paper and also we have a weekly eletter that we send out to about a million subscribers for here. when she writes her column people can subscribe to that and get it in their mailbox every week. >> can you tell me -- what's the relationship between regnery and eagle. >> eagle is our parent company. so eagle publishing is a multimedia conservative publishing company that owns human events, regnery publishing, the conservative book club, red state and a group of financial newsletters as well. and we all come together for the same mission of promoting conservative values and serving the conservative marketplace but it's a nice combination of publishing businesses that cover a number of different media. >> are you here every year? how long have you been here? >> human events has been one of the cosponsors with acu of cpac for decades. so we've had a long presence

here. it's a great show. i really like coming to this show to meet all the folks that we're writing books for and publishing newspapers for. it's good. >> thank you very much, marji. >> thank you very much. >> of a former senior advisor to eliot spitzer presents his accounts of the former new york governor's administration and resignation. it lasts about an hour. . ..

>> asked me to introduce him, and i have both of his books here. his earlier book is priceless, and the book you'll be talking about today, "journal of the plague year: an insider's chronicle of eliot spitzer's short and tragic reign." it's a whole lot more than just eliot spitzer. lloyd, without further ado, it's all yours. [applause] >> am i on now? good. thank you very much, susan.

and thank you all for coming. it's nice to see a lot of friendly faces out there and some new faces. and i really want to thank the book house for having me. as i said before privately, this is one of the great independent bookstores in the united states. we are a book family. my son is an author. my wife who is here is the general counsel of the authors guild, and so our lives are really enriched by the books and built around books and it's great to be in one of the great bookstores in this country. as susan mentioned i have another book, six months ago called priceless. and i did a similar book tour at the time. and i felt the need at the time to talk about the background of that book, because most people were not familiar what had gone on there, with the backdrop for that book was. i don't think that's necessary

today. i think most of you know about eliot spitzer in the spitzer administration, so i think that is a necessary. the subject matter of this book is known, very well-known in the city. it is well known in the state. in the united states and as i've traveled around the world since this all happened, i have been to thailand, india, europe, a number of times, and everybody knows about the plague year, as i've called the 17 months which encompassed our transition to power in 2006 and the 14 and a half months of eliot spitzer is, what i call short and tragic reign. so what i will do instead of telling you the backdrop, i'm going to tell you why i wrote the book. which is the single question that i am asked most about this book. when i was asked when this is

all happening, did you know what eliot was doing, and the answer is no. and now the question is ims, why did you write the book. so now i would say why i wrote the book and i will tell you a little bit about the book itself and into a brief greeting from the book, and then i will answer your questions, which i think is probably the most important part. if any of you are moved to buy the book, i will sign the book. so why did i write the book? i have known eliot for 28 years. on january 1, 2007, when eliot was sworn in as governor we have been close friends and colleagues for around a quarter of a century. he had been my intern when i was in the attorney general's office. i was running the antitrust jobs for the state. he and i were law partners for almost four years in a little offer them that he and i were founding partners of called good name, constantine and partners.

so eliot was a named partner in the firm being one of the partners. so we were law partners. in 1998 when he was elected attorney general, i read his transition. i helped hire his executive staff and organize that office. and i went back to my law firm, and then in 2006 when he was elected governor, he named me as one of the co-chairs of his governor's transition. and i thought at that moment, that i would leave the practice of law, i would join eliot, i would serve him in albany for eight or 12 years and then i would go to washington within when he became president of the united states, and then i would die a peaceful and virtuous death after having served the last 20 or so years of my life in government. and that was the assumption on that day. obviously, didn't work out that way. during the administration, i served as senior policy advisor. and despite all that, on

march 9, 2008, when i found out about what you all found out on march 10, 2008, and their brother came to an end, i felt that i didn't understand what had happened. i'm not talking about the scandal. i'm not talking about the prostitution scandal. i felt i didn't know what had happened in the previous 17 months, transition, and the administration. i knew the facts. i was there for most of the facts. i was working in the administration, in fairly close proximity to eliot. but i didn't know the meaning of those facts. so i decided to go, to try to go beyond the mere facts and to look for the truth. that's what happens when you write a book like this, when you really open your mind and explore facts and go beyond mere facts and factoids, to the meaning of facts and seek truth.

