This Tumblr blog, though a decent round up of press coverage is not actually authored by Eliot Spitzer call girl Ashley Alexandra Dupre. This MySpace profile, however, is.

Since Eliot Spitzer’s scandal broke Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Show’s team didn’t have much time to piece together a script for their host, or, more accurately, put together a news coverage video montage. But they did yesterday!

With 25 reporters on the beat, the Times had better be the ones to find out Kristen’s real identity. And not only did they, but they’ve also found the MySpace page of the 22-year-old Eliot Spitzer call girl, where you can listen to her portray a poorman’s Pussycat Doll.

Her name is Ashley Alexandra Dupre, née Ashley Youmans. A New Jersey Native, she’s friends with Madonna and Whitney (online only!), and agreed to speak on the record with the newspaper last night. Which might have been a foolish move, especially if she’s expecting Extra to pay $100,000 for the first exclusive interview.

As you might imagine, all is not well with Dupre. “She was worried about how she would pay her rent since the man she was living with ‘walked out on me’ after she discovered he had fathered two children.” And … not after he discovered she was sleeping with New York’s governor, who fathered three children?

Gov. Eliot Spitzer just announced his resignation before a crowd of reporters. No details on what, exactly, he was apologizing for, beyond his “private failings,” but you can infer the rest. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. David Paterson requested Spitzer step down effective Monday, so he can get his own team in place, which means another few days of limbo for New York.

On MSNBC: Dana McGreevey, ex-wife of “gay American” Jim, is there to tell her own sob story of standing by a disgraced political husband.

On CNN: Wolf Blitzer comments on how bad wife Silda looks.

On Fox News: We’re getting so many emails!!!

Naturally, HuffPo blogger and AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller is most concerned about Eliot Spitzer’s daughters – Elyssa, Sarabeth and Jenna – in this whole sex scandal mess. “Anyone who has ever been through the experience of having their father choose another woman over their mother, especially if it happened when they were a teenager, knows how traumatic this can be,” she writes. “Whether your father has an affair or anonymous sex, it’s all the same and it’s even more devastating when the world knows about it.”

Of course, back when Bonnie was running Star magazine full-time, she had no problem contributing to the trauma of Sailor Lee, 7, and Jack, 11, the children of Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, who cheated on his model wife with his 19-year-old assistant, the details of which Star was hellbent on reporting.

So how did the biggest scoop of the New York political year end up in the New York Times‘ lap? Through a guy with a pager. Nine-year veteran reporter William Rashbaum got a tip about the prostitution ring, and how a “New York official” was involved. Then Joe Sexton’s metro desk stayed up late with managing editor Jill Abramson, all the while fearing they were going to lose their exclusive to a rival. Not even their own reporters or photo/videographers were aware of the assignments they were being sent on. And then, around 2pm, and 15 minutes before Spitzer took to a podium to make a brief statement, the story hit nytimes.com. And then nytimes.com crashed.

Tune in to your TVs tuned to any cable news channel this morning, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer is expected to resign at some point. Except Spitzer was supposed to resign yesterday! He keeps throwing everybody off! Does he know how much reporters and producers hate this type of thing?

Four New York papers – including the Post and Daily News – have called for Eliot Spitzer’s resignation. And though he might give it to them (who knows at this point!), the New York Times stands alone in yet demanding he leave his post. Not that they weren’t critical: “He betrayed the public, and it is hard to see how he will recover from this mess and go on to lead the reformist agenda on which he was elected to office.” So why not call for Spitzer to throw in the towel? It’s actually in their best interest: It would free up nearly twenty-five hands. Then again, if Spitzer goes, Times endorsement Hillary Clinton would lose a superdelegate: Spitzer only gets a superdelegate vote as governor, and when Lt. Gov. David Paterson takes the post, his own spot, also a superdelegate gig, wouldn’t be replaced until another election. [E&P]

The New York Times has 25 reporters on the Eliot Spitzer beat. As a point of comparison, they only have 24 on inventing trends for the Styles section. [Michael Calderone/Politico]

David Letterman’s Top 10 countdown last night, “Eliot Spitzer Excuses,” gets extra points for not having a single one appear on the cover of a New York tabloid this morning. Snaps for originality.

10) Oh, come on. Like you were never involved in a prostitution ring.

9) Hookers is fun.

8) Just trying to help the economy.

7) Have you ever been to Albany?

6) It’s part of my new MTV prank show “Spitz’d.”

The Top 5, and the video, post-click.

CONTINUED »

Might Eliot Spitzer have made himself the sacrificial lamb for ethics reform in Albany? Is his ouster what’s required to achieve, as Davidson Goldin argues, “the seminal event that brings about the changes he promised on Day One but failed to deliver while in office”? Perhaps.

And in fact, he may have forecast it.

CONTINUED »

When news broke of Elliot Spitzer’s call girl rendezvous (let it not be lost that we’re using both a singular and plural word here), MSNBC’s guests were aghast the public was paying so much attention to a silly little sex scandal — that was about to tear Albany politics apart. Not to mention the not unsubstantial event of potentially naming New York’s first black, and blind, governor.

“You know, big deal, married man goes to prostitute!” exclaimed commentator Alan Dershowitz, who was Harvard’s youngest professor at age 28. “In Europe, this wouldn’t even make the back pages of the newspaper. It’s a uniquely American story. We’re a uniquely, you know, pandering society and hypocritical society, when it comes to sex.”

Yes, let’s follow European policy on this one: A man whose platform rests on ethics reform, and who took pride in busting a prostitution ring, sleeps with a call girl. Proceed directly to Go.

