Citizen Spitzer

Am I the only person who can't stop thinking of Boss Jim Gettys in "Citizen Kane?" You know the scene: Kane is at the top of the stairs, standing in front of the love nest apartment he shared with Susan Alexander, screaming down at Boss Jim as he and Emily Monroe Norton Kane (looking oh so sad) descend the staircase. "I'm Charles Foster Kane," he yells, defiant to the end. Am I alone in imagining Joe Bruno going down those stairs with Spitzer's terribly wounded wife? There is something so old-school and operatic about this scandal, and I can't prove a thing, but to me Spitzer is someone classically tripped up by hubris, and Bruno is such a perfect recipient of Spitzer's delusion, that "Kane" seems to have sprung forward into real headline-grabbing life. This is throwback yellow journalism and there is almost a kind of nostalgia to it.

Comments

[LucyC]

You make a good point. There are some dandy parallels there if you step back enough and squint. (Imagine the succession of breakfast table conversations chez Spitzer.) And yes, it has a nostalgic romanticism to it, in the ugliest possible way.

As a poster child for the issue, I suggest that one thing missing in the comparison is Jewish intellectual dysfunction. There is an acute awareness of Governor Spitzer's astounding intellect. And his equally astounding stupidity. Last night in a TV interview former Mayor Koch looked at the camera and said...this is a smart guy...in fact he is so smart that for this to happen it means "there's a screw loose." Yes indeedie, here amongst the seething counterculture of Jewish wives, we have seen the underbelly of the screw. (Unfortunately for your version, Mr. Bruno's behavior was beyond reproach, there was not a hint of satisfaction in it...theirs has been a royal combat. He seemed both shocked and saddened, a reflection of an entire state gone momentarily numb. Nor, I'm afraid, is Mrs. Spitzer a Mrs. Kane.) Maybe if we could edit Kane and splice in some, let's say, Goodbye, Columbus. Or have Woody Allen redo Kane entirely. But I digress...

When I see the pictures of the Spitzers together at their law school graduation, I'm reminded of the pictures of the Clintons together during their college years. These are power couples. That has a momentum all its own, and perhaps rules all its own as well. These are enduring partnerships on whatever terms. Every marriage has its own code of survival.

At this writing, we are fifteen minutes away from Governor Spitzer's resignation. Rosebud, anyone?

Today, just for the sheer fun of it, I'm going to call my mother and re-open a forty-year-old conversation about why I should marry a nice Jewish boy.

[bg66astoria]

Very true. The next shot would be The Daily News trucks roaring onto 2nd & 3rd Avenues. The hubris of power and the soggy paper in the gutter the next day!