i did that for myself. initially. i wanted to understand what the hell had happened here. what had happened doing enterprise which so much hope and expectation had been poured into, and how it all came apart. so quickly. and so that's what i did it. and once i did this for myself, i realized that not only i, but the people in the state of new york, were in a similar position. on january 1, 2007, they were told that everything about new york state would change on day one. and on march 12, 2008, when eliot resigned, they knew that most things had changed and that they have changed for the worse, frankly. and since then, things in the state have steadily gotten even worse. and frankly with no end in

sight. i felt that the people of the state of new york deserve to know what happened. again, not what happened with problems but what happened with their government. the phrase that was in my head was from another book up to something autobiography, malcolm x. and i remember bottom had said we didn't land on plymouth rock. plymouth rock landed on us. and i felt that the people of the state of new york, plymouth rock and landed on them and all they had gotten really was three minutes and 46 seconds into public appearances along the lines to those much is given, much is expected, i screwed up, i'm leaving, good luck. and i felt that the people of this state deserve to know a lot more. they need to understand more

than this. again, not about prostitutes but about their government. their past, current, and likely future governor, their legislatures, there attorney general, the district attorney, the various agencies, the mind-boggling number of redundant agencies that are there to investigate official corruption in the state. they need to understand what trooper gate was all about. i don't think very many people know what that's all about. and i think if you read this book, you know, if you read this book you will once and for all understand what that was all about. what was that drivers license initiative? do you remember, what the hell was that all about? this book will explain what that was all about. the budget, you know, people upset. i think it was clemens though that said when making laws is like making sausages.

making a budget, especially in new york, is like making scrapple for people up into the pennsylvania dutch country which is measured and sausage that we make around a hundred $25 billion worth of scrapple every year in the state of new york. is explained how that scrapple is made. remember that controller election when alan pleaded guilty to a crime and had to be replaced? what was that all about? this book explains what that was really all about. the ongoing nightmare in the state of the failure to properly compensate both judges and legislators and the state. you know, nobody says they are paid enough. that is an ongoing nightmare in this state. and, you know, garbage in, garbage out. this book explains how that happened and why those compensation levels are frozen where they were in love and/or 12 years ago.

this book explains the calamitous failure to reform school funding, and medicaid spending in the state. and to upgrade public higher education, and to reform the inefficiency of the state's roughly 5000 local governments. all of that floundered as a result of this historic failure of this plague year. know what actually happened make you people information and understanding that they both deserve, and possibly can use, to make things better. when they confront these policy issues and maybe when they go to the ballot box next time, and have a choice of some of the people that were involved in this plague year, because it wasn't just eliot and it wasn't just all of us. i'm looking at some of my colleagues, and we are all part of the spitzer administration, but there were many other people in the state government that

went all. now the book. that's what i wrote the book. okay. the book itself. roughly 290 pages. when a it started out, i read it again, i do read three or four times. it was 600 pages. and i boil down to 290 pages. now, 50 of those pages are what you have heard about already. there's been a lot of articles and pieces about this, and 50 pages are about the ending, about those terrible 61 hours and the fight to keep eliot from resigning, and all of that and all of those revelations. the book begins that way around 10 pages, and it ends with with about 40 pages of that. but the core of the book, route 240 pages, is the stuff i just talked about. now, the ending is very compelling, very heartrending, you know? but the most important part of

that, not the revelation, not about client rate and all that, it's about the fight to get that was waged by me and by his wife and his by his sister to try to get him not to resign. it was that's most important part about that. at the moment that we found out about this, and i found out, most of the people became disillusioned. and i lost my disillusionment. i was disillusioned all year long, you know? these two young people are up front, you know that because i was talking to them about all year long. what is going on with this guy? this guy has been the best state attorney general in 220 year history of our country encompassing 1550 state agencies, men and women, and how he could have performed this way

i didn't understand what was going on. and then, i understood what was going on. i understood what has caused, you know, most if not all of this. and so i lost my disillusionment. in the fight that we may drink those three days was to say to eliot, this is terrible, this is terrible, but you can survive, you know, remember -- what would've happened if ted kennedy -- i remember chappaquiddick. teddy kennedy spoke at my commencement at williams in 1969, june of 1969, three or four weeks later, chappaquiddick occurred. and teddy kennedy, like eliot, wealthy man, he could have gone quietly into the sunset at that point in time, he could've lived the life of a rich man our playboy or do anything you want, but he didn't. he said i am carrying the hopes and dreams of a lot of people.

