With Fox News reporting that Eliot Spitzer may resign as governor of New York as early as tonight, bloggers are speculating on whether he will step down and what the fallout might be.

A poll on the liberal blog Firedoglake asking if Spitzer is pretty evenly split, with 53 percent saying he should resign and 47 percent saying he should not.

Kevin Drum doesn't like Spitzer's survival odds, but takes the libertarian line in saying the governor's private life should not matter. He also mentions Republican Senators Larry Craig and David Vitter, in what could become a progressive talking point:

As with David Vitter and Larry Craig, my official position is: who cares. This shouldn't be illegal in the first place and I don't care what these guys do in their private time. Needless to say, though, this is not a majority opinion, and the fact that Spitzer has busted prostitution rings in his previous career brings the usual hypocrisy charges into play too. I'd put his survival odds at less than 10%.

Meanwhile, Joe Gandelman over at the Moderate Voice says Spitzer's fall could have deeper implications:

His apology has the feeling of one shoe dropping. Because it’s likely the other shoe will drop soon. It’s likely that pressure will build on him to resign — and that could have multi-faceted impacts on New York, the Democratic Party and perhaps even the Presidential race (he is a Hillary Clinton Superdelegate).

That didn't take long. The Republican Governors Association has released a statement calling on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign. A rare moment when bloggers have been more reserved, but probably a sign of things to come. From the release:

“The Governor of New York should immediately resign from office and allow the people of New York to pursue honest leadership.  The American people are tired of corrupt and hypocritical politicians.  The Governor of New York is just another in the long list of politicians that have failed their constituents.” – Nick Ayers, RGA Executive Director

 

While conservative bloggers are savoring the apparent demise of Democratic New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the reaction from liberal bloggers has been much more subdued so far.

Over at Daily Kos, diarist DHinMI simply says, "Wow."

MyDD's Todd Beeton: "Not sure what that means exactly but this is all very disturbing."

Matthew Ygleasis in an understated moment: "I used to think Elliot Spitzer was going to be our first Jewish president, but that scenario's seeming less likely."

And liberal investigative journalism blog Talking Points Memo has this quick reaction from Josh Marshall:

I must confess that I never cease to be amazed by stuff like this. We don't know the precise details yet of this 'prostitution ring involvement' on the part of the Gov. Spitzer. But how exactly is it that someone who makes it his business to bust the chops of big wall street titans uses prostitutes? TPM HQ is in Chelsea. And I'm expecting the streets to deluged at any moment now by joyously rioting stock brokers coming up from Wall Street. We do know that this financial industry honchos all have big 'security' offices and have tons of PIs who work for them. I'm frankly shocked they didn't smoke him out before this.

It's only been about 15 minutes since news broke that ethics crusader New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer apologized for acting in "a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right or wrong,” But that's enough time for some quick blogger reaction." That came after a New York Times report that he had been caught on a federal wiretap "discussing payments and arranging to meet a prostitute in a Washington hotel room last month."

Conservative site Hot Air:

Nice to have a sex scandal for once that doesn’t involve a Republican, eh? He’s due to speak any minute.

Marc Ambinder notes, "Spitzer is a Clinton superdelegate."

More conservative reaction from The Agitator blog:

May your fall be steep and severe, governor. Sweet, sweet karmic justice. Now, let’s all watch as a man who rose to power and fame by railroading people on ridiculous charges himself get tripped up by a dumb, unjust law. I’ll get the popcorn. This one is going to be fun.

These incidents are becoming so commonplace that it would be more striking to find a moral crusader in the national debate whose personal life did not appear to directly contradict their public persona.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Eric Herman brings some light to the fact that conservative columnist George Will, “sides with thieving pal,” by writing a letter to Judge Amy St. Eve asking for leniency in the conviction of Conrad Black, who was sentenced last week to 6.5 years in prison on charges of stealing $2.9 million from Hollinger International and for obstruction of justice.

Herman excerpts two Will columns accusing liberals of being soft on crime, including one from last year bashing the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to Herman, Will and Black met during a 1989 trip to Warsaw, but says the connection goes further:

Their connection deepened, by the way. Will served on a Hollinger board of advisers during the Black years, drawing an annual payment of $25,000. On March 6, 2003, Will wrote a column extolling Black without disclosing the payments. The column ran in the Sun-Times.

CQ’s Jonathan Allen and Kathleen Hunter have the details on the resignation yesterday of two Republicans from the bipartisan House Page board, after it was revealed that four pages had been dismissed recently for “serious criminal acts,” and “inappropriate sexual indiscretions,” according to Ginny Brown-Waite’s , R-Fla., resignation letter.

Shelley Moore Capito , R-W.Va., also announced her planned resignation from the board.

The two Republicans blamed the Democratically controlled board for lack of proper oversight and for not keeping them properly informed of the misconduct: “We were intentionally kept in the dark about dismissals for more than a week,” Brown-Waite wrote in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Read the rest of the story here.