After the resignation

By Jim Dolan
March 13, 2008

So here is where our law and order Governor has put us. I spent Wednesday night outside the apartment building of a 22 year old former drug abuser and recent prostitute who was, apparently the last of many young women to work in Elliott Spitzer’s employ, as they say, off the books. We will forget, for the moment that he is a 48 year old married man with three young daughters. And we will forget, for the moment that a generation of young, political acolytes believed his promises and believed in his promise, and for this moment, we will forget that he convinced an army of people to give up their careers in the private sector for the chance to make a difference in people’s lives. 

We will forget all that, because so many others will discuss it. The tragedy here, of course, lies not in the fall of a politician (somehow, I’m certain, we’ll survive the loss of the “*&%$#@% Steamroller”.), but in the collapse of a family. Mrs. Spitzer and her three daughters will feel this for a lifetime. A year from now, we’ll have trouble remembering the name of David Paterson’s predecessor.

But for this week, you and I have been dragged down in the muck with the governor. Men are asked by their wives "What’s up with men and hookers, anyway," as if a man might understand this simply by virtue of his gender.   Parents are forced to discuss with their children, old enough to read the headlines but too young to understand them, the sordid details of what caused the governor to resign. And there I was last night, the last place on planet earth I wanted to be, trying to learn details about a tragic, pathetic 22 year old woman who came to New York to be a star, but who turned to prostitution when the dream didn’t work out.   A woman who had the misfortune of being assigned, no differently that a livery cab driver who is assigned a fare, a dalliance with her destiny.

Some speculated last night that Ms. Dupree would enjoy her 15 minutes of fame. Sure. Much as she enjoyed having to tell her mother that she was the high priced call girl who slept with the governor in Washington, DC. Much as she enjoyed having to tell her brother and her friends from home, all people she had convinced that things were going just great in the big city. And much as she enjoyed her neighbors learning that she wasn’t a sales representative after all.

When I was a young reporter, I worked at a TV station in Charleston, West Virginia. The prosecutor of Kanawha County back then was a guy named James “mad dog” Roark, a tough as nails, anti-drug crusader who promised to clean up Charleston. He was later arrested, charged and convicted of buying cocaine off  a dealer on a junior high school playground. And stealing cocaine from drug busts he had overseen as prosecutor. Like Spitzer, he had a political future as bright as the morning sun, and it ended up being eclipsed only by his own demons and his considerable hubris.

Roark spent time in a Federal Prison. Its still unclear if Spitzer will. But he has damaged the lives of all he touched. His wife and children, worst of all. But also you and me, who have had to wallow in the slime he generated this week. And a 22 year old girl, a girl whose life was  already so desperate she had to sleep with men like Spitzer to keep her dreams of stardom alive, and whose life has managed, somehow now, to get even worse.

She will be a footnote in New York State history, the tragic answer of a trivia question. But while the world is offering up prayers that the Governor is able to repair his marriage and atone to his family, consider, for a moment the collateral damage. About the parents discussing the headlines with their children, the husbands discussing it with their wives, and the 22 year old woman who just wanted to hold onto the illusion of success a little while longer. We are all collateral damage in the implosion of arrogance and selfishness that brought about the political end of Eliot Spitzer.