So what’s taking Gov. Eliot Spitzer so long to find the door?
It can only be that he’s trying to cut some deal related to his involvement with a prostitution ring.
That’s pretty sad, right up there with Bill Clinton’s finger-wagging denial of having sex with a White House intern.
Clinton looked us all in the eye and flat out lied to every one of us only later to be forced to admit an inappropriate—and wrong, he would add—relationship outside his marriage.
No, Spitzer hasn’t lied to us. But even his sketchy statement yesterday, with his wife by his side, contained an admission of “acting in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my — or any — sense of right and wrong.”
He went on to apologize to the public, saying he had promised us better.
Indeed, he had.
And an overwhelming percentage of voters bought the promise and hoped for reform, a reshaping of state government that hasn’t been in touch with residents’ needs for decades.
Instead, we got ego-driven hubris that created even stronger logjams in Albany.
We got missteps that embarrassed the state almost from the oath of office.
And yesterday we all got humiliated, watching another very private, personal tragedy played out in public because an official thought the ruled didn’t apply to him.
That’s a lesson many have learned the hard way at Spitzer’s hand in his days as attorney general.
How quickly the teacher forgot.
Delays now can only mean he’s twisting and turning, trying to find a back door, a loophole, that can provide some level of escape.
Considering how rigid he once was as a prosecutor, it’s wrong for him to hope someone will offer him a break.
It’s time to just go.