Over the past two weeks, as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" and Time's "Crusader of the Year" became better known as "Client 9," I was content to let the Albany panjundrums pontificate, the lawyers litigate, the pundits fulminate, and poor Silda Spitzer fumigate (the family's Fifth Avenue premises, that is, of all traces of her hornswogglin' hubby, many hope).
But before Eliot Ness—no, make that Eliot Mess—slinks off to whatever uncertain future awaits him (and "Saturday Night Live" had as good a guess at this as anyone) and we forget this whole sordid saga, it's worthwhile reviewing why he fell so hard so fast.
To be sure, ideologues from all parts of the political spectrum have offered predictable responses to Governor Spitzer's unraveling—from schadenfreude over the comeuppance of Corporate America's chief tormenter (The Wall Street Journal), applause for being worldlier, European-style, than we used to be about sex (The New Yorker's Hedrick Hertzberg), to annoyed handwringing over Mr. Clean getting dirty (The New York Times).
A recent issue of New York Magazine, it seems to me, gets closer to the heart of the matter, starting with a cover that definitively locates Spitzer’s brain. John Heilemann's “A Pants-Down Primer” also performed yeoman service by reviewing, Letterman-style, the top 10 reasons Bill Clinton survived Monicagate while Spitzer collapsed almost immediately.
(As for who was crazier, Clinton or Spitzer, ask yourself which scenario as a potential lothario you would prefer: Breaking the news to a hitherto-unknowing wife who had long believed in you, or risking the possibility that a wife thisclose to divorce on an at least one other occasion would discover you in the act – which Ol' Bill did on at least a half dozen encounters with Lewinski that occurred while Hillary was in the building.)
After reading Heilemann's piece, however, I felt that all his cogently presented rationalizations for the difference between Clinton and Spitzer could be boiled down to this concise formula: Draco Malfoy x Seth Pecksniff = Eliot Spitzer.
Allow me to explain. The "Draco Malfoy" part needs no introduction to youngsters—especially my nephews Sean and James, who have devoured each succeeding Harry Potter book and movie like the 1992 Bill Clinton consuming every Big Mac within five miles of each campaign appearance. They'll instantly recognize Malfoy as the insufferable Pure Blood who bullies Harry and friends all over Hogwarts Academy.
Indeed, like Donald Trump, Spitzer is a son of a real estate magnate, as arrogant a child of privilege as has ever existed—and real-life embodiment of Draco. For confirmation—and a portent of his own doom—recall prospective candidate Spitzer’s attempt to send up his take-no-prisoners style in a November 2005 appearance on The Colbert Report, in which he explained his secret of success as a childhood soccer “enforcer”: “You play hard, play tough, and hopefully you don’t get caught.”
But before Eliot Ness—no, make that Eliot Mess—slinks off to whatever uncertain future awaits him (and "Saturday Night Live" had as good a guess at this as anyone) and we forget this whole sordid saga, it's worthwhile reviewing why he fell so hard so fast.
To be sure, ideologues from all parts of the political spectrum have offered predictable responses to Governor Spitzer's unraveling—from schadenfreude over the comeuppance of Corporate America's chief tormenter (The Wall Street Journal), applause for being worldlier, European-style, than we used to be about sex (The New Yorker's Hedrick Hertzberg), to annoyed handwringing over Mr. Clean getting dirty (The New York Times).
A recent issue of New York Magazine, it seems to me, gets closer to the heart of the matter, starting with a cover that definitively locates Spitzer’s brain. John Heilemann's “A Pants-Down Primer” also performed yeoman service by reviewing, Letterman-style, the top 10 reasons Bill Clinton survived Monicagate while Spitzer collapsed almost immediately.
(As for who was crazier, Clinton or Spitzer, ask yourself which scenario as a potential lothario you would prefer: Breaking the news to a hitherto-unknowing wife who had long believed in you, or risking the possibility that a wife thisclose to divorce on an at least one other occasion would discover you in the act – which Ol' Bill did on at least a half dozen encounters with Lewinski that occurred while Hillary was in the building.)
After reading Heilemann's piece, however, I felt that all his cogently presented rationalizations for the difference between Clinton and Spitzer could be boiled down to this concise formula: Draco Malfoy x Seth Pecksniff = Eliot Spitzer.
