Eliot On The Comeback

A reader, Peter, forwarded a link to a NY Daily News story about Eliot Spitzer’s holiday card.

Sent to government officials as well as friends, the card includes a snapshot of the family on their summer trip/scandal get-away to Southeast Asia. The reverse offers a quote about adversity and endurance. About the photo, Peter wrote: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar… sometimes it isn’t.”

I don’t necessarily see sexual innuendo here, just as I questioned it in regards to a photo in NY Mag just before the family left for its trip. With Spitzer working overtime to return to the public realm, however, I do see the symmetry between the temple towers and the three girls as glorifying the daughters, and by extension, the image of the family man.

As for the quote, given Spitzer’s considerable public ambition, I do find it laughable that hope, as a post-scandal reward for Spitzer’s struggle, would be somehow “unanticipated.”

(12/22 – Slightly revised)