The Eliot Spitzer Hooker Psychodrama playing out in the mainstream media has reminded me of other examples of a SuperGenius father and a cursed son.
First there was Mark Van Doren and his cheating son, Charles Van Doren.
Then there was Marlon Brando and his killer son, Christian Brando.
Now we have Bernard Spitzer and his whoring son, Eliot Spitzer.
What is it about these genius, hard-working, self-made, fathers that makes their sons so misbegotten?
Is it evolutionarily inevitable these sons-of-geniuses can never measure up to the brilliance of their fathers?
Do the sons have a clear realization it is their common destiny to fail to measure up to the mark of their fathers that makes them self-defeating in the public square?
Are these sons only able to propagate their bloodline by demonstrably disappointing — and then killing — the shadow of greatness their upright fathers have cast upon their fallen, mediocre, lives?
Can an ordinary son ever be free of the shine from a father that knows the son will never be the measure of the man he has earned and won?