Eliot Spitzer: “I Hate to Sound Like Ayn Rand, but…”

Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in disgrace after a 2008 scandal, has written a short essay by way of memoir in the recent 50th anniversary issue of New York magazine. As one who’s written more than my share about Spitzer’s abuses of power as governor and attorney general, I wasn’t expecting to feel much sympathy, and mostly I didn’t. But then I got to the last paragraph: 

I’m a builder now. Most of what my dad built was on the Upper East Side, because that was the heart of the city. Now it’s Brooklyn. We have a site under construction on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. As a lawyer, as a prosecutor, in politics, there’s a lot of talk. Occasionally things happen. When you’re building, you actually see concrete being poured and curtain wall being applied to the façade. It’s enormously satisfying. I hate to sound like Ayn Rand, but there’s something very rewarding about that tangible productivity.

My reaction was: hold that thought! And pursue it further, maybe even to the point where being a builder—or for that matter sounding like Ayn Rand—involves no trace of apology or embarrassment.