Must be horrible, being in the closet over this or that or the other desire. A disease of the mind, the deception, the adrenaline rush from fear of detection and the euphoric high of yet another escape, the power of being the only one who knows the secret and the unrelieved burden of living a life of duality; an obsessive-compulsive disorder, a life apart, alone.

It isn’t the physical behaviors, unsavory as they may be, that are troubling with Spitzer, any more than the tawdriness of Craig or Vittner’s debauchery; it’s about the mental state and stability of someone caught up in such a disconnect. Spitzer staying in office may or may not be the best thing for the people of New York. It almost certainly is not the best thing for Eliot Spitzer, or his family, who will need some time without public scrutiny and incessant external demands to come to grips with what has happened, what has driven it, and what can be done about it.

Sometimes with heroes it’s kindest to let them have the time and space to be human, at least for a while. If James Earl Carter, Jr. accomplished nothing else he disproved once and for all the misanthropic canard of Fitzgerald, of there being no second act in American lives. So with Mr. Spitzer, who should take as much time as is needed to straighten things out with his wife and himself and then, if he chooses, come back into public life a healthier man than he is today.

yesterday, and he’s kept mum since.

There is that ancient, and nowadays not so respected, notion of innocent until proven guilty; that is all I really wanted to go on record about.