Spitzer’s Mea Culpa

A year after leaving office in disgrace amid a prostitution scandal, Eliot Spitzer is back in the news—and back on TV screens. The former New York governor, who was an early critic of AIG as the state’s attorney general, is reemerging to talk about the company and the economic crisis, and some are wondering whether he’s plotting a return to public life. Today Spitzer made his first television appearance in a year, telling Fareed Zakaria that recklessness and greed got us into our financial mess. He also spoke about his personal problems: “I have flaws, as we all do, arguably. I failed in a very public way in my personal life. And I have paid a price for that.” Asked by Zakaria whether he wished he were in office to help solve the financial crisis, Spitzer replied: "Well, obviously I, first and foremost, hope that we can solve the problems, because the future of our economy and, without overstating, our nation, is at stake here. If I can contribute, I will do so in whatever way I can…These are issues that I feel deeply about. But I am where I am because my own conduct.”