Good for the Soul and the Heel

Public confession makes a half-century leap from John Edwards' mea-not-so-culpa to a sudden exercise in self-revelation by Charles Van Doren, who was caught in the quiz show scandals of the 1950s.

But perhaps the most telling truth about public soul-searching comes, not from Edwards on Nightline or Van Doren in the New Yorker, but in a New York Times blog by the scholar Stanley Fish about "autobiographical writing that tells and hides all at the same time."

In a sympathetic rumination, Professor Fish points out that Van Doren, now 80, proffers the title, "All the Answers": "But there are no answers, at least to the questions most readers would want to ask: Why did you do it? What was going on in your mind? What about the moral issues? The moment of decision...seems not to have occurred, or to have occurred off-stage when no one, even the person most concerned, was watching."

It is likely that even now Van Doren doesn't know, but Fish credits him with an honest attempt at self-discovery: "He does not cast himself as a victim, or as a reformed villain or a misunderstood hero, three narratives that are quite popular in these days of compulsive self-discovery."

(A confession of my own: Several years after the scandal, as my magazine was preparing a piece on the aftermath, there was a letter from Van Doren's wife asking me to be "kind and gracious" and not publish it. But I did, and my refusal has troubled me ever since.)

When Robert Redford was working on the movie, "Quiz Show," he offered Van Doren $100,000 to be a consultant as "a guarantee of its truthfulness." Once again Van Doren was tempted to cash in, but his wife put her foot down firmly. "Don't be a fool," she told him, and he tore up the contract.

It is a long way from Van Doren to John Edwards, not only in time but character. Both may have been undone by vanity but there was and is no cunning and calculation in the man who succumbed in that earlier scandal.

Van Doren had the grace to retreat into silence (until now), but Edwards' lies and evasions have created a continuing public melodrama, and his wife, as sympathetic a figure as she has been, may be complicit in his use of confession for concealment rather than redemption. Maybe he too should wait fifty years before going public again about his inner turmoil.

Is Rudy Through?

On Wednesday morning, either Rudy Giuliani or John Zogby is going wake up with a big headache. Running fourth in the state on which he has bet his presidential chances, Giuliani is nonetheless sure he's going to prevail in Florida's Tuesday primary.

"We're going to win this election by getting the vote out," Giuliani said at a pizza parlor in Port St. Lucie yesterday. "If we win here, we're going to win the nomination."

Zogby disagrees. "Giuliani is becoming less and less of a factor," he said yesterday, his poll showing John McCain and Mitt Romney tied at 30 percent, Mike Huckabee at 14 and Giuliani at 13, with only 9 percent of voters undecided.

For Zogby, who missed Hillary Clinton's late surge in New Hampshire, another blown call could be professional suicide, so it's safe to assume that his level of confidence in the Florida figures is high.

If he's right, the Giuliani comedy of errors will end this week. After leading in the national polls for a year and raising tons of money, America's Mayor decided to snooze through the early primary states and stake everything on the Sunshine State and its population of New York retirees.

By the time he started campaigning, Giuliani was caked with mud from scandals over his erstwhile partner Bernard Kerik and police protection for his current wife while he was still married to her predecessor.

Meanwhile, McCain, Romney and even Huckabee had picked up momentum, and in the past week, Giuliani lost a couple more points, perhaps as a result of his retired base reading the New York Times endorsement of McCain, sideswiping Rudy thus: "The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power...Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking."

If Zogby's figures hold up, Giuliani's best move would be to get out and get behind McCain. For a career prosecutor, Attorney General would not be a shabby consolation prize, if he could weather confirmation hearings about the shadowy clients of Giuliani Partners.

Hillary Tops Rudy on Domestic Issues

My alma mater, the Daily News, is still doing its job, keeping blue-collar New Yorkers informed about the important issues of the day.

Today we have the results of their "national poll of female voters" showing them to be more forgiving of Bill Clinton's peccadilloes than Rudy Giuliani's.

Forty percent said Judith Giuliani's affair with the then-married Mayor made her less suitable to be First Lady, while only 34 percent were not willing to forgive Hillary's husband for whatever it was that he did with Monica Lewinsky.

When asked about who they would prefer to watch their kids, 36 percent of women would choose to have Bill and Hillary Clinton baby-sit, while 21 percent would pick Rudy and Judith Giuliani. One of five wouldn't trust either couple, a blow to any hope of balancing the budget with baby-sitting gigs.

"A straying husband is bad," the News concludes. "But a home wrecker is worse."

When I was a copy boy there, they didn't go in for so much sociology.