Every time a talking head appears on Fox News or CNN to discuss Eliot Spitzer, the term “Shakespearean” seems to come up. If memory serves, even Rep. Peter King called Spitzer’s downfall “Shakespearean”–and King ain’t exactly chairman of the Eliot Spitzer Empire State Fan Club. I’ve admitted in the past to not having been the most attentive student back in my salad days, but I really don’t get the “Shakespearean” stuff. Perhaps I was cutting class the day we read the scene in Macbeth where Macbeth got nailed spending 80,000 whatevers on high-priced call girls, and then hid behind the betrayed Lady Macbeth as he finally issued a curt statement to the Scottish media. “Shakespearean” suggests a certain nobility of character that eventually lost out to the tragic figure’s flaws. Pardon me for playing Mickey the Dunce, but where, pray tell, was Eliot Spitzer’s nobility? As a prosecutor, he was a bully. As a husband and a father, he was a wretched failure who brought humiliation to his family while violating their trust in a serial manner. And finally, when the gig was up and he could have earned a small measure of redemption by showing a little honor and dealing forthrightly with his shortcomings, what did he do? He refused to face the music. He didn’t answer press inquiries. He uttered some rank rubbish suggesting he had a disease. And he hid behind the wife that he had treated so poorly. Shakespearean? Nah. No nobility here, I’m afraid.
