Eliot Spitzer’s resignation speech leaves no doubt that he is not only resigning but leaving public life for good. As he said earlier today.

As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family. Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children. I hope all of New York will join my prayers for my friend, David Paterson, as he embarks on his new mission, and I thank the public once again for the privilege of service.

This brings to mind F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous quote about there being no second acts in American liife. But I think that Fitzgerald got that wrong, wrong, wrong.

In the age of Oprah, there are plenty of opportunities for people to, to quote Fred Astaire, in the movie, Swingtime, "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again."

So what will Eliot Spitzer do next?

Write a book about sex addiction?

Become a philanthropist? The Spitzer Family Foundation? He’s rich enough.

Continue to fight for the things he believes in?

Retire on a tropical island somewhere?