Sometimes this writing-a-column thing is easy. Just as the July doldrums roll in, we're gifted with weeks of journalistic opportunities for snickering and evidence of our moral superiority.
Thank you, Eliot Spitzer — at least until you really think about it.
On the up side, this could be a saga of redemption, a man gone wrong who sought and received forgiveness. Problem is, there's not a lot of evidence. A failed career as a TV commentator and a fervid sense of self-mission are not the stuff of redemption.
On the down side, how does he dare put himself forward, after what he did! Well, most New Yorkers don't believe in the political death penalty, and neither do I. Spitzer's mistakes, big and lumpy as they were, ought to be balanced against his talents and achievements.
If he can do the public some real good, why not?
This has been the public debate so far, such as it is.
But there really is something important going on.
Eliot Spitzer has real talents, which, when first employed, did some real good. As New York's attorney general, alone in the pre-economic crash years, he took on the Wall Street crooks, thieves and liars who almost destroyed the American economy. To this day, no one else has as firm a grasp on how banks, hedge funds and insurance companies are rolling over the rest of us. This is not, in the vernacular, chopped liver.
But the same guy, when he became governor, brought a manner to public life that was truly destructive. He was a self-described "steamroller," who would bully, and foam at the mouth, and intimidate any who stood in his way. It didn't work, even before he imploded.
I saw it up close during a dispute over the legal defense of a law that stopped Con Ed for charging for its own negligence. Spitzer wanted full control over the courtroom. I disagreed and was treated to a screaming diatribe and threats to haul me up before an ethics panel.
And don't forget use the State Police in his efforts to punish the political opposition, and the breakdown of the constitutional process for resolving disputes.
So we have a choice. Talent and a willingness to take on Big Finance. Or, the politics of madness and rage.
Maybe an election is just what we need. Fortunately, there's going to be one in the September Democratic primary. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer was about to ease into the city comptrollers' office, and is now in the fight of his life.
He's been an effective, progressive reformer, and something of a likable tough guy himself. This is not chopped liver, either.
Stringer is likely to ignore the salacious bits and ask voters whether they're well served by a steamroller as city comptroller and whether Washington-style gridlock, the politics of confrontation and the lack of principled compromise are too high a price to pay for a Spitzer re-emergence.
Don't underestimate Stringer. He's only 9 percentage points back in the first poll, and has an organization and message that Democratic primary voters like. Spitzer will have to keep his cool and show a kind of warmth and humility not previously seen. Stringer has to establish that he will make city government work for people, without the destructive anger and noise.
I'll leave it to others to psychoanalyze Eliot, or to find the jokes in the tragedy. But this is a contest worth watching, for what it tells us about ourselves and our politics. Voters won't lack for a choice, and will, in the end, take this much more seriously than the comedians and chatterers have done so far.
Richard Brodsky, formerly a state assemblyman, is a fellow at the Demos think tank in New York City and at the Wagner School at New York University.