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The pair of thumbsuckers on the morality of the Eliot Spitzer scandal were unenlightening. Both CBS' Nancy Cordes and Dan Harris (embargoed link) for ABC's A Closer Look mulled the question: why do some powerful men have reckless, scandalous sex? Ostensibly, the features were about Spitzer. In fact, both correspondents took the opportunity to recycle Bill Clinton's soundbite on 60 Minutes reflecting on his liaison with Monica Lewinsky: "I did something for the worst possible reason…just because I could."
There seemed to be few Freudians around to help Cordes and Harris out. None of their experts speculated about the secret shame of political leaders that they may not be truly worthy of high office; that their self-destructive behavior might express an unconscious desire to be punished for their unworthiness. When Harris asked about hypocrisy--"Why would a politician who busted prostitution rings himself hire a prostitute"--he apparently had no source to help him frame the question the more interesting way: "Aren't politicians who bust prostitution rings driven by an urge to punish themselves for their own guilty desires to hire prostitutes? What makes those guilty desires irresistible?"
Advice for all reporters assigned to file a Spitzer thumbsucker: read Measure for Measure.
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