Kin-ming Liu at PostGlobal

Kin-ming Liu

Hong Kong

Former Washington-based columnist for The Hong Kong Standard, The New York Sun, and Insight on the News, an online weekly published by The Washington Times. Covered economic and political relations between the United States and East Asia, with an emphasis on China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists' Association. Currently a business executive at a Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong. Close.

Kin-ming Liu

Hong Kong

Former Washington-based columnist for The Hong Kong Standard, The New York Sun, and Insight on the News, an online weekly published by The Washington Times. more »

Main Page | Kin-ming Liu Archives | PostGlobal Archives


Spitzer's Spectacular Fall

Client-9 has already resigned from the Emperors Club VIP. Eliot Spitzer will also resign from the State of New York soon. It's inconceivable that he could hang on to the governor's seat much longer.

If Mr. Spitzer has broken the laws, which seems likely, he would have to step down whether he likes it or not. Even if Mr. Spitzer can prove that he hasn't done anything illegal, he still should go. For "Mr. Ethics," a former prostitution ring-busting state attorney general, to remain in office is simply too cynical and hypocritical for one to imagine. How could he carry on his duty with any moral authority? Who would take him seriously anymore?

The Fall of the House of Spitzer is as spectacular as the many surprises in the U.S. primary season.

Fairly or unfairly, public figures can't really separate their private and public lives. That seems to be true anywhere. In Hong Kong last summer, the head of the government-funded broadcasting network was forced to take an "early retirement" amid a sex scandal. He was caught not having sex with a prostitute like Mr. Spitzer, in fact, but merely "emerging from a karaoke bar with his arm around a woman and holding a wig in his other hand." This married man reacted by hiding behind his companion, then locked himself in a toilet. He simply couldn't continue his job normally even though he might not have done anything illegal.

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