I almost feel bad for piling on to the avalanche of finger-waggling in Eliot Spitzer’s direction, but when I read the New York Times’ coverage on the story this morning I couldn’t get Shakespeare out of my head:
“For ’tis sport to have the engineer/ Hoist with his own petar….”
– Hamlet, Act III, Scene 4, Lines 206-207
It’s sad to see someone so capable fall so fast, but the gap between his public persona and private behavior is just staggering. To crusade for tougher laws for soliciting sex while running up an $80,ooo tab for the same is a breathtaking show of hypocrisy, which makes me think of yet another line from the same play:
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”
– Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2, Line 230
Whenever I see someone shouting from a soapbox, I always wonder what they’re trying to hide with all that noise…