was 17 when the footage was filmed.
“After hearing from her attorney, the company said the video’s Internet release will be delayed,” says AP, going on:
” ‘Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis originally reached out to Dupre, offering $1 million for her to appear in a non-nude spread for his company’s new magazine and a chance to join the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ tour bus.
“But on Tuesday ‘Girls Gone Wild’ employees found archived footage of Dupre filmed in 2003, and Francis retracted the offer.”
Francis served 11 months in a Nevada jail for tax evasion but was released a week ago, “so he could face charges in Florida related to filming 17-year-old girls in a shower,” says the Los Angeles Times.
“A day later, he pleaded no contest in Florida to child abuse and prostitution charges and the judge released him on time served and fines,” says the story, adding:
“Francis still faces charges in L.A. of misdemeanor sexual battery for allegedly touching a woman inappropriately at a party.”
AP has Dupre’s lawyer, Don Buchwald, saying she may have been 17 in the “Girls Gone Wild” videos shot in Miami.
“In an e-mail to one of Francis’ publicists - forwarded by Buchwald to the AP - the attorney said he was -informed by Ashley that the video was in fact taken when she was underage (that is 17),” says the story. “Buchwald added in the e-mail that Francis was aware of Dupre’s age during the filming.”
How’s her singing career going?
At 4:47 am Pacific, she’d had a total of 4,510,271 plays and 9,645,213 profile views on her MySpace page.
But she apparently isn’t keeping track of things, at least not as far as MySpace is concerned.
She hadn’t logged on for more than a week.
Girls Gone Wild wants Kristen. The girl made famous by "client number nine" and a hotel room tryst with then powerful New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has received yet another offer to disrobe and pose and this time it comes from the newly free man Joe Francis and his "Girls Gone Wild" brand. He out of jail and he wants Kristen.
Ashley Dupre Photos & Video: Kristen Gets "Girl Gone Wild" $1M Offer
The offer sounds as if it a good one, she won't have to strip for the photos for the magazine although (as it is called Girls Gone Wild) she would be taking it all off for a DVD and video release from the company. The GGW franchise would also publish her side of the story, according to a press release sent out announcing the offer.
This is one of many of the detailed offers that seem to be flowing in for the one time call girl. She already has this topless photo published and Penthouse magazine and Hustler also want the famous call girl to strip for their magazines and pose for a cover girl type photo spread. That offer is reportedly for a million dollars as well.
Ashley may want to act fast as the buzz is dying down for the one time search engine princess, and it will be interesting to see how her career develops. The offers are out there and the time is right but will she make her move?
Who do you believe???
Kristin Davis is quick to say, sorry, not me. But not so fast. Every news site this morning is looking at the goods to determine, is this or isnt this Kristin?
The net is going Sex and the City Sextape crazy amid pictures (and yes there are more) and a tape, that rumor mill is asking … is it “Sex and the City’s” Kristin Davis or not?
TMZ has learned that there are 20 durrrrty photos taken five years ago by a man with a woman who looks like Davis. Says TMZ “We hear the pics were taken by an ex-boyfriend and are now being shopped by a broker from California.”
Why being shopped now? Timing, with the upcoming May premiere of the movie “Sex and the City”
Says Kristin’s rep to TMZ “tells us unequivocally that she’s seen one of the pics and “This is not a photo of Kristin Davis. There is no sex tape.” “
So far the net has yieled two sets of photos.
New York, Mar.15 (ANI): Hustler boss Larry Flynt has offered Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the prostitute who brought down New York Governor Eliot Spitzer a million dollars to pose naked for his magazine.
Flynt is convinced the high-class hooker, who works for prostitution and escort agency the Emperors Club VIP, would be a perfect fit for his men’s magazine.
Flynt says, “We think this is an item that is going to stay in the news for some time. We think it’s not bad for a 22-year-old to make one million dollars for a few hours work. It beats what she was making at the escort service.”
Dupre sex romp with Eliot Spitzer netted her a couple of thousands of dollars, but if a Daily News report is to be believed, she stands to make millions from the scandal.
