The Games People Play

Hello sports fans, and welcome back to my blog. This is what blogs were made for: everyone gets to comment on everyone's lives and, ahem, loves. I really am not sure how this is supposed to work yet. I need more practice. I was told my last post was tooooo long. This one will be mercifully brief. Sort of.

Yes, Eliot Spitzer has crash and burned. We knew SOMETHING was coming after his political battles and shennanigans in Albany last year, but THIS? Spitzer was elected governor of the Great State of New York with a record margin. That spells FUTURE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT. Candi-date. Now I'm not sure what kinds of "candi" or "dates" are in his future but they ain't sweet and they ain't about the White House. I said I would be mercifully "brief", but with bad jokes I show no mercy. Which brings us back to Eliot. Two weeks ago I met a couple named Spitzer. I asked if they were related to Eliot. They smiled slightly and said "no". I then commented that I never saw anyone rise and fall so quickly. Their faces turned a bit ashen. I don't believe anyone including Eliot knew what was coming, but maybe the family sensed something was wrong. I looked at the man again and noted a slight family resemblance. I politely said "goodbye" as they walked away. Ouch.

All the amateur psychologists have weighed in so now its my turn. How did this happen? Arrogance of power? The natural risk taking that great success requires? Do people at that level believe the rules don't apply to them? I vote for a powerful self-destructive streak that was ticking away inside him--yes, combined with numerous complexes.

Ther are so many questions. If he was trapped in a loveless marriage, why not have a discreet affair that if discoverd would be eventually forgiven by friends, family and press. Why, if you are a man who has built his career on character and integrity and have been elected on a pledge to clean up Albany (do we now know that to be a joke, or do we pray real hard for soon-to-be-governor Patterson?) do you hook up with a mob-run prostitution ring? Is it the power over-drive again? Or are his obseesions too deep for us to fathom. Did he need to be in complete control over a woman, so he needed a woman with no power over him?

It is not that he believed he would not be caught. Eliot prosecuted prostitution rings. He knows all the tricks, all about suspicious bank transactions, cell phones etc. Nope, at some level he wanted to be caught. What was going on? A Dostoyevskyesque conscience on a slow burn after years of heartless, cruel prosecutorial methods that were driven deep down by something other than a powerful sense of justice? Something like that. Too much joyful destruction of lives and families so that he could be president one day? Did he bury too many father figures whose ghosts would surely eventually haunt him? His wife is slightly older than him. A mother figure who would be succeeded by an endless stream of young women who evoked his own mother? Oedipal stuff. OK too much already. Did I break my promise to be brief? Did I break an unpspoken promise not to be be disturbing? NO to the second one. Basic exposure to modern psychology and literature beg these questions. Eliot's SPECTACULAR collapse begs these questions.

On a sympathetic note (slight) what the hell does he say to his daughters? If he had sons, two weeks, two months go by when they are angry at him for hurting their mother and then he sits down with them, apologizes profusely and talks about the ways of the world. But what does he say to his daughters?

Enough on Eliot. They are dancing on Wall Street (I witnessed some of that this week) but his targets were not all innocent: the world's financiers perform a vital role but they need powerful deterents against abuse of their power. But then, so do prosecutors. By the way I think that between Giuliani and Spitzer, we now know that great prosecutors make lousy governors. The very traits that make them successful in the one area makes success in the other impossible.

Let us pray for soon-to-be-Governor David Patterson. He seems to be a good man and a dedicated public servant. He has good relationships with Republicans in Albany and maybe he can fix some of the worst things in this great state.