There used to be an appropriate interval after the death of a spouse before one started dating again.  The same was true for the death of dignity, but Eliot Spitzer, after leaving his office in disgrace, is coming back on the market, courtesy of Slate. From Professor Bainbridge, courtesy of Overlawyered, the word is out that Spitzer’s first column appears today!

With a post entitled Too Big Not to Fail, Spitzer has jumped back into the public light with both feet.  Sure, I could make cheap jokes about the title of his post, relating to his personal hubris to believe that he, Avenging Angel of Government and Client 9, thought himself too big not to fail, but that would be beneath me.  And too easy.  So I won’t.

Bainbridge is incensed by Spitzer’s failure to make even a half-hearted effort at letting the water flow under the bridge before trying to get back in the game.

How far we have come in dumbing down our response to public figures behaving badly. Now we don’t even require them to wait a decent interval before rejoining society.

He posts a bunch of Leno and Letterman jokes, which remain funny today, an wonders how long it will be before Michael Vick will be writing a column on dog training.  This was a good one:

“Do you ever notice politics is the only profession when a guy gets caught with a hooker, the wife has to stand by his side. You know, if this guy was a plumber and he got caught with a prostitute, he’d have his wife’s SUV tire tracks over his head.” –Jay Leno

But, indecent interval aside, there’s one thing that Spitzer brings to his column that few others can.  Having been at the center of the onion, and being now in a position where he has absolutely no future political potential for himself, and owes no fealty to any other player since he’s a pariah, Spitzer is absolutely free to write honestly.  As Kris Kristofferson wrote, “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”  Spitzer is very, very free.

Whether Eliot will use his power well (or write in a more interesting way than he spoke) has yet to be seen.  For now, he’s offering gems like:

This long-term change frames the question we should be asking ourselves: What are we getting for the trillions of dollars in rescue funds? If we are merely extending a fatally flawed status quo, we should invest those dollars elsewhere. Nobody disputes that radical action was needed to forestall total collapse. But we are creating the significant systemic risk not just of rewarding imprudent behavior by private actors but of preventing, through bailouts and subsidies, the process of creative destruction that capitalism depends on.

Yeah, he sounds like a 5th year associate writing a legal brief, without a working knowledge of dangling participles (not that there’s anything wrong with that). 

Indecent interval aside, there is one notable risk for a fellow like Eliot Spitzer to jump atop the bully pulpit, pull up his fly and speak his mind.  It’s quite apparent in his conclusion:

It is time we permitted the market to work: This means true competition with winners and losers; companies that disappear; shareholders and CEOs who can lose as well as win; and government investment in the long-range competitiveness of our nation, not in a failed business model of financial concentration and failed risk management that holds nobody accountable.

Let’s think, holding nobody accountable…why does that phrase strike one as disingenuous?  Hey, did you expect Spitzer to suddenly have a decency epiphany?  Get real.

While it would have certainly been nicer if Eliot’s public return followed an act of redemption, particularly given how many lives were unnecessarily destroyed by this single individual in his zeal to elevate his image to the most vengeful prosecutor in the world (after Giuliani gave up the title), and his efforts at contrition were sorely disappointing.  But he still has thoughts to offer that may prove worthwhile, if he uses his newfound freedom wisely.

And if he stops writing like a lawyer.