the legacy on my shoulders, the hopes and dreams of the people of massachusetts, and a certain part of the united states. so he went back and he thought. he took abuse everyday for the rest of his life that he was beautified maybe in the last six months of his life, but without exception he took wrapped every day for the rest of his life because he knew he had a responsibility. and with the benefit, you come up a little dispassion, we are saying settled down, boy, you can survive this. and maybe you won't, but you owe it to everybody else to make this fight, to put up this fight and maybe he will survive, and then you now, free of all the stuff, can go on and become the great governor that you are destined to be. you can be a governor the way you are and attorney general among the very best at history, but we lost that fight. so, after that, after that introduction of the book, the

book gives you a brief history of a relationship between eliot any of which i've are given you. we go into the transition to power, which i thought was just an abysmal transition. i was the co-chair of it. we lost an amazing opportunity at that point in time. elliott spitzer was the best game in the country for a progressive. with several years before the formation of the democratic national government, and we could have had the best and brightest from entire country and indeed the entire world. instead, we settle on some good and some poor and some very good local prospects, people like me, instead of going out there and getting the very, very, very best to run the various agencies in the state and to people the executive staff. so we talk about that failed opportunity, and i write about that. the inauguration.

remember that? remember when eliot, 45 seconds after taking the oath of office, attacked joe bruno and shelly silver and george pataki. but especially bruno and silver. people he would need within the next two weeks to do virtually everything that he had to do some and in particular to replace controller alan. so the next thing the book goes through is that whole thing where elliott essentially picks a fight that he can only win, that he can only win if people that get just insulted were willing to let him and they said why would we let you in that? you just dissed us in the entire state and in front entire country. after that the book goes into the 2007, 2008 budget. to me and in the book i say that that was very subtle but it was the most telling failure, both

substantively and procedurally of the administration. you know, you get these opportunities once every 10, 15, 20 years. we had to address major issues in terms of the way schools in new york are funded. medicaid spending which was choking off virtually every other initiative that would want to do. and all of that could have been addressed in the budget. but by that time we had completely alienated the legislature. elliot had drawn a line in the sand. he said i will allow a late budget, if that's necessary to have a good budget. and i will have this done in the light of day. and at the very end he opted for an on-time budget. he closed the doors. he did and, i don't know whether a smoke-filled not, there's no smoking allowed on the second floor anymore, but it was smoky in there, and it was done behind

closed doors and it was a vintage closed-door mediocre c+, d- budget. and the lost opportunity. you don't get this every year. there's a budget every year so you can do it next, you know. the issue that we're addressing that are the issues you get a chance to address once every so often. now remember, we passed this health care bill this year, and you may think it's great how you may think it stinks. but it was the first opportunity to do that since 1993. when the clintons failed to do this, it was the clintons, it was hillary clinton and bill clinton, and the clintons failed to do this in 1993, the next opportunity that came along was 16 years later. so you don't get another chance the next year just because there is another budget. and the failure in that budget

to me was the most telling failure of the plague year. onto the judges salaries. which is addressed in this book. judges salaries and legislators salaries have been set, have been fixed where they were in lebanon 12 years ago. and this book explains how that happened, and this was the year, 2007 was the your work though salaries could have been raised very, very easily, and when you fail to compensate the people who cover new, you know, garbage in, garbage out. that's what happens. so this book explains that. and, of course, in doing that we alienated a key committee comeback unit of 1300 state judges in the state. and then on to what i call in the book the recent unpleasantness, which i call trooper gate.

