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The Return Of The Disgraced, Hooker-Loving Ex-Governor
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 20, 2009
Modified Apr 20, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 20, 2009
Modified Apr 20, 2009
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Eliot Spitzer may not be calling his recent forays back into the public sphere part of his comeback campaign, but now he's on the cover of Newsweek (cover headline: "How Could I?"), so it's official: The Steamroller is back.
Of the many tidbits Newsweek offers, one mentioned early on is how now the ex-governor is brave enough to walk both his dogs outside: "When he was a young politician with a tough-guy reputation, he preferred to walk only James and leave Jesse, the other family dog, at home. Jesse is a bichon frisé, the kind of dog that blue-haired women leave their fortunes to. 'I wouldn't take her out in public,' Spitzer recently explained. 'I thought James was the better image for me.' Now, most any weekend, he can be seen trailing after both animals. 'It's like, OK, I have a bichon, a little white ball of fluff … I don't care. What do you have to lose?'" Yes, it took Spitzer resigning from being governor after soliciting hookers to walk one of your dogs. Newsweek does mention it's owned by the Washington Post Company, which also owns Slate—where Spitzer is writing a column—and the Washington Post—where Spitzer wrote an op-ed last year.
Spitzer won't admit to seeing a therapist (he's just "talking to people") and says, "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?'" He also knows he was doing something wrong when he was seeing a hooker and, when running in Central Park and into an old mentor, sort of jokes, "I know what I'm running from. What am I turning toward, that's the bigger problem."
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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