Spitzer in Exile

But Spitzer swears this is not a concerted effort at rehabilitation. One of the lessons his political career taught him, he says, is that "there is an adrenaline that comes with … attention that is seductive and dangerous." In the first week of April, he predicted a lower profile for himself, saying, "I've written a few articles to try to capture some ideas and done two TV interviews to highlight a couple of points I think need to be made." That would probably be it for a while, he said. Less than a week later, he was on "Morning Joe."

It's easy to see why Spitzer is drawn to the limelight at this moment: in an "other than that, Mrs. Lincoln" way, he is a voice uniquely qualified to speak to the country's current concerns. In the boom years at the beginning of this decade, while politicians in both parties were cheering on Wall Street, Spitzer was a voice of caution. His reputation "metastasized" (his word) when he took on AIG four years before the insurance giant was universally acknowledged as the Death Star at the center of the financial collapse. More than that, in his campaigns, first for attorney general and then governor, Spitzer articulated a new kind of progressive politics; he envisioned an activist role for government that was market-friendly but not market-obsessed—an early preview of the emerging consensus of the Obama era. It's easy to look at the scope of the problems the country and New York state now face, and to watch the calamity that is Spitzer's successor, David Paterson, and wonder: his wife appears to have forgiven him; why can't we?

But as Spitzer well knows, it is never that simple. For American politicians, the road back from disgrace in a sex scandal is long and arduous. The early steps are straightforward: accept responsibility, express remorse and accept the consequences. For the extremely smart and the extremely lucky (e.g., Bill Clinton), this strategy alone can allow for political survival. Most of the time, it does not.

From there, things get more complicated. The public forgets but does not forgive. To have a chance at a future in politics, or at least being an elder statesman, he must perform a torturous penance: genuinely abandoning his oldest ambitions. Ted Kennedy put the ghost of Chappaquiddick to bed and became the lion of the Senate only when he was defeated in the 1980 presidential campaign and it was clear he would never restore Camelot to the White House. Gary Hart became a sage voice on national security and international affairs only after decades in the wilderness, writing novels and history books, and earning a doctorate from Oxford. Ultimately, we command a cruel punishment for our fallen leaders: they must become the antithesis of themselves—modest, chastened, resigned. We will consider building them back up again only when they are really, honestly, as low (or lower) than us.

How truly difficult this must be for Spitzer, who has always been better than everyone. "Over the course of my public life," he said in his resignation statement, "I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself." Spitzer the public servant, he seemed to suggest, was better than Spitzer the man. He was wrong, of course. Now, as he contemplates the road ahead, Spitzer's challenge is not just getting past being Client No. 9. He must do something even harder: walk away from a lifetime of training to be a political animal and learn to think and act like a normal man. As the story of his first year in exile indicates, this will take an extraordinary effort, more than Spitzer may realize even today.

Among the many odd traits of political animals is that while they tend to find themselves fascinating, they have little aptitude for, and less interest in, analyzing themselves. Spitzer is no exception. I asked him recently if he'd read any of the theories about why he was so reckless with Ashley Dupré. "No," he said, clearly not wanting to say anything more. I started to recite some of the most common ones—that with the chaos of his governorship, his illicit sex life was a last refuge he could control; that he had been reckless and risked punishment because a part of him felt a need to be punished for never measuring up.

His face flattened, as if in great pain. "One thing I'm very bad at is being publicly introspective … The human mind does, and permits people to do things that they rationally know are wrong, outrageous … We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, 'How could I have?' "

I asked if, when he hired a prostitute, he knew he was doing something wrong.

"Yes," he said. "No question about that."