Notes on a Scandal
What makes Spitzer tick-tick-tick.
I had been told that Eliot Spitzer was a total, remorseless animal. The white-collar defense lawyers, Albany politicians and New York reporters I knew said so, and there was plenty of evidence of his ruthlessness and extreme self-regard in his track record as attorney general of New York state. Yet when I met him and traveled with him as he campaigned for governor, I swear that I detected something vaguely melancholy and rueful about the guy. It made me wonder. Now I know why.
Spitzer is a type I have seen before: a candidate who needs to rocket at warp speed because he does not dare stop to consider whether he really wants to be living the political career he is living. Spitzer, it turns out, hated some or all of what he was, what he wanted to be, or what he had become. Why else would he knowingly risk destroying his life's career—as he apparently did, federal prosecutors suggest, by participating in an online prostitution ring?
To make things worse, this year Spitzer saw his trajectory flattening out. Son of a wealthy New York real estate man, educated at Princeton and Harvard, Spitzer had been told forever that he would be "the first Jewish president." But after having been elected governor by a landslide, he botched his first year in Albany. He stupidly unleashed state troopers to spy on his Republican enemies. He acted imperiously with small-time upstate politicos. He had worthy goals but not the political touch to implement them.
Nationally, he was blocked. He endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for president early on. He hoped she would win so that he could then jump to the U.S. Senate and let Andrew Cuomo run for governor. But then Sen. Barack Obama emerged, screwing up those plans in every which way. Now, suddenly, Hillary was no shoo-in, and Obamania was a cold bucket of water in the face of every other would-be, lean-as-a-whippet young candidate of change. Obama was the real deal out of Harvard Law. Maybe the first Jewish president would actually be an African-American!
Suddenly Spitzer was facing a future as a schlepper.
Of all the ironies here is the most exquisite. Spitzer tried to take down Dick Grasso, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, for financial misconduct by raising unfounded—and unconnected—allegations of sexual misconduct. Talk about chutzpah!
Some of my best professional friends are his closest personal friends. These are people who are secure in their lives and in what they do, and, it seemed to me, they always spoke of "Eliot" in tones that were both awestruck and a little worried, if not put off. As I look back on it, they seemed to sense an explosive danger in a man loaded with so much rocket fuel. He could blow up on the launching pad.
He just did.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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