The political lesson of "He doth protest too much?"

As I tap out this missive, the scourge of the Empire State's red meat Republicans, Gov. Eliot Spitzer [In smiling times to the left], twists in the wind more violently than a kite run amok in a late season Nor' easter due to his alleged involvement with a very upscale prostitution ring. At news of Spitzer's plight surely the boys on Wall Street haven't been this pleased since the shank of Alan Greenspan's Fed tenure, but, instead, I want to take to task the sheer idiocy of the commentary being spewed forth presently by the annoited network talking heads. Of specific appallingness is their collectively stated "shock" over this "suprising turn" of developments. They are puzzled that such a beacon of publicly avowed anti-corruption bluster, i.e. Eliot 'Emperor's Club' Spitzer, could be snared in such a seedy affair. Obviously news that Lindbergh actually made it across the pond might overwhelm these intellectual plankton, so we'll hold-off on exploration of this other shocking story for now.

Why is their suprise utterly unwarranted? I submit with alacrity the case of William E. Gladstone, a man of multifold accomplishments plus England's only four-time Prime Minister (and during, nonetheless, the heyday of the British Empire [Pun intended to Spitzer's plight]). Gladstone's tenure in office alone makes the overall political career and not yet two year reign of Eliot Spitzer look, by comparison, like a flyspeck on the window screen of history. The connection being? Amongst many, many good books out there on British political figures of note, lets pry open a bit and explore briefly - besides salaciously - Roy Jenkins' history of the Grand Old Man, as Gladstone was known [Or 'GOM', for short, which Benjamin Disraeli, that singularly wicked chap and perpetual thorn in Gladstone's side, remarked really stood for "God's Only Mistake"].

In Jenkins' oeuvre one finds a thoroughly proselytizing Gladstone, rife with moral indignations of full field enthusiasm, and a man whose "charity" compelled him to befriend prostitutes for their own betterment. As Jenkins (a former leading light in British politics himself) notes, Gladstone could have spent his efforts alternatively assisting broken-down alcoholics or penniless orphans. Instead the relentlessly charging Gladstone chose this arena with purpose. From his pre-university days, the future Prime Minister would seek out these "heavenly creatures", as Gladstone desribes a particular lampost lady via Italian in his diary, and tried to minister them back to the righteous path. His subsequent guilt, however, over his admitted attraction to them - and other falls from grace vis-a-vis consumed lewd material - compelled him, as Jenkins describes in detail, to many years-long acts of physical self-flagellation. Said repentance was denoted by a whip-like icon in his meticulous diaries.

Sigmund Freud deserves the full credit for bringing out clinically what another famous British William, Mr. Shakespeare, only alluded to centuries before in "Hamlet". In only one of that play's famous quotes, the Lady's supposed 'protest' is meant more, as I understand it, to proclaim than argue against. Regardless, the point is that very often that which one rails against most vociferously is precisely that which troubles internal resistance most. Find something which particularly vexes a politician, usually a man, into flights of rhetorical self-righteousness and you're probably not too far from finding Ground Zero for a personal/psychological battle of possible Stalingrad proportions. The only hitch to this instance is usually those of the liberal bent get caught up in matters of money and it's the fire-breathing conservatives who, instead, are wide-stanced in matters of erotica for pay. That part of this Spitzer tryst only, I grant to the mutton-heads of network hegemony, is suprising.

In full disclosure, let me state I'm a former (and distant) acquaintance of the Suozzis and the (soon-to-be former) Gov. Spitzer beat that proud family's current scion, Tom, for the 2006 Democratic gubenatorial nomination. That said, anyone who didn't sense such a hyper-morally indignant figure as Spitzer couldn't be rife with internal perfidy, should go to the short bus school pickup for lack of human insight. They might want, as well, to brush-up on the even more schizophrenic spectacle, two generations ago, of Roy Cohn travelling from McCarthy hatchet man to alternative lifestyle poster-boy while playing upon the British ruling class' then penchant for mixing homosexual explorations with commie spying.

It is as annoying as all get-out that this motley crew of television flacks plus pseudo analysts are given free fire via cable news networks yet have the palpable psychological maturity of muffin pans. At least, in this case, we might be able to still see some visceral schadenfreude from all those who bristled at Spitzer's near walk-on-water tactics for the past ten plus years as they are asked to comment on today's fall of the Governor. If we're lucky, one will crack and openly voice something in the vein of nothing being so satisfying since watching the Fed tapes of Marion Barry hassling his connection for a better deal or a cherubic Billy C. fessin' up to his advanced thong appreciation of Ms. Lewinsky's workday attire.

Mr. Gandhi's 'Advanced Political Awareness' seminar will be discussed next week.