Allow me to explain. The "Draco Malfoy" part needs no introduction to youngsters—especially my nephews Sean and James, who have devoured each succeeding Harry Potter book and movie like the 1992 Bill Clinton consuming every Big Mac within five miles of each campaign appearance. They'll instantly recognize Malfoy as the insufferable Pure Blood who bullies Harry and friends all over Hogwarts Academy.
Indeed, like Donald Trump, Spitzer is a son of a real estate magnate, as arrogant a child of privilege as has ever existed—and real-life embodiment of Draco. For confirmation—and a portent of his own doom—recall prospective candidate Spitzer’s attempt to send up his take-no-prisoners style in a November 2005 appearance on The Colbert Report, in which he explained his secret of success as a childhood soccer “enforcer”: “You play hard, play tough, and hopefully you don’t get caught.”
Quite a contrast with Bill Clinton who, whatever else his detractors have said about him over the years, was hardly a spoiled kid.
Seth Pecksniff, on the other hand, appears in a work of one of the great influences on J.K. Rowling, Charles Dickens: Martin Chuzzlewit. Pecksniff is not so familiar as other characters in the Dickens corpus because he springs from the longest novel by the great Victorian (and, a professor I heard once say at a local lecture, the only one without Cliff Notes).
But Pecksniff is a distinctly Dickensian type in his unctuous hypocrisy as he utters high-minded moral principles he has no intention of living up to. A little bit like Spitzer, who leaked rumors to the press about New York Stock Exchange chair Richard Grasso making his secretary his mistress—all without a shred of proof ever offered—all while the then-Attorney-General was already engaging in far more risky business himself.
The combination of Malfoy and Pecksniff in one real-life person, it seems to me, creates an entirely new prototype in our cultural life, like one of those names that becomes shorthand for terrible moral choices: Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling, Joseph McCarthy. In large measure, that accounts for the near-universal outrage inspired by the astonishing Spitzer scandal.
Seth Pecksniff, on the other hand, appears in a work of one of the great influences on J.K. Rowling, Charles Dickens: Martin Chuzzlewit. Pecksniff is not so familiar as other characters in the Dickens corpus because he springs from the longest novel by the great Victorian (and, a professor I heard once say at a local lecture, the only one without Cliff Notes).
But Pecksniff is a distinctly Dickensian type in his unctuous hypocrisy as he utters high-minded moral principles he has no intention of living up to. A little bit like Spitzer, who leaked rumors to the press about New York Stock Exchange chair Richard Grasso making his secretary his mistress—all without a shred of proof ever offered—all while the then-Attorney-General was already engaging in far more risky business himself.
The combination of Malfoy and Pecksniff in one real-life person, it seems to me, creates an entirely new prototype in our cultural life, like one of those names that becomes shorthand for terrible moral choices: Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling, Joseph McCarthy. In large measure, that accounts for the near-universal outrage inspired by the astonishing Spitzer scandal.
(I don't think I can bear the triumphalism all over Wall Street about his downfall--this, from a group of people more than a few of whom, it's safe to wager, have developed permanent stoops from hauling out their ill-gotten gains.)
As evidence of what I'm talking about, consider the following:
* "An old senile piece of s___" —Spitzer's description to a Republican lawmaker about State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who drove Mr. Clean to such extremes that he ended up being investigated and reprimanded by state Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo. (Incidentally, have any of my readers heard of a young "senile piece of s___"? Didn't think so. Makes you wonder what they're teaching now about redundancy and other grammatical matters at those institutions that prepared Spitzer for life—the New York prep school Horace Mann, Princeton and Harvard Law School).
*"It’s now a war between us. I'll be coming after you"—the Sheriff of Wall Street's warning (one that, predictably, his press secretary denied, but which has the unmistakable whiff of the truth) to John Whitehead, who had dared write a Wall Street Journal op-ed challenging his pursuit of AIG chair Hank Greenberg.
* "Come on—I'm from the Bronx!" – Spitzer accepting a challenge to step outside by California's attorney general, not noting that he's a native of Riverdale instead of the tougher South Bronx (unlike your faithful correspondent!).
* "Listen, I'm a f---ing steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else!" – Spitzer to state Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco. (James Taylor’s “Steamroller” has worn better over nearly 40 years than Spitzer’s, I think it safe to say)
*”Day One, Everything Changes” – Spitzer’s promise as he took over as governor—though what changed was that in the coming 14 months, he made George Pataki, a lackluster predecessor with no visible accomplishments after three terms in office, look like the second coming of Governors Dewey and Smith by comparison.