Penthouse wants her on the cover, every news organization in the world wants an interview and her music is getting downloaded at rates she never could have imagined. She is said to have already earned in excess of 200,000 dollars for her songs.
Not bad for a 22-year-old runaway from New Jersey.
Dupre, known as call-girl “Kristen” in legal documents, is a key player in the Spitzer fiasco. That makes her as appealing to producers and publications as Spitzer or his wife, Silda.
Penthouse Magazine group president and publisher Diane Silberstein said she would “love to have her in the magazine” and would consider offering her a cover shot.
“She sounds like a very interesting and talented young woman, and I’m sure she has a great story to tell,” Silberstein said. “We promise to make it worth her while.”
TV programs are in the hunt, too.
“Every tabloid in the world will go after her and spend millions of dollars,” Silverstein said, noting his show follows NBC News guidelines and doesn’t pay for interviews.
“We are interested in having her on the program - as is every other morning program and media outlet - it’s a major news story,” said a spokeswoman for ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Flynt said that by the time Dupre starts talking, she may be too big a media phenomenon for a simple magazine spread.
“She is no doubt going to do a book. There will probably be a movie,” he said. “I think she is going to have so many offers coming in that it will probably be wishful thinking just to get in the door.” (ANI)
This is a follow up to the Lohan’s Losses article on March 5, 2008. It has been confirmed that Lindsay Lohan has been dropped as the face of the Jill Stuart fashion line.
However, was she ever really a model? When I think model I think Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, Iman and Giselle, to name a few. I don’t think Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. Have they modeled enough to really earn that distinction? No.
Lindsay’s dismissal couldn’t have come at a worse time, as she’s blown through most of her money according to reports.
She spent $1 million to live at the Château Marmont hotel for the year of 2006, which was very unwise. She was paying per night what many pay per month for a mortgage. Yes, it’s a lovely hotel, but to live there is quite costly, especially for someone who wasn’t very rich.
She also spent close to $1 million on staff (bodyguards, publicists and stylists). It is also estimated she spent $1 million on partying, traveling, clothes, grooming and tanning.
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The news controversy over New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's involvement with prostitute Ashley Dupre does bring more media attention on this community problem. While his involvement involved a supposed upscale escort service, according to the New York Times, many of the victims of prostitution are poor and immigrant women.
In an effort to reduce prostitution, the District Attorney's Office of Brooklyn attempts to help women who are struggling in the profession and who wish to leave. They do not merely punish those who are prostituting themselves but rather offer them the option of working with social workers to better their options.
E.P.I.C. (Ending Prostitution In our Community) and S.T.A.R. (Saving Teens at Risk) are two programs offered by the Kings County District Attorney's Office. They are offered to women who are prostituting themselves.
These program, one for women under 21 and one for over, help to give females different options other than prostitution. While, interning in the Sex Crimes Department, I was able to see first hand how the services were offered and the benefits and pitfalls.
Many of the women involved in the programs have had past history of sexual abuse. According to the Kings County DA statistics, approximately "80-90 percent of the women have been sexually abused." The program often offers counseling to the women as well as information on alternative lifestyle choices.
S.T.A.R., which is aimed at teens was started in 2004 by District Attorney Charles Hynes. The program encourages returning to school, as well as helping women to apprehend their pimps (sometimes being their own family members). With the help of the DA's office these women can be relocated should need be. The program often will work with the Administration of Children Services, New York Public Housing, translators, and teachers to help the young women obtain regular contact with a social worker even when they are discharged from the program
Some ways that the programs helped women who were prostituting themselves was by offering alternative sentencing should a prostitute be arrested. Just like several drug rehabilitation programs, E.P.I.C. and S.T.A.R. gave the women the option of attending a series of meetings, having to contact select social workers as well as obtaining information on housing, jobs and safer sex.
