It's probably a safe bet that you won't find Eliot Spitzer listed among "Kristen's" friends on MySpace, even though the alleged prostitute in the sex scandal seems to have quite a few.
But thanks to the magic of social networking, we get a fairly intimate look at one of the players in a sex scandal that brought down the governor of New York.
Two days ago, we learned that Spitzer--the politician who made his reputation as being tough on crime--had been implicated in a prostitution scandal. We got to see Silda Wall Spitzer stand by her man--AKA "Client 9"--while he apologized for "acting in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong." Then Wednesday we saw him resign from the governor's office.
The only thing we haven't seen--until now--is "Kristen," the woman who allegedly played the role of prostitute at a Washington, D.C., hotel with Spitzer last month in this mini-drama. Thanks to her MySpace page, we have a chance to meet "Kristen," a 22-year-old aspiring musician whose real name was revealed by the New York Times as Ashley Alexandra Dupre.
Her page features several photos of Dupre, who seems to be a very popular woman, with more than 1,800 MySpace "friends." According to her profile, she "learned what it was like to have everything, and lose it, again and again."
There's already a federal indictment of a woman accused of running a call girl ring in Washington D.C. A deputy secretary of state, Randall Tobias, has resigned. Tobias admits to using the services of Pamela Martin & Associates only for back rubs. Deborah Palfrey, the woman who ran Pamela Martin services, is gaining some notoriety in the blogosphere.
Palfrey is threatening to call many prominent D.C. men into court to testify on her behalf. Clearly, Tobias would happily back up Palfrey's claim that her service was about massage and fantasy, not prostitution.
So where are the names? ABC News was apparently given all of Palfrey's phone records from years of transactions in Washington. Yet so far ABC has only hinted about the men found in those records. ABC does say a Bush administration economist, a prominent CEO, some military officials, lobbyists and the head of a conservative think tank are on the list. There are two things to keep in mind: First, ABC wants to carefully confirm names and phone numbers.
Second, the May ratings period began April 26 and ends May 23. The more public curiosity about the names, the bigger the ratings when ABC does finally release them. There are numerous e-mails from ABCNews.com readers asking for the names; inquiring e-mailers want to know. Sadly for Internet users, most of the names will appear on TV before they appear on the ABC Web site. ABC's TV profits are still far greater than what they make off the Internet. Bet we see most of the best big names before May 23.
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