CONTINUED »

Eliot Spitzer’s gubernatorial legacy might not just include his inability to enact change of any sort, but his ties to an upper echelon call girl ring. Spitzer, who’s been a staunch advocate of ethics reform, is said to have told senior staffers of his involvement in the prostitution ring. Without actually raising a finger, the Times points out an uncomfortable, shall we say, coincidence between the governor and the $5,500/hour Emperor’s Club: “But a person with knowledge of the governor’s role said that the person believes the governor is one of the men identified as clients in court papers. The governor’s travel records show that he was in Washington in mid-February. One of the clients described in court papers arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, the Emperors Club VIP on the night of Feb. 13.” [NYT]

Update: Fox News claims its sources say Spitzer will resign his post, with David Paterson assuming his post. Matt Drudge, meanwhile, headlines the same conclusion, but links to this AP story that doesn’t mention anything about a resignation. His brief statement makes no mention of his leaving office.

Think Fridays are slow news days? Think again! Today, in a rousing lead entitled “Scathing Look at Gov’s Goofs,” Page Six blows the lid off an upcoming Vanity Fair’s article purporting to, well, blow the lid off Eliot Spitzer’s lifelong pattern of brazen social-climbing.

“[Spitzer] wants to do a good job,” Hank Sheinkopf is quoted as saying. “But, ultimately, what he really gives a [bleep] about is whether Harvard, Princeton, Yale and The New York Times love him, because, in the back of his brain, if they don’t love him, he’s nobody.”

Wait a sec, so Spitzer’s less interested in serving the general public and more interested in pandering to a closed circle of highly influential liberal elitists? Start the presses! Looks like Spitzer’s finally been recognized for what he truly is: a consummate politician.

• Pretentious Williamsburg artists now throwing dinner parties for their laptops. They’re BYOE (as in Bring Your Own Ethernet cable, obvs.)

• Mayor Bloomberg continues to deny that he’s campaigning, despite the fact that there’s no other plausible explanation for his continued presence in those annoying Midwestern states.

• A disgruntled cabbie equates the city-mandated GPS tracking systems to “an ankle bracelet they put on criminals.” Or on fiery redheads with early-onset liver failure.

• We have no problem with Disney renting out NYC subway trains to stave off another fare hike. Unless that means our morning commute will be infiltrated by repeated renditions of the song “It’s A Small World After All.”

• Turns out Governor Eliot Spitzer just loves full-scale state mandated investigations. Except when they’re targeting his own administration.

• Along with publicly endorsing the gays, Governor Spitzer is now said to be embracing the idea of legalizing medical marijuana. Related: NYU students plan gay, pot-smoking celebration.

• Con Ed assures Queens that they won’t suffer from any major blackouts this summer. Better luck next year, Bronx!

• New ice-cream flavor, “Staten Island Landfill” is under attack by the borough president, who feels it’s misrepresentative of the community. A spokesperson for the ever-accommodating ice cream company suggested the flavor be renamed, “Staten Island: Because The Rent In Astoria, Queens Is Still Too High.”

• The MTA hates disabled passengers. Then again, who doesn’t?

• Robbers shot and killed a Bodega owner in Queens. presumably in order to get their hands on the early shipment of US Weekly.

• New York to be the first northern state to apologize for slavery. Meanwhile, West Virgina and New Jersey are still “thinking about it.”

• Model/actress Bridget Moynahan is getting rexy over rumors that naturally-thin supermodel Gisele Bundchen is dating her ex. Related: normal women everywhere try, fail, to relate.

• Introducing President Barack Obama, from the same people who brought you Shrek and Shrek 2.

• Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington fires his publicist for permitting him to attend the Golden Globes without wearing a muzzle.

• But that may not be enough to stop Washington from joining 289 former Time Inc. staffers over at the unemployment line.

• Mandy Moore is evidently still punishing herself for “Candy” by continuing to date DJ A.M.

• Today’s blind item is more of a “who cares?” than a “whodunit?” but we leave you to ponder over which Spitzer appointee has a threesome fetish.

• And today, in Z-list celebrity feuds…Dustin “Screech” Diamond takes on Gary Coleman.

• Bum sued for $1M by posh Upper East Side antiques dealer.

• Accused husband-beater Joumana Kidd not only terrorized her ex, Jason; she also ’scared the hell’ out of his Nets teammates.

• Man to be arraigned on charges of second-degree murder for shooting another man on August 2, 1974 who died 31 years later at the age of 65.

• Governor Spitzer defends New Yorker’s rights to overfeed ducks until their livers engorge and, finally, explode.

• Eating healthy donuts for breakfast has proven an effective means of obtaining healthy love-handles.

• 12 people shot in violent start to 2007; police blame criminals’ inability to keep New Year’s Resolutions of not shooting other people.

• KFC owner sets fire to nearby Twin Donut shop in misguided attempt to “burn off” holiday calories.

• The New York Daily News helpfully presents 30 people under thirty…all of whom are more successful than you.

• New NY State tax benefit to reward quickie marriages, unplanned bundles of joy; Britney Spears considers move to the East Coast.

• Take in a double dose of Woody Allen at the Film Forum today; watch as Alanis Morissette, Scarlet Jo and Soon-Yi fight over who gets to “go down on him” in the theater.

• Governor Spitzer says NYC has been asleep for much of the past decade; prepares to wake up the city by giving boring speeches about Medicaid and new ethics guidelines.

• MTV launching MTV Arabiya after finding twelve square feet of land mass it doesn’t already reach.

• Elliot Spitzer snags one last payola payment before exiting the attorney general’s office.

• The news networks will get all hot and bothered over Gerald Ford’s funeral, but not in the same steamy way they did Ronald Reagan’s.

• Former tabloid staffers joined the Dirt writing pool to add that extra bit of gossip rag pizzaz.

• First magazines, now ad agencies are jerking off to anything green.