Photo: Demonstration of the waterboard torture at UC Berkeley, courtesy of Indybay.

Even though the former governor of NY has resigned, the story of Elliot Spitzer must continue, in order to breathe life into MSNBC, CNN and FOX. We need to hear about it, day and night, and we must further explore the story of the prostitute and her MySpace page.

We need to have two days of the usually esteemable Larry Mantle at KPCC radio conduct psychobabble discussions about the personal story of the Spitzer marriage and take phone calls from listeners. Like the one where the guy comments, “That sometimes women turn off in a marriage, and a man has no other choice.” Like you know the truth?

The Nation’s Robert Scheer correctly asks of the Spitzer scandal:

Tell me again: Why should we get all worked up over the revelation that the New York governor paid for sex? Will it bring back to life the eight U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq that same day in a war that makes no sense and has cost this nation trillions in future debt? Will it save those millions of homes that hardworking folks all over the country are losing because of financial industry shenanigans that Eliot Spitzer, as much as anyone, attempted to halt? Perhaps it provides some insight into why oil has risen to $108 a barrel, benefiting most of all the oil sheiks whom our taxpayer-supported military has kept in power?

Sure, the guy, by his own admission, is quite pathetic in all those small, squirrelly ways that have messed up the lives of other grand public figures before him, but why is an all-too-human sin, amply predicted in early Scripture, getting all this incredible media play as some sort of shocking event? The answer is that, while having precious little to do with serious corruption in public life, it does have a great deal to do with stoking flagging newspaper sales and television ratings.

While our President vetoes a bill OUTLAWING torture, in order to protect our nation from harm, the killing in Iraq spikes upward, and the surge itself is wounded. Gasoline is now $4 a gallon, housing is falling, jobs are lost, and Spitzer is the BS tale we nourish ourselves with.