* You have no standing to lecture me; you’re part of the system that is the whole problem in this state”—Spitzer in the least profance part of a tirade directed against Dan Cantor, an ally from the Working Families Party, who had tried unsuccessfully to offer some friendly words of advice.
Spitzer friends-apologists-enablers such as the egregious Alan Dershowitz (the real-life inspiration for lawyer-TV commentator “Alan Crudman” in Christopher Buckley’s hilarious No Way to Treat a First Lady) say that prostitution is a victimless crime. I’m not going to rehash all the comments, pro and con, about that hoary (or is that whore-y?) claim.
But I find it instructive—Spitzerish, if you will—that the governor was well into patronizing “Kristen” and friends all the time he was bragging to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof about a new state law clamping down on sex trafficking, including tougher penalties against johns. Is it just me, or is there a slight case of psychic disassociation going on here?
You still think there was no “victim” here? Then look at the photo accompanying this blog entry. I could have chosen virtually any one from hundreds of the ex-governor, but I picked this one for a reason.
It’s Silda. It’s the face of someone who gave up her own job as an attorney—one, incidentally, in which she made more money than Spitzer—to look after him and their children.
As evidence of what I'm talking about, consider the following:
* "An old senile piece of s___" —Spitzer's description to a Republican lawmaker about State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who drove Mr. Clean to such extremes that he ended up being investigated and reprimanded by state Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo. (Incidentally, have any of my readers heard of a young "senile piece of s___"? Didn't think so. Makes you wonder what they're teaching now about redundancy and other grammatical matters at those institutions that prepared Spitzer for life—the New York prep school Horace Mann, Princeton and Harvard Law School).
*"It’s now a war between us. I'll be coming after you"—the Sheriff of Wall Street's warning (one that, predictably, his press secretary denied, but which has the unmistakable whiff of the truth) to John Whitehead, who had dared write a Wall Street Journal op-ed challenging his pursuit of AIG chair Hank Greenberg.
* "Come on—I'm from the Bronx!" – Spitzer accepting a challenge to step outside by California's attorney general, not noting that he's a native of Riverdale instead of the tougher South Bronx (unlike your faithful correspondent!).
* "Listen, I'm a f---ing steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else!" – Spitzer to state Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco. (James Taylor’s “Steamroller” has worn better over nearly 40 years than Spitzer’s, I think it safe to say)
*”Day One, Everything Changes” – Spitzer’s promise as he took over as governor—though what changed was that in the coming 14 months, he made George Pataki, a lackluster predecessor with no visible accomplishments after three terms in office, look like the second coming of Governors Dewey and Smith by comparison.
* You have no standing to lecture me; you’re part of the system that is the whole problem in this state”—Spitzer in the least profance part of a tirade directed against Dan Cantor, an ally from the Working Families Party, who had tried unsuccessfully to offer some friendly words of advice.
Spitzer friends-apologists-enablers such as the egregious Alan Dershowitz (the real-life inspiration for lawyer-TV commentator “Alan Crudman” in Christopher Buckley’s hilarious No Way to Treat a First Lady) say that prostitution is a victimless crime. I’m not going to rehash all the comments, pro and con, about that hoary (or is that whore-y?) claim.
But I find it instructive—Spitzerish, if you will—that the governor was well into patronizing “Kristen” and friends all the time he was bragging to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof about a new state law clamping down on sex trafficking, including tougher penalties against johns. Is it just me, or is there a slight case of psychic disassociation going on here?
You still think there was no “victim” here? Then look at the photo accompanying this blog entry. I could have chosen virtually any one from hundreds of the ex-governor, but I picked this one for a reason.
It’s Silda. It’s the face of someone who gave up her own job as an attorney—one, incidentally, in which she made more money than Spitzer—to look after him and their children.
It’s the face of someone who has to figure out how the husband who’d been with her on Valentine’s Day had the last of a string of unprotected sexual encounters with a hooker only 24 hours before.
It’s the face of someone whose life is imploding.
One line jumped out at me from Spitzer’s resignation statement: “As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family.” How typical—thinking of his own needs first, then those of others. How like Draco Malfoy and Seth Pecksniff.
One line jumped out at me from Spitzer’s resignation statement: “As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family.” How typical—thinking of his own needs first, then those of others. How like Draco Malfoy and Seth Pecksniff.
It’s the moment when “Eliot Spitzer,” new cultural prototype, is at his most revealing—and most revolting.
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