Here in its entirety is New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's apology for the underhanded tactics of his staff in, among other things, misusing the NY State Police to undermine one of the Governor's political rivals. Governor Spitzer apologized in the form of an op-ed in the New York Times. No middle of the night faxed press release here! This is just the opening volley of what will be an extended apology tour for the governor. According to Newsday:

Spitzer's apology will be repeated as he travels statewide to push his legislative agenda. The combative, workaholic governor plans to answer citizens' questions about the scandal "head-on" and "work harder than he's ever worked" to regain the public's trust, his spokeswoman said. (Newsday.com)

An Apology From Albany
By Eliot Spitzer

WE made mistakes.

Whoa! Stop the presses! A great start. Governor Spitzer has a well-earned reputation for being hard-charging and direct. Politicians usually go for the "mistakes were made" locution, which deflects the blame off to some amorphous unidentified mistake-maker. Spitzer steps right up and takes what's he's got coming ... the blame.

Though two independent investigations proved that no illegal activity occurred on my watch, it is crystal clear that what members of my administration did was wrong — no ifs, ands or buts.

See what I mean?

I have apologized to Joe Bruno, the Senate majority leader, and now I want to apologize to all New Yorkers.

Of course, an apology to the public is very much required here because Governor Spitzer works for the public. He is ultimately accountable to the people and he knows it. Unlike, say, that Nifong guy in North Carolina.

What you've been reading about in the papers and watching on television this week is not what we are about. In fact, it represents just the opposite.

On my first day in office, I brought my staff together and told them what our guiding principles must be: "First, we're going to fight for what we believe in. And second, we're going to maintain the highest ethical standards while doing it."

Over the past few weeks, two members of my administration forgot that second principle — creating an appearance that the State Police were being used inappropriately.

Translation: my team did not live up to my standards or yours, and it's my fault. This does not have the tone of blaming his staff, the way Senator Obama keeps doing.

As soon as this became clear, we acted immediately and decisively, suspending one of my longtime advisers indefinitely and transferring the other out of the governor's office. These steps were not taken lightly. Both of these people have served New York with distinction for decades.

But the message was simple: even though they didn't break the law, they forgot what we were about, and that won't be tolerated.

Governor Spitzer here does one of the things that a good apology must ... he tells how he has acted to correct the problem and make sure it doesn't happen again.

The worst thing that could happen now would be for this to stop our progress, preventing us from building on our many successes of the past six months: health insurance for every child; historic investment in our schools tied to accountability; the largest property tax cut in history; ethics, lobbying and campaign finance reform; breaking the impasse at ground zero; and a 20 percent cut in workers' compensation rates that will save New York businesses $1 billion and make our state more competitive.

Albany had long been mired in gridlock, but we are changing that. Working together with the Senate and Assembly, we have managed to make remarkable progress — and we are on the brink of so much more.

Ok, here we have a little campaign commercial for his administration. He is, after all, a politician. But this also serves to put the kerfluffle in a larger perspective.

There are two ways this can go.

We can get bogged down in partisan politics that serve only to distract us from the business at hand — the kind of head-hunting that we're beginning to see for people in my administration who were cleared by these investigations.

Or we can move forward and pick up where we left off, addressing the long list of issues and challenges that matter to all New Yorkers — which are just as important today as they were last week.

This is a variation on the old "Let's move on" technique that President Clinton's administration was so good at. Clinton's gang had a lot of practice, of course. Bill Clinton pretty much lived in the hot seat, but he was also the Weeble of American politics ... he wobbled but he never fell down. Spitzer has a different public persona. He's Mr. Clean, so this dust up could hurt his ability to advance his public agenda ... which is why it's a good idea for him to remind New Yorkers what that agenda is — and why they elected him in the first place — and then ask the to move forward together with him to get it done. To wit:

So let us keep our eye on the ball and focus our energy and our resources on the needs of New Yorkers — fighting for a revitalized economy, more jobs, lower health care costs, better schools and lower taxes.

Told ya!

We will renew those two guiding principles I spoke about on my first day in office.

We will continue to fight vigorously to change the status quo on behalf of all New Yorkers. I'm never going to apologize for that.

Nicely played!

But we must recognize that this effort will succeed only if our means for changing the status quo are as honorable as our ends.

That is, I promise this won't happen again. We'll see how that works out. But at least one New Yorker seems to buy it. From a letter to the editor:

Am I dreaming, or did a politician actually say, "We made mistakes" instead of "Mistakes were made?"

Thank you, Gov. Spitzer, for your honesty, your willingness to apologize, and your rejection of the passive weaseled voice!

I think Eliot is going to get through this just fine.