Spitzer’s Unrepentant Penance

Eliot Spitzer was, until a few days ago, a supremely powerful man. He had the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and was a rising star.  He was brash, aggressive, over-reaching, ambitious, and self-important.  He was a man of his time and place . . . a liberal politician, a self-proclaimed moral leader, an attention-seeker, and a pushy New Yorker.  He also has all the weaknesses of this human type. 

For a Spitzer to get where he has gotten in life does not come from following the rules so much as enjoying a life of people, experiences, learning, risk, variety, self-confidence, and intensity.  From Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, and Bob Packwood, to Mark Foley and Larry Craig, a risk-taking appetite for sexual conquest often goes hand in hand with political skill and ambition. It is a familiar trait in artists and actors, as well.  Even more ordinary people throw away marriages every day for the fleeting excitement of the unattainable, the beautiful, and the merely different. 

People can grow and learn from episodes of downfall.  The Greeks, after all, said we “suffer into knowledge.”  Some of our greatest saints–Paul, Ignatius, Father Ken Roberts–went from being extreme sinners to extremely holy.  Most of us, however, oscillate between the two extremes, and hopefully, with God’s help, we lean more towards the good over time. 

But Spitzer’s non-apology apology does not show that he is on the road to understanding.  In his darkest hour, where the truth and the cost of his misdeeds cannot be avoided, Spitzer committed a flagrant and public act of selfishness, the last in a long string of selfish acts:  he paraded his wife before the media to sustain his image and disarm his critics.  After all, if she forgives him, who are we to judge? But this had nothing to do with her interests or those of his family. 

I can’t know what temptations he labors under.  In a sense, I can’t judge him, at least not in his totality.  I can know that adultery and prostitution are objectively wrong, but none of us can judge a soul, which takes shape from the subjective quality of a multitude of completed acts.  I can no more know the intricacies of this than I can tell someone that he should not be depressed or in pain.  Manifest sins may overshadow a heroic inner struggle, just as public conformity to moral rules may conceal a jealous, bitter, and hateful heart.

Nonetheless, I do know that if Spitzer’s sexual sins showed an overabundance of hot-blooded passion, his use of his wife as a prop was cool, calculating, deceptive, and unnecessary.  More than any other detail of this episode, this double abuse of his wife’s fidelity makes it very hard to have any sympathy for Mr. Spitzer . . . and it was hard enough.