http://www.newsweek.com/id/194590
Contact: Carol Sullivan FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
At 917-817-9076 Sunday, April 19, 2009
COVER: ‘HOW COULD I?'
THE CONFESSIONS OF ELIOT SPITZER
SPITZER SAYS HE KNEW HE WAS DOING SOMETHING WRONG; DOESN'T MAKE EXCUSES BUT ‘THERE'S GOT TO BE AN ELEMENT TO ITS BEING A RESULT OF TENSION AND RELEASE. AND THAT BUILDS UP'
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SAYS IT'S HARD TO READ STORIES ATTACKING PATTERSON; ‘HE'S MADE SOME TOUGH DECISIONS THAT ARE NOT APPRECIATED'
New York-When Newsweek Senior Writer and Political Correspondent Jonathan Darman asked former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer if, when he hired a prostitute, he knew he was doing something wrong, he answered, "Yes. No question about that." Did he know what the risk was? "Yes." Spitzer was silent for a moment and then, without further prompting, offered an explanation: "I'm not going to say anything that ... should be thought to be an excuse for anything. But there's got to be some element to its being a result of tension and release. And that builds up."
Darman talks to Spitzer about the past year and what the future may hold for him, in the April 27 Newsweek cover, "‘How Could I?': The Confessions of Eliot Spitzer" (on newsstands Monday, April 20). Darman asks Spitzer if he'd spent much time in the past year thinking about the fairness of it all, if Americans ought to care about their leaders' sex lives: "I could make a persuasive case that, no, it isn't fair. But ... you should be smart enough to know that those are the rules, whether or not it's fair ... You know when you get in public life here that you live in a fishbowl. So you've got to be smart enough to act accordingly."
When Darman asked if he'd read any of the theories about why he was so reckless with prostitute Ashley Dupré Spitzer said no. When Darman started reciting 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-Spitzer's face flattened, as if in great pain.
"One thing I'm very bad at is being publicly introspective," Spitzer tells Darman in the current issue of Newsweek. "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?' "
The outlines of Spitzer the politician can be blurry, Darman writes. Clearly it was Spitzer the politician who said that among the hardest stories for him to read are those attacking David Patterson because "he's made some tough decisions that are not appreciated." "But when he told me that he loves to watch ‘American Idol' because ‘those kids are the future-they're smart, they're creative and they're ... producing something,' I wondered if I was talking to the unfiltered Eliot Spitzer, the nerdy dad," Darman writes.
Darman also asked Spitzer if there were ever moments when he read about some problem in Albany and was glad he didn't have to deal with it. He assumed the answer would be yes. "No," he said. "I'd be kidding myself if I ever said that. No. I wish desperately that none of this had ever happened and I were there, able to do what I wanted to do. That is a burden that I just carry ... I have no one to blame but myself."
Spitzer says he will not run for governor again. But he is still a young man in a country with a short memory. While the 2010 governor's race is unimaginable, other races-say, New York City mayor in 2013-are not. When Darman asked if his reemergence meant he could run again for office, Spitzer responded, "I don't know if I could, but I can tell you that is not what this is about." For those not skilled in politician-speak, note that he didn't say no, Darman writes.
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