What Was Eliot Thinking? Part 2

Even Nora Ephron couldn’t make it funny. The comments on my Huffington Post version of the Heartfeldt post “What was Eliot Thinking?” were more thoughtful than the smart-ass or angry replies I usually get. They divide into three categories: “legalize prostitution”, “yes men’s brains are in their pants, so what were you thinking, Gloria?”, and “despite the fact that men’s brains are in their pants, some of them can still resist infidelity.” A few touch on the illegality and hypocrisy aspects of the case.

There’s been lots of chatter but not nearly the amount of joking that, say, Sen. Wide-Stance Craig got after his toe-tapping incident. PunditMom said simply and clearly what I absolutely think must happen: resign.

We are scandal-weary, inured to the shock. Perhaps the height of Spitzer’s stunning rise to power and depth of his fall have whistled by us so fast we see them as a blur. Is that how Dr. Laura got a gig on the Today show to flack her misogynist theory that the wife is to blame for not feeding the husband’s needs. (I won’t dignify her with a link.)?

I just keep thinking about the beautiful, kind, and smart wife Silda and their three daughters. I first met them socially as a family over a decade ago, before he ran for attorney general. And then I think of how he and other arrogant politicians like him take all their supporters down with them: all the contributors to his campaign, his political party, the voters who voted for him.

As much as I don’t care about what other people do with their sex lives, I care a lot about fostering the burgeoning interest in politics that young people are exhibiting these days. If Spitzer doesn’t resign and quickly and cleanly, many will retreat back into the shell of cynicism.

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For that reason if no other, it is essential that Spitzer do the honorable thing now as the first step in his, and our, redemption.

Gloria Feldt

GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”

As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.