A Story About Eliot Spitzer

The Eliot Spitzer Story – or – where else could Eliot have been?

This is a story about Eliot Spitzer, the former Attorney General and Governor of New York State. It is a true story that relates to the incidents that brought Eliot down from the heights he had achieved as the elected Governor of NY State. However, this part of the story has never been told before and relates to why his fall was so sudden, so brutal and so far. I am one of only three people, the others being Eliot and a staff member, who know the true circumstances surrounding that self-destructive night, the one that took Eliot from the brink of political stardom to the depths of infamy. I’ve never told this story before publicly, but have decided to do so here, because of the good I hope it will do by helping to drive home the importance and truth presented in these pages.

I have thought extensively about whether I should reveal this story, and if so, how to do it. In the immediate aftermath, and trauma it put his family through, it felt like piling on. So, for these past years I’ve kept it to myself. I felt that Eliot and his family had enough to survive without me making it worse. I also knew (see the title of this book) that if I did reveal it for the wrong reasons, such as out of my personal pique, or to make myself look clever in some way, that it would most likely do me more harm than good.

However, now seems to be the time. Years have passed – the tale sits squarely in the context of this book – and it constitutes an important object lesson about the book’s primary purpose, namely gaining insight toward understanding how life really works! With one exception, this book’s message is conveyed by stories about people I have known, including Eliot. My hope is that this telling helps drive home a critical idea about the power of our thoughts, words and actions to shape the life that we subsequently experience.