The XX Factor

There’s Life After Public Scandal

Edwards’ family, take note: There’s life after public scandal after all. According to the Daily Beast , insiders say one Eliot Spitzer , former New York governor and rough-sex-with-call-girls-enthusiast, is considering a return to politics. Says one family friend:

He wants to be relevant … I think he keeps toying with it-running against Kirsten Gillibrand or running for comptroller. He doesn’t have to raise the money. He already has the money, if he decides to do it. I told him he had to consider if this was something he wanted to drag his family back through again, especially if there is anything else [that is, a fresh scandal] out there.

The bizarre truth is that sexual scandals no longer hold anyone back, or at least not for long, it seems. Ashley Dupré, Spitzer’s call girl and possessor of the much-touted ” best vagina in New York ” (I imagine that means it emits warm light and automatically syncs to iTunes playlists?) now has her own New York Post advice column . It took Bill Clinton more than a few years to bounce back into public favor after his sex scandal, but a mere nine months after resigning from governorship, Spitzer was writing financial columns and appearning on a host of cable talk shows on the regular. At this point in time, all the details of Spitzer’s sordid sex life, the ones that were so fascinating and grotesquely tabloid just two years ago-he wouldn’t take off his black socks during sessions, he insisted on rough, bareback choke-sex-seem like white noise. For as harsh as public opinion is during the height of a scandal, we are a very forgiving, and forgetful, bunch.

Photograph of Eliot Spitzer by Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images.