{"id":226,"date":"2008-03-12T13:59:13","date_gmt":"2008-03-12T18:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/12\/translating-eliot-spitzer-resignation-speech\/"},"modified":"2008-03-18T12:39:01","modified_gmt":"2008-03-18T17:39:01","slug":"translating-eliot-spitzer-resignation-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/12\/translating-eliot-spitzer-resignation-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Translating Eliot Spitzer Resignation Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel the need to provide a public service. Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, resigned today. He gave a heart-felt speech, that was carefully crafted<\/em> to communicate as clearly as possible with everyone in the country.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, not everyone has the appropriate decoder ring necessary to un-craft<\/strong> the true meaning of his message. Thankfully for the rest of you, I have one. I ran his speech through the magic decoder, and here’s what came out:<\/p>\n

In the past few days I’ve begun to atone for my private failings with my wife, Silda, my children and my entire family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the past few days, I have been very quiet, and have allowed my family to look at me with horror and disbelief. When I break the law, it’s a private failing<\/strong>, when others broke the law, I was there to demolish them.<\/p>\n

The remorse I feel will always be with me. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the love and compassion they have shown me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know that this will forever be on the Internet for all to see. I am grateful that my family hasn’t pulled off my fingernails, at least not yet.<\/p>\n

From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much \u008f- the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have been given much, and have taken a lot more, from many people. I deserved it all, and if I crushed people along the way, including innocent ones, I was on a mission, so it was all necessary.<\/p>\n

I am deeply sorry I did not live up to what was expected of me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am deeply sorry that I was caught. Being Governor certainly wasn’t the last stop<\/em> on my road to ultimate power<\/strong>, though now it looks like it might be.<\/p>\n

To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To everyone, I couldn’t stand for anything in an honest manner, but at least I tried to appear to stand for something. For the fact that you now know that I was more of a do as I say and not as I do<\/strong> kinda guy, well, I’m very sorry you found out.<\/p>\n

I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I look back, still remembering what it was like before I was caught, ah, the good old days.<\/p>\n

but I also know that as a public servant, I and the remarkable people with whom I worked have accomplished a great deal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sorry, but I can’t leave in complete shame, I simply have to take another bow, pat myself on the back, and throw a bone to some people who I hope don’t completely abandon me in the coming days.<\/p>\n

There is much more to be done and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had more to do (privately and publicly), but now that my private crime spree<\/strong> has become public, my work has been disrupted.<\/p>\n

Over the course of my public life I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While in power, I have insisted that people cave to my every whim, I believe correctly. It served my personal purpose. I made them take responsibility for everything, whether they committed a crime or not.<\/p>\n

I can and will ask no less of myself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now that I have been caught, I have decided to hold myself to a similar standard, given that I would have been held to that standard by others, if I didn’t do it first. Of course, not exactly the same standard, since I didn’t resign immediately and I certainly don’t intend to go to jail. It’s not like I actually knew I was doing anything wrong before I got caught, so it’s really OK that I didn’t hold myself up to that standard a tad earlier.<\/p>\n

For this reason I am resigning from the office of governor, and at Lt. Gov. David Paterson’s request, the resignation will be effective on Monday, March 17, a date that he believes will permit an orderly transition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Don’t be mad at me for not resigning immediately a few days ago, nor for hanging in there for another few days. Other people urged me to take this route, and you know how much of a giver I am, I simply couldn’t refuse them.<\/p>\n

I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings our greatest glory consists not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The people that I put away, or nearly ruined, had no redeeming qualities. I, on the other hand, will rise to greater heights shortly. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n

As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I leave public life, I will duck and hope that I survive the coming storm at home,<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I will then try and assert my two-faced moralistic views on the rest of you, but I’m not sure exactly how just yet, given that I won’t be in a position of authority. That said, I’m a clever and very rich guy, and I have little doubt I’ll figure it out.<\/p>\n

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. Thank you very much.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s unfortunate that David Paterson will now enjoy everything that is rightfully mine, but please, join me in a golf clap for his ascendancy to my throne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel the need to provide a public service. Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, resigned today. He gave a heart-felt speech, that was carefully crafted to communicate as clearly as possible with everyone in the country. Unfortunately, not everyone has the appropriate decoder ring necessary to un-craft the true meaning of his message. Thankfully […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70,2,89],"tags":[1371,231,1372],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-2","category-politics","tag-comedy","tag-eliot-spitzer","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}