"How Could I?"

I just finished reading Jonathon Darmon's account of "The Confessions of Eliot Spitzer" in this week's issue of Newsweek, called Spitzer in Exile.

It's an interesting look at the former governor's life one year after the scandal that brought down a powerful politician, a man who might have expected to become (the first Jewish) president one day. And he says a lot of the right things: focusing on his family, making self-deprecating jokes, admitting that even at the time he knew what he was doing was wrong, that there's no excuse, no one to blame other than himself.

But as true contrition it falls short in several places.

For one thing, he never explicitly says that what he did was morally reprehensible, just that it's perceived as such in this neighborhood. Darmon asked Spitzer whether or not Americans ought to care about their leaders' sex lives. Spitzer replied, "I could makes a persuasive case that, no, it isn't fair. But ... you should be smart enough to know that those are the rules, whether or not it's fair ... There are other countries that have a very different set of parameters on these things. But you know when you get in public life here that you live in a fishbowl. So you've got to be smart enough to act accordingly." (P.27)

Is he suggesting that there shouldn't have been political ramifications for him breaking the law? That there isn't an objective measure of right and wrong, just a verdict handed down by the court of public opinion?

And Spitzer talks about "human nature" as if it is this weird, inexplicable, uncontrollable force. "The human mind does and permits people to do things that they rationally know are wrong, outrageous ... We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, 'How could I have?'" (P.23)

Not only does that absolve the individual from responsibility, it specifically takes the pressure off Spitzer when he says "we succumb," "we know," "we do it," and "we say." He's making himself part of a group, not taking personal responsibility for his specific actions in this specific circumstance.

When talking about the support and positive responses he still gets from strangers on the street, Spitzer says, "They respect this notion of, yes, we all absorb the media and read the stories of other people's lives. But when we see them, we think, hey, there but for the grace of God go I. Show the guy some decency." (P.27)

But that's a little silly, isn't it? It's not just "the grace of God" or luck or fate that's kept me from hiring prostitutes. I make CHOICES and I own those choices. I don't see making "dates" and having sex with prostitutes as just one of those things that might happen to me despite my best intentions, like getting cancer or being run over by a garbage truck.

I am happy for Spitzer that he's managed to keep his marriage and family intact. But I think that he has a distance to go before he fully takes responsibility for what he did. And I actually don't think it's wrong for us to consider some issues of character when judging our politicians. Matters of breaking the law, it goes without saying, should definitely be part of that calculus.