Odious john addresses Harvard on ethics

If the Grand Dragon had been responsible for implementing tactics to improve affirmative action during his day job, then maybe you'd be right.

Spitzer may have been morally bankrupt, but he wasn't institutionally corrupt...so where's the issue of having him to talk about institutional corruption? It's not like he was spending public dollars on his proclivities or taking kickbacks from the prostitutes.

It's a little more like reading the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson on the inherent equality of man. He was a slaveholder with a black mistress, and thus a hypocrite, but that doesn't mean we should discount his claim that "all men are created equal," nor forget what he did to bring us closer to that ideal.

Spitzer is no Jefferson. But he did do more than any public official in recent memory to crack down on financial corruption, and to hold accountable the titans of that industry who enriched themselves at the expense of ordinary investors. His personal transgressions don't erase that record. I can't regard the man with respect any more, but I still honor his accomplishments and his ideas.