Spitzer: 'I Stood for Something ... Then I Destroyed It'

Governor also dismisses new tell-all by former adviser
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 4, 2010 9:45 AM CST
Updated Mar 4, 2010 11:00 AM CST
Spitzer: 'I Stood for Something ... Then I Destroyed It'
Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer addresses an audience during a Harvard University ethics forum last year.   (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Eliot Spitzer is back in the spotlight, for better or worse. Last month featured an appearance on the Colbert Ropert, and now comes an interview with Time that portrays him as anxious, maybe even a little desperate, to get back into politics but unsure whether it'll fly. The kicker quote (delivered with "eyes welling up"): "How do you think I feel? ... At one point I stood for something that was important and useful. I was in a place in time where I had a purpose, where it mattered. And then I destroyed it."

All this as a former adviser and now-estranged friend releases an unflattering look at Spitzer's tenure and resignation in the book Journal of the Plague Year. Lloyd Constantine paints Spitzer as vengeful and prone to temper tantrums and includes an account of him weeping on the phone as the scandal was about to break, notes the New York Times. “What Mr. Constantine has written is little more than a self-serving and largely inaccurate interpretation of events mixed with unfounded speculation,” says Spitzer in a statement.
(More Eliot Spitzer stories.)

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