Eliot Spitzer -- Father of the Year

The day after the Eliot Spitzer story broke, I interviewed Dominick Dunne for a Q&A I'm doing for mediabistro.com. The first thing I said to him was, 'You couldn't write anything more unbelievable than this." He agreed saying, "He thought he was above everyone. He must have to have done something so stupid." Then, of course, the breathless tabloid accounts and gossip disguised as news on the cable news channels took hold and battered us with the made-for-television scandal until it was hard to remember this event actually happened to real people (not including, of course, Spitzer himself).

Despite the schadenfreude surrounding the story in many circles, I have found there is a deep sadness among others. After all, this was not a victimless crime. And I'm not talking about Ashley Dupre-- 'Kristen' -- or whatever her name is or will be when she pens her inevitable tell all or sells herself to the highest bidder -- this time in print. I'm not even talking about Silda. By all accounts, she is certainly devastated. But, someone that travels in that same circle told me today that she won't be standing by her man when the dust settles. He's toast. Rightfully so.

I'm talking about his daughters.

The night the news of the scandal broke, Katie Couric told me, "I take no glee in reporting the story. I look at them and see a family devastated and my heart goes out to their daughters." Dominick told me, "My heart breaks for the daughters. It's something they'll carry with them for the rest of their lives."

So while Kristen cashes in her on fifteen minutes ninety-eight cents at a time (fittingly, that was the top selling price of one of her songs on a pay for play music Internet site hours after the story broke), the three other young women at the polar opposite of the story are left to wonder: who is this man I thought was my father?

When I was 22, my father left our family for a woman he had been involved with for some time. I never saw it coming. I remember the night my mother had to deliver the news at dinner. I asked what time dad was coming home and she broke down in sobs. That same morning I had seen my father at the breakfast table thinking it was a day like any other. He told me that I looked pretty. He never mentioned he was leaving. The event devastated our family to such an extent that when he died a few years ago, my brother had not seen him in nearly twenty years. I had tried, and failed, at various intervals to establish some kind of relationship with him. Months before his death (he kept his illness secret from us, too), I had finally let loose with my anger when 'the other woman' now his wife, decided to email me and tell me I wasn't treating my father well. The night before he died, I called him. We spoke for a long time. He never said he was sorry for any of it. After carrying around the unbearable weight of betrayal and abandonment for so long, I forgave him. Not for him, for me.

So when I see this story play out in papers now (and report on it myself for People) I am drawn back to that time in my life when everything I assumed was true turned out to be anything but. Fathers don't always put their families first. They can hurt you more deeply than you thought possible.

Having known the deep, deep pain I felt in private I can not begin to imagine what this must be like for Spitzer's daugthers with the added burden of having to see this play out in public. I hope they can find some strength by banding together.

So for all the outcries about how Spitzer betrayed public trust, allegedly broke several laws and violated his marriage contract, I say shame on you Elliot Spitzer for being such a lousy father.

That is by far the worst crime you could have committed. Just ask your daugthers.