Eliot Spitzer ... and Bill Clinton

Your corner drugstore psychologist will happily remind us that Eliot Spitzer actually wanted to get caught. The cliché goes like this: “Spitzer prosecuted evil with ardour precisely because he yearned for it himself… And so he sought out in prostitutes both pleasure and punishment, and begged to be 'uncovered' and no longer be burdened with living his sordid, exciting, life-giving, career-marriage-family destroying fantasy all by himself.”

Your corner drugstore psychologist’s best friend will reply with equal earnestness. “I I doubt Mr. Spitzer knew fully the putrescence deep in his psychic pit. For good measure, the bastard trotted his loyal wife onto the podium to share in his public auto-de-fé. Did you see the photo of the two of them. "Christ-all-mighty!"

Now your average man-in-the-street-let’s-see-what-Fox-News-has-to-say-about-this-one has a slightly different view of the matter. For him, “Mr. Spitzer wuzza rich guy who cudnt get none without havun to pay for it."

This simple worldview has the virtue of punchy directness. Average men prefer real men like Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton is happy to use his wife, or his religion, or plain bald-faced lying if need be, anything that works to “get me out of the jam and on the next ham”. (The phrase isn’t mine; I stole out of some imaginary Jay Leno “Jay-walking” segment. Does this mean we can steal inventions that we create for other personages in the name of our vicarious other selves?)

In my imaginary and imagined understanding of men’s understanding of other men, Mr. Clinton is the average guy’s ideal real guy: not much to look at, but plenty of street smarts and randy as all get out, pursuing his joys and desires on the margin of the politically and publically unacceptable but privately desired behaviours that confirm a man’s manhood.

Back in the real world, Mr. Spitzer sold himself as a public moralist, a crusader against financial crimes and sex trafficking. New Yorkers were eager to vote for him as we enjoy taking shots at Wall Street bigwigs and organized crime figures, who in the Fox News and Hollywood version of men and power always get played by the same actors with the same accents.

Now, of course, everyone who is anyone will tell you they always knew that Spitzer was a repressed prig spoiled rich kid snot nose and that they are not surprised by what happened. But in the meantime, the average guy just thinks he was a dumb schmuck and deserves to rot in hell. In the United States there are ways for men like Mr. Spitzer to pursue a fair share of their joys and desires, just ask Bill Clinton.

Or we can ask Mr. Spitzer … in a couple of years. For in America there is always a second act. After the usual therapy at an undisclosed location, after Mr. Spitzer “recovers” his self-esteem, he will write The Book about what happened, how he fell, how he recuperated, how he won (did not win) back his wife, about his wonderful new and honest and profound relationship with his daughters. And he will tell us how his heart aches for the young women victimized by prostitution, how he will work tirelessly against sexual trafficking, and he will once again expand his chest in pride at his admirable goodness, his strength of character, his ability to overcome obstacles He will be the new “comeback kid”.

Perhaps he will even pay a visit to that other comeback kid, now back in the White House roaming the halls his soul unzipped whispering "Where are you, Hillary? Where are you?"