Former New York Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's in for an interesting few weeks. For one thing, his prime time CNN show, Parker Spitzer premiered last night to...interesting...reviews. For another, Alex Gibney's documentary on his downfall -- Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer -- is being released in theaters soon, and is already available on-demand on some cable networks (like, naturally, Time-Warner Cable). Yet, one assertion -- and the question of its validity -- somehow keeps rising to the surface: Is the Black Socks Thing actually true?

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At first, Roger Stone was going to get "gal pal" Kristin Davis on the ballot if Elliot Spitzer tried a comeback (Davis apparently shares Stone's endless fascination with Spitzer's socks).

But that was a month ago. Now, Stone thinks the former madam -- or, as he puts it, the "busty businesswoman" -- has a shot at half a million votes if she runs as the Libertarian candidate, and he wants to help her do it.

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Former governor Eliot Spitzer will lecture on Thursday at the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard -- his topic is, "From Ayn Rand to Ken Feinberg - How Quickly the Paradigm Shifts. What Should Be the Rationale for Government Participation in the Market?" -- which provokes the usual reaction. The Daily News finds that Spitzer's former madam, Kristin Davis, has written in protest to the Center, presumably as an alumnus. And the Post remarkably has come into possession of the same letter! "What chutzpah," says the Post, which should know, having ridden a story about Spitzer's alleged desire to return to public office to several scandalicious headlines a few months back.

The former governor continues to write for Slate, teach at City College (to which his father recently donated $25 million; Spitzer fils kicks back his salary), and bide his time.

The sad, pre-Labor-Day-Weekend end of the Spitzer comeback scam can be seen in today's Post with the ritual humiliation of Ashley Dupre. The former Spitzer sex worker had portrayed the women who judge her as little better than prostitutes themselves, and today, following a lede that actually begins "Rrrrrrrrr-oww! The claws came out," she is excoriated by a couple of women the Post managed to interview. But they don't have much to say for themselves, nor is there any actual hissing or spitting. One calls her statement "offensive" and another says "I totally disagree," but neither offers a convincing counter-argument to her perhaps Swiftian jibes. And a few Post subjects are in agreement with the former escort. One says there is "many a story" that goes like this: "When you move to the city, you meet rich, 40-year-old guys who buy you drinks and offer to put you up in a hotel room. They are not giving you direct cash, but you're getting things for sleeping with them." Her name is "Autumn," or so she tells the Post, or the Post tells us, and we think she ought to have her own column.

The Voice has learned that former President Bill Clinton is interested in running for political office again. Sources say he is considering either a run for New York city council or for Town Supervisor of New Castle, New York.

Less than 11 years after his explosive sex scandal rocked Washington, Clinton is said by a longtime ally to be "hungry for power, and eager to get back in the saddle, so to speak."

We attempted to reach Monica Lewinsky and were told we had reached a wrong number, and that if we did not stop calling we would be reported to the police. Calls to the former President's Harlem office were greeted with howls of derisive laughter.

And oh yeah, the Spitzer pseudo-comeback story continues with the New York Post's long quotes from their faithful reader Ashley Dupre, who is "happy to see that Mr. Spitzer is moving on with his life and considering getting back into politics" but wishes people would give her the same kind of break they are allegedly giving him...

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Eliot Spitzer's comeback is going great: the Associated Press thinks we'll be interested to know how many times the former governor patronized prostitutes. And they're right! A lawyer for Temeka Lewis -- one of those "hooker bookers" who enlivened the news back in Client 9 days, and who as a cooperative witness was sentenced to one year's probation today -- says Spitzer saw the girls with "regularity." How regularly, the eternal adolescent sexuality of America wants to know? The mouthpiece teases: it was "more than sporadic." More than a dozen? "He nodded his head," AP reports. In any case Lewis has testified that Spitzer was patronizing call girls under her authority for a year and half, and the Daily News says the total equals a "mini-harem." So let's just say that, while Spitzer wasn't threatening Wilt Chamberlain, we can safely lowball the figure at -- well, how big's a harem? Abdul Hamid II's contained 1,000 women? So let's say 100. It's a nice round number and will fit well in future Republican rap songs. Photo via LI Biz Blog (Old).

In unhappier days.

Former Governor Eliot Spitzer, who now has a higher popularity rating than actual Governor David Paterson, appeared at a New York social gala event last night with his wife, Silda, the Daily News reported -- the first time the two have appeared publicly since Spitzer resigned as Governor (above) after it was revealed that he had patronized an upscale prostitution ring.

The couple appeared at a children's benefit gala at the Walfdorf-Astoria last night, holding hands and -- according to the News -- batting eyes at one another throughout the evening.

Spitzer has cast himself as a media pundit of late, writing columns for Slate and appearing on CNN and other news outlets as a commentator on the economic crisis. Then again, it would be hard for an ego like Spitzer's to stay away from the public light -- and crammed into his father's real estate office -- for too long.

Eliot Spitzer went on the Today Show this morning, expressing contrition for his life as a customer of expensive prostitutes, which he called "an egregious violation of my behavior that I fell into for many reasons, but none of them are an excuse or justifiable." On the self-searching tip, he said his transgressions had "caused excruciating pain to [Spitzer's wife] Silda, to my daughters, something that I carry with me every day because of the pain to them," and that "I have tried to address these gremlins and confront them." In the words of General Buck Turgidson, we're still trying to figure out the meaning of that last phrase. But we can figure out the pattern: first the column in Slate, then appearances in public and on cable, now self-abnegation and pop culture references on coffee-time TV -- Eliot Spitzer's comin' back, baby! And with Paterson's poll numbers in the crapper, nothing stands in the way of Spitzer pulling a Grover Cleveland with two non-consecutive terms and a sex scandal.

The Daily News reads a book by Kristin Davis, a madam who hooked up Eliot Spitzer from 2004 to 2006. We had already heard about the former governor's aversion to condoms, which may have attracted him to the famous Ashley DuPree, whom Howard Stern reported was advertised as offering BBBJTC (that's bareback blowjob to completion -- see, we have learned something from Twitter). News to us, though, is Davis' report in The Manhattan Madam that Spitzer, under the code name "James," was "getting rough and too aggressive with the girls -- repeatedly pressuring them to do things they didn't want to," by which we assume she means disclosing financial data for a RICO case.

The book offers other hijinks, says the News, like a "New York City developer who loved tiny panties on the girls -- and on himself" and, Davis' website promises, "An Oscar-winning actor who engaged in hot tub hijinks," which should be great fun for people who have "Lace" on DVD.

Shut. UP:

"Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned earlier this year over his involvement in a prostitution ring, will write a column for online magazine Slate.com about the economy and financial regulation."

When he wrote that editorial for the Washington Post last month, we thought it was the beginning of a long, slow rehabilitation, not a quick road test for the next John Crudele. Oh, and the column will be called "The Best Policy," which in the alternate universe where we used to live meant "honesty," not "next time pay cash."

"This is something that we would want him to write about even if he'd never been governor," said editor Jacob Weisberg. What he didn't say was that Spitzer applied as an automotive columnist in October, but Slate decided he wouldn't bring enough of an audience with him. With this financial column, though, the bankers he indicted as Attorney General will come in droves to leave withering comments about Spitzer's wan prose style.

The worst part is: we didn't think to hire him first.