Soccer Dad

When you're convinced you're right

One politician who absolutely frightens me is Gov. Elliott Spitzer of New York. His ambitions for office are so sweeping and his sense of righteousness is so strong that makes a potent combination. Last week he - or, more precisely, his administration - got caught up in a scandal. State police were used to collect information on a political rival. There's a brief summary of the affair at Contentions.

Gov. Spitzer has now availed himself of the usually friendly pages of the New York Times to issue An Apology from Albany

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.

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

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.

If the actions taken were wrong why does he write that they created "an appearance?"

In order to have ethical standards one has to understand what is right and wrong. If behaving improperly is a matter of appearances and not of the nature of the action itself, my guess is that similar activities will happen again. After all when you're convinced that your overall goal is beyond approach no "appearance" should distract you from that goal.

eliot spitzer, new york.