Instant Memorabilia: Spitzer's Yearbook, With a Telling Quote

Eliot Spitzer for sale! Just hours after the call-girl scandal broke Monday, an enterprising high school classmate posted an ad offering the 1977 Horace Mann School yearbook on Craigslist with Spitzer's senior quote: "The worst thing about political jokes is that some of them get elected."

His picture shows a youthful Spitzer (plaid shirt and jeans) leaning against a tree. He included a passage from "Hamlet" and another anonymous quote: "Laugh, and the class laughs with you, but you stay after school alone." He also appears in pictures as a member of the Bronx school's Cum Laude Society, senior editor (second in command) of the school newspaper and captain of the tennis team.

The price: $4,300! Kidding! $100 or best higher offer; nasty tear on the binding but in good condition otherwise.

Movies and Real Estate, Under One Moon

So, maybe we should all try the movie business! Worked out well for Norman Dreyfuss, the local Leisure World developer who has so far produced three indie flicks, all of which sold at Sundance.

"There are a lot of similarities between movies and real estate," he explained Tuesday at a Washington Life-hosted party at Mate after a Georgetown screening of "Under the Same Moon," his tear-jerking immigrant saga about to get a big release from Fox Searchlight. "You get a developer, which is the producer; an architect, which is the director; and the people who put it together -- the actors, who are like the builders. You need a budget, because it's only worth something when it's done."

Dreyfuss, looking very L.A. (black turtleneck under gray suit jacket), fell into the biz via his agent son Brian, and was modest about his role. "When you first start, the screenwriter and the producer are the most important. Then the director. And when the movie comes out, it's all about the actors. I was very important for a very short time." The movie cost about $2 million to make; Dreyfuss fronted almost half and recruited local developer pals Pat Rhodes and John Cecchi to throw in. They all walked away with a profit after it sold for $5 mil.

Not bad! Should we try? "You have to have a business that makes the money," he said, "so that you can stay in the movie business."

Book Event Has a Plot Twist

Last night's book launch for Deal Hudson's "Onward Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States" created a mini-tempest in Catholic circles. The influential political operative was originally scheduled to appear with Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback at the Catholic Information Center in the District -- until things got complicated.

Hudson, a former Bush adviser and publisher of conservative Crisis magazine, lost both those gigs in 2004 over allegations he sexually harassed a female student while teaching at Fordham University a decade earlier. Which is why some CIC donors objected to his appearance and coverage of the event by C-SPAN. The center's director, the Rev. Arne Panula, told us he didn't mind hosting the event, but he pulled the plug on the broadcast: "I hated to turn our chapel into a huge media operation." Hudson also told us he was unaware of any fuss and that he chose to move the event to a larger venue at the Capital Hilton.

HEY, ISN'T THAT . . . ?

Ben Affleck leaving the Dupont Circle office of the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday afternoon after a meeting with senior fellow/former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. The politically-minded actor (dark blazer, no tie) is in town to film "State of Play," as is . . .

Rachel McAdams, catching a "restorative yoga" class at Georgetown Yoga yesterday. Came in alone; headband, gray yoga pants, white long-sleeved thermal tee.