On Nov. 18, Spitzer continued that re-entry into the public sphere, with a 90-minute conversation with Thane Rosenbaum, the John Whelan Distinguished Lecturer in Law and director of the Fordham Forum on Law, Culture and Society.

“A Conversation with Eliot Spitzer,” which took place at the Time Warner Center, touched on many of the subjects that brought Spitzer to the governor’s mansion—from financial reform to shaking up the political culture of Albany. Befitting his second professional life as a political commentator, Spitzer weighed in on the recent congressional election, and admitted that hosting a show is very different from being a guest.

“I have been referring to our guests as witnesses, and our conversations have been cross-examinations,” he said. “When I get home, my wife says, ‘Eliot, you’ve got to understand, this is not a court room.’ Our guests may feel they’re only given time for a sound bite, but I’m being taught to give them more space to answer. So it’s a slow learning curve.”

Speaking on the mid-term elections, the lifelong Democrat expressed sympathy for supporters of the Tea Party movement. Spitzer, a former attorney general whose nickname was the “Sheriff of Wall Street,” noted that of all the businesses that received government bailouts during the economic crisis of 2008, only General Motors was forced to accept new leadership.

The blame for that, he said, lies with Democratic Party leaders who let the Tea party emerge by allowing themselves become aligned with the status quo.

“When unemployment crept up, when people saw banks getting all the money, they saw the bonuses coming at Goldman Sachs, they said, ‘You are not changed.’ What Obama should have said [to the banks]was not, ‘I am the only one between you and the pitchforks.’ He should have said, ‘I’m holding the pitchfork.’”

Of Andrew Cuomo, New York’s next governor, Spitzer said he hopes Cuomo will focus on education and infrastructure. The challenges of the first can be seen in recent reports that average class size in New York City schools has, after a brief dip, increased again. On the latter, he called the cancellation of the ARC project by New Jersey governor Chris Christie an example of extraordinary short sightedness.

“It’s almost akin to deciding not to build the Erie Canal, and of course, we all know the historical consequences of those great infrastructures,” he said. “You must build out the infrastructure that permits the city to move forward.”

Spitzer grew less talkative about what he might have accomplished had he not been caught patronizing prostitutes, which led to his resignation. Noting that he had, to use a sports metaphor, “benched himself,” he agreed that it has been very hard to no longer have a say on issues of importance. He refused to dwell on it, though.

“Let me not say, ‘Gee, here’s what I would have done.’ Who knows? It’s very hard,” he said. “There’s fame, there’s infamy, there’s celebrity—they’re all different things and bring different upsides and downsides. I was listening to your introduction and you said that my life has never been dull. Dull looks pretty good sometimes.”

Given his passion and expertise for issues of national policy, Spitzer was asked whether United States citizens have the right to demand that elected officials lead exemplary, moral lives.

“Sure we do. Look, I’m not going to… I see an out here; I’m not going to take it. I’m not going to go in that direction,” Spitzer said.

“I’ll let other people comment on it. It’s not the right issue for me to comment on, because I don’t want to be seen as saying anything that is self-justifying or dodging of responsibility. So I’m just not going to go there.”

The Millennials—those Americans born between the late 1970s to the late 1990s— must foster an enormous dialogue about America’s economy, culture and place in the world, Gingrich told a crowd of nearly 2,000 people.

“As Americans, you must work to reassert the culture of American exceptionality, rebuild the economy and ensure that the U.S. is strong, and that our opponents are much more afraid of us than we are of them,” he said.

Gingrich is a former speaker of the House and leading Republican who is rumored to be considering a presidential run in 2012. The event was held at Fordham Prep’s Leonard Theater on the Rose Hill campus.

In his nearly 90-minute talk, Gingrich criticized President Barack Obama for shaking hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the most recent Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

“There is something bizarre about an administration that is against using coal but bows to the king of Saudi Arabia and embraces the dictator of Venezuela,” said Gingrich, who started his speech praising Ronald Reagan for always speaking out on what he believed.

“We have lost the moral courage to speak out on what is wrong,” he said. “Moral language matters. Rendering judgment matters. It matters because, in the long run, cultures are led by words that have meaning.”

Gingrich said he was fascinated to watch a variety of “semi-dictators,” specifically, the leaders of Nicaragua and Argentina, who lecture the president on what the United States is “doing wrong.”

“There aren’t many countries that have a net surplus of people leaving the U.S. to go to them,” Gingrich said. “If we have such a bad economy, if we do so many bad things, how come their people want to flee their country to come here?”

Gingrich also criticized the Obama administration, as well as the national media, for not focusing enough on national security.