One of the hardest aspects seemed to be enticing women to become part of the program. The programs are both voluntary to women seeking support and also are offered to women who were arrested for prostitution charges. Unfortunately, a great deal of those prostituting themselves were immigrant women who went into the business due to the difficulty in obtaining work in other fields. This doesn't go to say that it is impossible to find other work, even if you lack a formal education, but due to the structuring of many of the women's environments prostitution was an easier option. The programs worked hard with translators and cultural community centers to reach women who may normally not be able to benefit from offered services.
It was also a positive note to see that the program would often try to work with the prostitutes to ensure that they can complete the program and rehabilitation. The social workers were considerate of relapses and personal situations but they also were strict with rules and regulations. By having sympathy to the women while also remaining firm I think the program also deterred abuse of the free services.
What I found to be the most beneficial of the program was that they did not turn away women who were not interested in full rehabilitation. The women were permitted to get access to free birth control, physicals and were encouraged that should they prostitute themselves that they remain physically safe as well as access to safety and phone hotlines. Both programs are free and confidential. Even though some of the women did not give up their lifestyle choices the program seemed to encourage those who were aware of it to pass the information on to other women or to encourage healthier choices for their children.
Washington? New York? Chicago?
Unless you've been living under your bed for the week, you've heard Spitzer and Dupre bandied around more than Southwest and unsafe planes. We agree the unsafe plane issue is damn important, but the call girl scandal and the tourism it could spark is delicious.
Earlier today we wrote about taking your own sex tour - which is not sex tourism. Skip the museums, hit the 
Sexy Tourismhotels where you too can live out your fantasies. And GoGirlfriend isn't alone. The blogosphere is lighting up with ways to get your "sexy" travel mojo on.
ASHLEY DUPRE
Escort Ashley Dupre -- whose name we now know thanks to The New York Times -- will always be "Kristen" to most of us who've followed the Eliot Spitzer scandal. That's how Ms. Dupre was identified in the affidavit that alleged that Mr. Spitzer had had an encounter with a high-end prostitute (yes, "Kristen") in the U.S. capital this past February. But her family might still think of the 22-year-old as Ashley Youmans, her birth name.
In her recent interview, Ms. Dupre told the Times that she didn't want people to think of her "as a monster." I suppose there are no guarantees of that, but it seems more likely the public will focus its ire on the cheating husband and hypocritical former prosecutor in the story. And at least Ms. Dupre can console herself with the knowledge that all this attention sure isn't going to hurt her burgeoning singing career. Ashley Alexandra Dupre songs have suddenly become hot commodities on the online music store amiestreet.com.
If you must investigate for yourself, search for Move ya Body and What We Want. Of the former single, the Post's Mark Medley says, "The pure mediocrity of this synthbacked 3 minute 27 second song ensures it will be played on commercial radio."
Ashley Alexandra Dupre (otherwise known as Eliot Spitzer's call-girl, Kristen) is the woman caught in the middle of the Spitzer prostitution scandal and you'll never guess this, but she wants to be a star. Shocking!
Ashley Alexandra DupreAccording to the New York Post, the aspiring singer owns a company called Pasche New York which her lawyer claims is an entertainment business created to further her singing career.
Ashley's MySpace page reveals the following:
"I am all about my music and my music is all about me. It flows from what I've been through, what I've seen and how I feel."
Ashley, who made a brief appearance in court on Monday, moved to New York when she was 17 to work in the nightclubs and perform as a rhythm and blues singer.
The Beyonce wannabe has already produced a few songs, although there's no record of an actual album.
Wonder how long it will be before she appears on American Idol or P.Diddy's Making the Band?
She's a reality star in the making.
Do you think Ashley will make it as a singer?
The movie Pretty Woman was one of the highest grossing movies of the 1990's and basically put Julia Roberts on the map.
The epic storyline of the fairytale love story between call girl Vivian Ward (played by Julia Roberts) and high profile businessman Edward Lewis (played by Richard Gere) is all too familiar this week as Governor Eliot Spitzer revealed his involvement in a high profile prostitution ring.
Ashley Alexandra DupreThe girl in the real-life story is named Ashley Alexandra Dupree and, surprisingly enough, she's an aspiring singer trying to make it in the cut-throat music industry.
