Ever since Monday when the news broke, I have felt a pit in the bottom of my stomach each time I checked the news online at the New York Times. The whole Eliot Spitzer thing is so depressing to me.
In a way, I haven't wanted to hear any more about the story. But in another way, I can't seem to pull myself away from the details. After a story in the Times last night, I clicked on the link they provided to the prostitute's MySpace page. It felt like some strange mix of The Times and National Enquirer to read this story and see what they gleaned from this woman's online presence. For example, they quote this, showing that music is her love: “I am all about my music and my music is all about me. It flows from what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen and how I feel.” And a crazy quotation from her mother: "She is a very bright girl who can handle someone like the governor,” Ms. Capalbo said in a telephone interview Wednesday. And this is newsworthy how?? When I looked at MySpace last night, some 1.2 million people had viewed her page, but now it looks like the website has been taken down. I am suprised it took her this long to do it. All of these ooglers, prying into her life. Yes, she is a prostitute, but her instant notoriety came not from that, but from her unfortunate liason with a powerful man in high public office.
I am not invested in Spitzer as a political figure, as the governor of NY, or as a former NY attorney general. He's just one more hypocritical political persona who got caught with his pants down. Sex scandals among politicians are far from rare. No, I've been thinking about his wife Silda Wall Spitzer and how this is influencing her more than anything else.
Press coverage about her has been limited. There was a general biographical story about her--detailing her life as a corporate lawyer and when she decided to give up her career to take care of their children and support her husband's bid for public office (then, AG of NY). Some of the coverage of his resignation mentioned that his wife wanted him to stand his ground and not to resign. I looked at the pictures of the two of them together on Monday morning after the story broke. She, striding off ahead of him, with her lips pursed in a thin line. I went back to look for this picture, but came up short. Instead, I am finding the grim pictures of her standing behind him during both the apology speech and the resignation speech.
I am not invested in Spitzer as a political figure, as the governor of NY, or as a former NY attorney general. He's just one more hypocritical political persona who got caught with his pants down. Sex scandals among politicians are far from rare. No, I've been thinking about his wife Silda Wall Spitzer and how this is influencing her more than anything else.
Press coverage about her has been limited. There was a general biographical story about her--detailing her life as a corporate lawyer and when she decided to give up her career to take care of their children and support her husband's bid for public office (then, AG of NY). Some of the coverage of his resignation mentioned that his wife wanted him to stand his ground and not to resign. I looked at the pictures of the two of them together on Monday morning after the story broke. She, striding off ahead of him, with her lips pursed in a thin line. I went back to look for this picture, but came up short. Instead, I am finding the grim pictures of her standing behind him during both the apology speech and the resignation speech.
Since I started writing this, I have found quite a few op eds criticizing her. Why is she "standing by her man", letting herself be publically humiliated. Why not just walk out the door? Or tell him to start walking? I'm not sure what I think about her behavior.
Instead I've been thinking about what she might be feeling and about women in general. She gave up her successful and lucrative career when Eliot decided to run for public office in 1994. She gave up her public and paid life (for the most part, although she is involved in some kind of foundation work) to take care of her daughters and to enable her husband's run for public office. She has given up so much for him. And how is it reciprocated? She finds out less than 24 hours before the story breaks in what will be national media feeding frenzy that he has been running around with a prostitute. A prostitute!!! Seriously?? Silda is publically humiliated. Her sorrow and disbelief is on display for the entire country to gossip about and to gawk at.
Maybe I'm just feeling really vulnerable right now, caring for a newborn. It's so hard for me to go anywhere or do much of anything right now and I am very dependent on AJ for a lot. Even if I didn't have a baby, I am completely dependent on him for my financial security. At least, for right now. And it's not that I am dubious that I can really trust him. It's just that there is this asymmetry. I am dependent on him in a way that he is not dependent on me. Just compare how our lives would be different if something--anything--were to happen to me or if something were to happen to him.
My basic problem is that Eliot Spitzer did not respect the choices and sacrfices that his wife had made for him. He ended up trampling over them and completely disregarding them--at least in some way. And now, her life is forever changed. Of course, he's ruined his own life too, but that's his own dumb fault. The saddest part about it is the way it played out on such a public stage.
1 comment:
I heard this guy on CNN call this a "victimless crime." I was surprised by how extremely angry that made me--I was practically frothing at the mouth. I wanted to scream at him, "Victimless crime? What about his FAMILY?"
I'm with you. It's all very disconcerting.
Post a Comment