Last fall I was discussing with my students the psychology of second chances in American life (insert your own F. Scott Fitzgerald allusion here). I argued that today's pariah is often tomorrow's comeback kid, even in instances when the offense in question seems to be too sordid to permit any sort of public rehabilitation. As an example, I suggested that within five years, I fully expected to turn on MSNBC or CNN to see Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York, serving as a political pundit analyzing election returns or campaign developments.
So now I'm ready to admit that I was wrong. By approximately four-and-a-half years.
OK, so his return on the Today show wasn't just expert punditry regarding the financial crisis–there was also a tabloid aspect to the interview, as Matt Lauer (understandably) started by asking Spitzer about the prostitution scandal that forced him from office one year ago. But there he was, the former "Sheriff of Wall Street," on TV holding forth on issues like deregulation, economic competition, and corporate transparency. Actually, he's been doing the same for months now on-line as a columnist for Slate.
And why not? Spitzer's an expert on these issues and likely has a more informed perspective than many of the talking heads on TV. His illegal actions, while certainly a violation of his family's trust and an abuse of his elected power, didn't strip him of this expertise. And it's not like he's applying for jobs as a sex ed instructor–I'm not sure that the moral threshold one has to surpass in order to serve as a media pundit has ever been that high to begin with (insert your own Rush Limbaugh/G. Gordon Liddy joke here).
Spitzer's fledgling journalistic career wouldn't be the first time a politician gained a second life in the public eye after extramarital extracurriculars (though unlike the examples to follow, Spitzer's sins were also illegal). Of course, Bill Clinton. In a less celebrated sense, John McCain. And I'll make the same bet I did about Spitzer when it comes to John Edwards–we'll see him again in the public eye in the years to come, whether in the political or media arena.
What's interesting to consider, though, is whether such second chances are a luxury only afforded to some of our public figures. Story after story during last year's presidential primaries referred to the dilemma faced by female candidates like Hillary Clinton: act in "too feminine" a manner and you run the risk of being deemed "overly emotional" or even "weak"; act too assertively, and you're suddenly "abrasive," "grating," or "pushy." It's a fine line familiar to women in other professions as well, and it's a Catch-22 that fueled the anger of many female voters after Clinton failed to win her party's nomination.
Could a female politician in America survive allegations of an affair? I seriously doubt it. As a society, we're more tolerant of infidelity among men than among women–or, at the very least, we're less intolerant of such infidelity from men than women. Even at a relatively young age, the sexual indiscretions of males are frowned upon, but with a wink and a knowing smile: "boys will be boys." The popularity of Sex and the City notwithstanding, things said about women who engage in similar behavior are often less forgiving (and less suitable for print/blog).
Some evolutionary psychologists would argue that this is simply an extrapolation of how men and women react to infidelities in their own lives. An oft-cited finding regarding jealousy is that men are more disturbed than women by sexual forms of cheating, but women are more upset than men by emotional infidelity. Men, the argument goes, can never be absolutely certain of their paternity unless they're willing to subject themselves to DNA testing by the Montel Williams Show, and so they have evolved to be particularly concerned about a mate's sexual infidelity. More recent research by David DeSteno of Northeastern University and colleagues suggests that reports of this gender difference may be overblown: both men and women are quite upset by sexual infidelity. But it remains the case that we certainly perceive men and women differently when they cheat–we're more generous and forgiving in the former case than the latter.
And while we're dealing in hypotheticals, it also doesn't seem particularly likely that our current president would be afforded the same type of second chance that Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, or others have sought. Much has also been made about the stereotypes Barack Obama had to overcome in his historic victory last fall–in his case pertaining to race, not gender, of course. As an articulate, well-educated family man, Obama serves as a counterexample to many of the negative race-related stereotypes still pervasive in our society. But could that positive image survive or rebound from negative behavior more in line with said stereotypes, whether sexual, immoral, or aggressive in nature? That would be quite the tall order.
So the re-emergence of Spitzer–that modern-day, cable TV Phoenix rising from escort service ashes–is fascinating to watch from a cultural as well as psychological perspective. I'm curious to see how fast and far-reaching his comeback is. And it remains interesting to consider the possibility that there are indeed second acts in American life, but more so for some lives than others.
