Eliot Spitzer as Alexander Portnoy
The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber writes:
I’ve been racking my brain for a character profile that would shed light on what the hell happened with Eliot Spitzer, and the only thing I’m coming up with is … Alexander Portnoy, the Assistant Commissioner of Human Opportunity for the City of New York (and anti-hero of Philip Roth’s famous novel). Like Portnoy, maybe Spitzer felt simultaneously driven (by stultifying parents) to be a good Jewish boy and rebel against his good Jewish boy-ness, and so you get the weird spectacle of the most upright guy in the world acting out some pretty deviant urges.
I’m not sure I accept the “most upright guy in the world” bit. Remember this? Spitzer’s also known to be casually belligerent.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