i said at the time, i said to my colleagues here, i'm just not going to call this trooper gate. i'm not going to use the gate suffix here. it's just, you know, i'm not going to do that. so i called it true or the recent unpleasantness. when i do my reading i will call trooper gate. which involves two tragedies. the first tragedy is that we spent any time whatsoever, one second, trying to let everybody know what everybody already knew. everybody in the state already knew that joe bruno, like to fly around on state helicopters and state airplanes, and go around state police vehicles with the sieben on. everybody knew that. george pataki nude george towery grounded bruno. know when you do that. at the time joe bruno was on his way out. he was under federal

investigation that there was a grand jury sitting in investigating him and his wife was very, very sick and would die a year later, and all that joe buddha wanted, and, you know, i like joe bruno, frankly. i think when jan and i drove here tonight we drove past the exit to the joe, the stadium over there. joe bruno a couple shallot for the state. he wasn't exactly my cup of tea or eliot's top of tea, but all he wants to do was get a graceful exit. so instead we extended all this effort to try to discredit somebody under federal investigation at the time and on his way out. so that was the first tragedy. and a second tragedy is that when all of this came to light, you know, this effort to discredit joe bruno, nine investigations were done. does a 10th also, but nine investigations were done.

the attorney general, three done by the albany district attorney, won by the state investigation commission, one by the senate investigation committed to by the and inspector general. and not one of those investigations was done in a professional manner, and this book explains how all of those investigations were mishandled, and how those investigators violated the law, you know, scores of times, scores of times attempting to do a relatively simple and straightforward investigation of bad conduct by state officials. so there's two tragedies. and then we get a break and we go right into driver's licenses for undocumented aliens. what was that all about, the policy? the stage retreat from that, the fact that that had on national

politics. it affected the 2008 presidential election, and at the time, seven or eight states were granting licenses to undocumented aliens for good reason. 11 states had done it. now it's dangerous to you can't do that anymore. so you cannot adopt this sensible policy because the plague of new york spread to the rest of the country, and as i said, effective policy around the country and affected the 2008 election. and then the book goes into a period of recovery, a change in tactics, a brilliant state of the state speech which was written by a colleague of ours, peter, and delivered brilliantly by eliot, a much better budget in the second year. an election win in the north country. and as i write in the book, it seemed, although our expectations are really low.

i want you to understand that. nor did what we were shooting for, you know, where we were shooting for the stars, we are now shooting at the horizon. but we were at least shooting straight. in early 2008. and when it just seemed like everything was finally starting to gel and come into place, i had that conversation with eliot on sunday night at 10:37 p.m. march 9, 2008. and the next day at 1 p.m., everybody else found out about it. and in the book ends with those 61 hours in the month after went out late and i try to pick up the shattered pieces of our careers. well, i would like to do a little reading for you, and to make the point that this book is not about, you know, just about that ending. i'm going to read from the chapter called changing course, or changing the subject. and it's about the policies of

granting driver's licenses to undocumented aliens. and i have edited it to focus on that particular issue, and for those who don't know, when i refer to the second floor, that's where the governor office is. so that's the second floor. and unlike in the book, i will refer to this as trooper gate but in the book it is true. so anyway, when trooper gate erupts and the battle between eliot and joe bruno intensified in july 2007, 1 casualty was a package of bills embodying the governor's priority. and those in the senate and assembly. on our list had been campaign finance reform, property tax rebates for senior citizens, a law to expedite the siting and construction of clean energy power plants, reform of the wicks law, and other bills involving public authorities

reform, brownfields cleanup expansion of the state dna database, and a healthy school's nutritional plan. priorities of the legislation had been roughly $1 billion in capital projects, which the members could campaign on, the elections to be held in november, 2008. a compromise which would have resulted in the enactment of both sets of bills, old favorite but eliot and others favored by the legislature, were skillfully crafted by which bound, the style and assurance of a master chef. after trooper gate a rugged, buddha and the senate majority walked out leaving ridges banquet in a dumpster. when that happened the administration's attention had shifted from enacting new law to the major progress that could be achieved in the agency and public authorities directly or effectively under the governor's control. the agencies were fashioning and pushing reform within existing budgets, and without new

legislation. and the two months between the july 23 cuomo report, in september to one, our press office and those at the agencies held at scores of these initiatives, using three state housing agencies, eliot pumped hundreds of millions in to affordable housing projects, and a program designed to slow the wave of housing foreclosures beginning to sweep across new york and the nation. upstate economic development became the focus of more than a dozen grant approvals. eliot began several programs that confronted the reality of the large and growing immigrant population in the state, both legal and undocumented. these and other programs that exist in the states immigrants were important to eliot. a second generation of america, he understood that new york economic vitality have always benefited from the constant influx of immigrants. both lawful like kelly's grandparents, and illegal, like