Reportedly earning up to $4,000 a night for her "services" ala the Club VIP, the only real difference between Spitzer and Edward Lewis is that Spitzer has a wife and three daughters.
Thus begging the question, is what Eliot Spitzer did wrong on all levels - or only because he was the governor of New York with responsibilities as a husband and father.
Is it okay for any male (or female for that matter) to purchase services from prostitutes and escorts - or only those who are married?
Be careful how you answer...if you're a fan of the movie, you might just be contradicting yourself.
It's no secret that Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the woman (also known as Kristen) who has been revealed as Eliot Spitzer's call-girl is an aspiring singer. The question is, how far will she go to capitalize on the popularity of the prostitution scandal.
AShley Alexandra DupreLast week, the name Ashley Dupree meant nothing to anyone. Now, just days later, she's become the most talked-about woman in America - and she's not letting the attention go to waste.
The wannabe R&B singer has been capitalizing on the publicity from the recent sex scandal (where she was reported to have been receiving over $4,000 a night from Spitzer) by uploading her tracks onto AmieStreet.com - a website that empowers musicians to upload new songs and create a fan base.
Since the scandal erupted a few days ago, Ashley's songs on the website have skyrocketed in popularity (and revenue) and have become some of the highest searched tracks on the site.
Last night (just before midnight), Dupre's single What We Want hit Amie Street's top price of $0.98.
And if you think Ashley's oblivious to her popularity, think again.
Overnight the 22-year-old aspiring vocalist uploaded her second track called Move Ya Body which has been selling at a rapid pace since 7:30 this morning.
My colleague Alex Knapp has pointed out some outrageous comments made by John Hagee and Rod Parsley, nutball preachers whose endorsements McCain has courted and received.
McCain’s not alone, apparently, among our major presidential hopefuls in having associations with religious crazies. By far the hottest story on memeorandum today is an ABC News piece headlined “Obama’s Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11.”
Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor says blacks should not sing “God Bless America” but “God damn America.”
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side, has a long history of what even Obama’s campaign aides concede is “inflammatory rhetoric,” including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own “terrorism.”
In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, “I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial.” He said Rev. Wright “is like an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with,” telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.
Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Obama’s association with Wright is, one might reasonably conclude, closer and of longer duration than McCain’s with Hagee and Parsley. But I have shrugged off all these stories along with those about Obama’s association with Tony Rezko and McCain’s relationship with Rick Renzi (indeed, I’ve conflated Rezko and Renzi in my mind and had to look them up) for the simple reason that they don’t seem to shed much light on the candidates.
Do any of us believe that Obama or McCain are secretly conspiracy theorists who have repressed a lot of whacky ideas? Or that, even if they actually believed this nonsense, they’d try to enact it into policy? Of course not.
Unfortunately, the process of building a winning national coalition means appealing to some unsavory types. Politicians walk a fine line when accepting endorsements from these people and expecting them to denounce every nutty idea any of their supporters might harbor is asking too much.
That’s not to say that the words of Hagee, Parsley, Wright and others aren’t worth looking into. They’re influentials who voice — and shape — opinions that many Americans have. Understanding that the shared consensus of polite society is not universal is worthwhile and illuminating. But we should stop short of assuming guilt by association.
Alex is in the process of digging into Wright and his relationship with Obama and I’ll be interested to see what he finds. My hunch, though, is that he’ll find that Wright is a whackjob and that Obama regards him as a crazy uncle. (Perhaps he’s related to that crazy aunt Ross Perot kept in the basement?)
UPDATE: Steve Benen quips, “I guess there’s a political upside for Obama: he can’t be a Muslim and a Christian with a radical pastor at the same time.”
Meanwhile, Jim Geraghty takes exception with Wright’s claim regarding Obama “he ain’t white, he ain’t rich, and he ain’t privileged” by pointing out “Obama’s mother was white, the Obamas’ income hit $1.7 million in 2005 and $991,000 in 2006, and he went to Columbia University and Harvard Law School.”
