Politics, ambition and morality lapse

Inter Lake editorial

The precipitous collapse of Eliot Spitzer should remind us, once and for all, that smart people are not always wise, that moral watchdogs are not always moral, and that hypocrisy does not have a party affiliation.

Instead, it will remind us of absolutely nothing. Americans seem to have an endless capacity to put their faith in well-meaning individuals, as if meaning well were the same as doing well.

We will add New York's Gov. Spitzer to the long list of politicians who put their ambition in charge of their libido with disastrous results, but we will still be shocked and dismayed when it happens again next week or next year.

Spitzer's story is typical in many ways of the rise and fall of politicians. He wielded power mercilessly on the way up, earning a reputation as a bulldog prosecutor who was more interested in notching convictions than in justice, and perhaps that distorted world view explains why he ultimately came to forget that justice applied to him also. Surely he knew that he was putting everything in his world at risk when he broke not just his marriage vows, but apparently several criminal laws, in his pursuit of high-priced hookers.

Of course, in the era before television and blogging, such misbehavior was common and yet barely acknowledged.

Whether it was because politics was almost exclusively a man's game, and thus a wink and a nod was as good as a handshake to ensure that indiscretions would never see the light of day, or whether it was because polite society simply didn't know how to talk about presidents cheating on their wives - the fact of the matter was that powerful politicians used to get away with murder.

Not so anymore.

With high-tech surveillance techniques, YouTube video dumps, global celebrity, and a gotcha press on the prowl, there is almost no chance for politicians to get away with anything.

But they keep trying. Which leads to the sorry spectacle of Gov. Spitzer standing on a stage next to his wife of 20 years to announce, "I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me."

Perhaps that is true, but he is not nearly so sorry as the people who voted for him, or even the people who voted against him. In a sense, we have only two choices - either become weary and disdainful of anyone in public life who professes moral superiority, or else keep a smile on our face and hope for the best while all the while expecting the worst.

Thanks, Gov. Spitzer, for making American politics even less palatable than it was yesterday.