Eliot Spitzer in the Mods

These days it seems like nothing could eclipse news reporting of the Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination - the call for new primary votes, Senator Clinton's poll numbers, Senator Obama's spiritual adviser. But a few short weeks ago, Eliot Spitzer did the unthinkable; and news of the New York governor's involvement with a prostitution ring bumped even Hillary and Barack out of the spotlight, for a moment at least.

Spitzer's indiscretions left us with more than a few questions, not the least of which seems to be (however classless the curiosity) exactly what does the hour spent with a $5,000-per-hour call girl entail? But, though it may be no more intellectually ambitious than the query just mentioned, I have another question, given to more speculation and, in turn, personal examination: What was Eliot Spitzer really like in college?

Certainly Spitzer enjoyed only the best education from day one - Horace Mann School, Princeton, Harvard Law - and was noted as self-confident and motivated, an excellent student. But what was he like on the weekends? What happened when someone who certainly possessed extraordinary ambition and leadership qualities from a very early age cut loose? Was he a lot of fun to have at a tailgate, or was Spitz always "that guy": the one who threw up in your common room and then stumbled away without apology, the one who jilted your best friend and made every subsequent social event unnecessarily awkward? If he met you at a party, would he say hi to you in the Dustbowl the following Monday, or would he look away and pretend not to remember you?

Though we may never have the experience of finding ourselves in line behind Eliot Spitzer at Mary Ann's, each of us, whether we realize it or not, lives and breathes every day among the future leaders of America. That guy in Hillside who cut you in line is going to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company one day, and that girl who always seems to be at the Plex is going to be a prominent geneticist. Is it possible to widen the narrowly focused lens of college life to encompass a picture of the future of Boston College that includes not just a student center and the demolition of Edmond's, but also each one of us as decision-making adults? Does our perspective on our college existences change when we realize that each of our actions, every one of our social choices, every wow-thank-goodness-I-did-that-in-college-and-not-real-life moment might one day shape who we are in the context of positions of actual power and consequence?

I am not suggesting that people who routinely make decisions that could be humorously defined, perhaps, as "SO college" will one day be publicly shamed by criminal acts. But at what point in life does who we are after hours begin to reflect on who we are when we're at our best and brightest, wearing our shiniest pair of shoes and saying all the right things? When does around-the-clock accountability become essential to the preservation of not only our personal characters but the various roles we fulfill in society?

Ultimately, Eliot Spitzer's fate, and the fates of public figures like him, may have as much to do with the present volume of the voice of the American media as it does with any public or cultural sense of morality or righteous indignation. But I can't help thinking that at one point, he was just a student like each of us, making decisions, some good, some bad, and probably a few that he hoped no one would ever find out about. At some point along the way he lost sight of the connection between daytime Eliot and nighttime Eliot. For all of us facing the cold winds of the real world after graduation, the point at which that connection becomes important is imminent. Do we wait for a signal, a road sign, a message from God that now it's time to act kind of like a grownup? Or do we start slightly sooner, before the weight of that diploma is pressed between our hands?

I don't have the answers, but I'd sure like to hear what Eliot Spitzer is thinking.

Kathryn Dill is a Heights staff columnist. She welcomes comments at kdill@bcheights.com.