Spitzer the Reformer Tries to Move Beyond His Scandal

Is the financial crisis the best thing that ever happened to former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer? As Jan Hoffman writes in the New York Times today, two years after he resigned in scandal the Sheriff of Wall Street is back on his horse and charging again toward Wall Street reform. Will this focus on reform help the public forget about his fling with high-end call-girl Ashley Dupré?

In his hour-long Big Think interview, Spitzer delivered a stinging critique of President Obama’s economic team and said that he thought Alan Greenspan didn’t understand the markets. He also talked about his own fall from grace and sifted the legitimate criticism of him from the unfair shots and false rumors. 

But when Spitzer looks us in the eye and says he “wants to move forward and do something useful,” as he does here, we’re still left to reconcile the shameless self-promoter and the trustworthy politician — the man who clicks on his own Slate column to improve his hit count and the man who’s honest enough to divulge his personal views on love after pulling himself from the depths of a sex scandal.