The following conversation between Liz Smith and Whoopi Goldberg took place on March 12, 2008.

WHOOPI: I’m listening to people blame Eliot Spitzer’s wife. Dr. Laura Schlessinger intimates that it was maybe something lacking in his wife that would cause him to go do this. And I’m thinking, “Are you crazy?”

LIZ: She doesn’t say maybe. She says:“I do not know anything about their personal lives.” And then she says, “The point is, what she’s done is wrong.”

WHOOPI: Yes.

LIZ: Her quote is: “If a woman doesn’t make herself sexually perfect for the husband then she drives him away. And, poor thing, he has to go use prostitutes for $80,000.”

WHOOPI: So this is something the wife is not doing.

LIZ: She says that both spouses share the blame. Well there are plenty of people on [wowOwow.com] saying she’s full of it, including you and me.

WHOOPI: Yeah. I mean, it makes no sense.

LIZ: So Ann Curry, Dina Matos and Meredith Vieira, they all said, “But you’re saying the woman should feel guilty that they drove their husband to cheat?” And, I’ve read this story today, Whoopi, in the Daily News, a story about Mrs. Spitzer and she doesn’t sound like any body’s fool exactly. They say, “She doesn’t want to look at him. And if he doesn’t want to bear the look that she gives when she does look at him, they go to separate rooms.”

WHOOPI: This is much bigger deal because it’s him – specifically because it’s Eliot Spitzer. He’s not well liked. He’s not a liked person. He brought it on himself. You cannot prosecute prostitution rings and then think that no one is going to bust you if you’re participating.

LIZ: Well, it’s just the total hypocrisy of it is so shocking. He’s always been the white knight.

WHOOPI: Well that’s what he told everybody.

LIZ: He acted that way, too. He was sending them to jail for doing just what he did.

WHOOPI: And that is why a lot of this is going down the way that it is.

LIZ: Well, don’t you think, Whoopi, that it’s unfortunate that any woman should get it in her mind that it’s entirely up to her to keep her husband from cheating?

WHOOPI: I think it’s outrageous. It’s like saying you have to think about what you wear because it might be the blame for somebody raping you. It’s the same thing.

LIZ: Exactly. As if she was asking for it.

WHOOPI: I don’t understand how a halfway intelligent woman, like I think Laura Schlessinger is, she has to be halfway intelligent.

LIZ: Oh, she’s very intelligent, you know.

WHOOPI: Unless she’s just being provocative. In which case, since you don’t know what their relationship is, keep your provocative bullshit to yourself.

LIZ: Right. If Silda wanted to stay with him after all of this, I guess that’s her business. But, for her to accept the blame … We had one person write in yesterday to the wOw website saying that when he got up to apologize, she shouldn’t have stood with him. She should have gone and sat in the first row to see whether she would accept his apology.

WHOOPI: I like that.

LIZ: Women are always getting blamed for things. I’m certainly not a very good feminist myself, but, I see this ridiculous sexism everywhere I go.

WHOOPI: We allow certain things to go on, as women.

LIZ: That’s true.

WHOOPI: Why is no one is saying: ‘Hey, listen. You need to stop putting this on the hookers?’ Or, ‘Stop putting it on this person or that person. You need to put it on the man whose fault it is?’

LIZ: Exactly.

WHOOPI: This could not have happened without his sanction, you know. It would not have happened …

LIZ: That’s right. Remember the song “Girls Just Want to Have Fun?”

WHOOPI: Yes.

LIZ: Well, some men just want to have prostitutes. And they’re always going to do that because that’s what they want.

WHOOPI: Hey, I’m OK with men that … I’m a believer that we should legalize it.

LIZ: I agree. But the two things are different.

WHOOPI: Yes. But you have to explain to people that No. 1, we as women have to get over how we feel about prostitution because it’s not anything against us as women. Do you know what I mean? If your man goes to a prostitute it’s not because he doesn’t love you. It’s not because he doesn’t care for you or your family. I believe that is a safe way, in a man’s mind, to go get his rocks off. Now if he’s not honest enough to say to his wife, “Listen, this is what I’m doing,” because he knows if she says, “Well you can’t do that and be with me,” and she’s going to leave him.

LIZ: She could either cooperate with it or put up with it or not. And then she has an option. She isn’t just being humiliated.

WHOOPI: I listened to folks talk today about prostitutes, period. And trying to explain to people that they’re not the place to put your ire. That’s not the place to be pissed off at. The place to be pissed of at is the man who is going behind your back or your friends back and doing this and doesn’t have the balls to say, “Listen. I’m having something outside of our marriage. So here’s what you need to do. I’ve got myself checked. You need to get yourself checked.” That’s the angry part to me.

LIZ: Also, I think, if we’re realistic we know there always is going to be prostitution.

WHOOPI: Oh, God, yes. It’s the world’s oldest profession.