“The world around us is really dangerous,” he said.

He emphasized his point by relating a scenario from a novel written by William R. Forchsten—the same man who co-wrote Gingrich’s latest book. In the novel, a nuclear explosion triggers a massive failure of the nation’s power grid.

“The media doesn’t talk about things like this. These aren’t scare tactics, but the purpose of a national leader is to understand what could happen,” Gingrich said.

The media also missed the point of the various “tea parties” attended by many conservatives on April 15, he said.

“It wasn’t about taxes,” said Gingrich, who spoke at a New York City tea party earlier in the week. “It was about the fundamental question of the nature of America.

“Is America a place where you can dream big, where you have unlimited potential, where you might even make more than $250,000 without being a bad person? Or is America, in fact, a place where you need to cap everything, such as incomes?

“This whole idea that Congress now randomly decides the right bonus—can you imagine a group less likely to make a reasonable decision?”

Earlier in the evening, Gingrich met a handful of students and professors at a reception sponsored by The Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.

When asked if anyone should be blamed for the economic strife the country is experiencing, Gingrich named former President George W. Bush and former treasury secretary Henry Paulson.

“They signed a $25 billion housing bill, a $700 billion Wall Street bailout and a nearly $2 trillion Federal Reserve guarantee—and that was all before Obama took office,” Gingrich said. “They created such momentum.”

At the informal event, Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy, introduced Gingrich as a man “of strong principles and convictions.”

“Speaker Gingrich has routinely gone beyond the call of duty in his endeavors, a tradition he upheld in preparation for his visit to Fordham by converting to Catholicism three weeks ago,” Panagopoulos said in jest. “Although this was not a condition of our invitation, it is fitting that we welcome him to the Jesuit University of New York.”

Gingrich’s talk was sponsored by the Fordham University College Republicans, in conjunction with the Fordham University Finance Society, United Student Government, American Age Lecture Series, The Ram and the Fordham University Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.

What drives New Yorkers to begin, operate or work for organizations that serve those in need? Is it faith? Faith certainly plays a part, according to an interfaith panel of some of the city’s most inspired citizens who discussed faith-based activism on March 16 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

“We can’t talk about the work we do purely in a secular form,” said Alexie Torres-Fleming, executive director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, a leadership development organization in the Bronx. “We’re not trying to raise a bunch of angry secular activists. We’re just trying to show love for our neighbors.”

Torres-Fleming was joined by:

• Robin Bernstein, executive director of the Educational Alliance, a community-based organization offering a wide range of programs throughout downtown Manhattan.

• Abdel Hafid Djemil, teacher and mentor at W.E.B. DuBois High School in Brooklyn.

• Charles J. Hynes, district attorney for Kings County.

All were interviewed for the book Hope Matters (Bartleby Press, 2007), written by John A.
Calhoun, founder and former president of the National Crime Prevention Council and former state and federal administrator of family and child services in Massachusetts.

Calhoun was a special commentator for the forum discussion, “What in God’s Name Are Some New Yorkers Doing? The Untold Story of Faith-Based Activism in the Big Apple,” sponsored by the Fordham Center for Religion and Culture (CRC). Peter Steinfels, co-director of the CRC, moderated the discussion.

“These panelists balance the line between proclamation of faith and proselytizing,” Calhoun said. “They’re clear on where they stand, but they aren’t beating people up with their faith.”
Panelists largely discussed their reasons for serving. Although faith plays a part in their work, their reasons for serving are more personal.

“I always knew I was going to be a social worker,” said Bernstein, who recalled the death of her father when she was eight years old. “I went into this work 31 years ago to heal myself. Each time I open a new senior center, preschool or soup kitchen, the hole inside of me gets a little smaller.”

Hynes, who has developed programs to tamp down the recidivism of the formerly incarcerated, said his work is a product of the physical abuse of his mother at the hands of his father. As for his faith, it is part of who he is, even if it does not play a direct part in his work, he said.

“Could I do my work without my faith? I think so, but it wouldn’t be that good,” Hynes said. “At the most important time in my life, I prayed and my prayers were answered.”

Djemil, a devout Muslim, recalled an instance when a boy stole his radio out of a lab at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He confronted the youngster at his home, where he lived with his grandmother.

“He told me that no one cared about him. Since then, I started looking at youngsters and how to help them,” Djemil said. “I also never thought I’d teach at a high school, and now I can’t see myself doing anything else.”

Steinfels said the CRC held the forum to seek out the “untold story” of faith-based activism.

“Why is this an untold story? Because it is a human story submerged by constitutional and other partisan concerns,” Steinfels said.