my own mother. with the legislator -- with the legislature out of town, eliot seemed to settle down a bit. despite all that had happened, eliot seemed stoically committed and at peace. right after labor day, eliot made a television appearance at an evening session of the u.s. tennis open as a guest commentator along with john mcenroe, his old schoolboy rival on the tennis court and soccer field. in my estimation, it was the best tv appears eliot has ever made. he exuded poise, confidence, and command chatting about a sport he loves and plays well. and about his then recent battle with the legislature. the hopeful in which i took away from the apparent was that two men who had conquered their tempers and their inner demons to become dominant world champions. on september 21, 2007, eliot announced yet another agency initiative and tending to

benefit the immigrant population in the state as a whole. coming from the department of motor vehicle, this initiative required not a legislation nor additional funding and what did save new york and its residents? hundreds of millions annually making the state safer and more secure in the process. eliot announced that in the samba 2007, the dmv would resume issuing drivers licenses in the manhattan until 2002, the year that agency under a talk he began requiring social security numbers as proof that a license applicant was lawfully residing in new york state. eliot's purpose was to enable illegal aliens to obtain driver's license. when eliot announced in september new york was hardly alone. at least 11 other states in recent years had similarly licensed. at the time of his announcement, seven or eight were doing it. many tangible and quantifiable benefits would accrue.

all of that seemed to matter, for about four days. rationality prevailed during that brief period as the program was applauded by police and immigrant rights groups, which recognized that large numbers of illegals seeking licenses would finally come out of the shadows. this brief rationality was made possible by the hospitalization of lou dobbs, the nation's most rabid fearmonger. moreover, joe bruno's first public reaction to the announcement had been sane and concise, joe said, quote, we have hundreds of thousands of aliens here and i'm not sure if it serves the public good to deprive them of the ability to go to school, to go to work, to do the kinds of things you have to do to lead a normal life. this statement was a calm and considered opinion of a legislator from upstate, were virtually the only way to get around is to use a private

vehicle. the very next day, the post reported bruno's change of heart. he apparently hadn't spoken to to by republicans party boss who already was rallying against the plan. bruneau denounced the licensed as quote a political move on the part of the governor to get these people beholden to him. they can vote. they are not even legal. exactly one day bruna had retreated to the new york be mantra that the margin of many recent democratic electoral have been provided by eliot, voting illegally and in gratitude to the party that made it a listen residency in new york both possible and cushy with privileges lawfully reserved to our people. after that, a heated debate ensued. on the bruno side, the last guy being the leader of a group of county clerks who vowed to defy

the governor and taken to court, the argument was and ugly shouting match, racism and appeal to fear about terrorism. a few days later, lou dobbs got out of the hospital and returned to his show on cnn, and the rant against eliot became a nightly national event. most of jobs just join in smashing the piñata. one night, however, jose serrano, a new york legislator from puerto rican descent appeared as a gift in support of the governor. after his appearance, toronto was bombarded with hate mail, including a demand for him to return to mexico. these people all look and sound alike. we don't have a good handle on this very large and more or less population of our work force. we know they are here and when we allow ourselves, we see them. or at least glance over legally at them. in late october 2007, 6 weeks

after the licensed plan what national, i attended a very heated sunday morning breakfast meeting along with eliot, david paterson, senator eric schneiderman, and several let you know legislators. the lawmaker spoke with passion about the practical and symbolic importance of the license plan to their constituents. their most important point in telling point was to and challenged us to look around the restaurant, behind the counter and in the kitchen, and see the illegal population. they were preparing and serving our food, washing our dishes, keeping the plays nice and clean. so that politicians like eliot could drop it a fanfare for the common man by dining in such regular joe establishment. it was a sobering challenge. since then i've looked around more carefully. my manhattan and upstate commuters and have seen these people everywhere. working for me and making my life more pleasant.

the most prominent of the national leaders who got sucked into the debate over eliot's plan as the democratic party's presidential candidate in 2008. at the debate held on october 30, 2007, several candidates were drawn into taking the position on eliot's plan. senator christopher dodd of connecticut, who rarely opposed it, barack obama had been clear, concise and firm in his support for eliot's initiative. in contrast to obama's clear day go and dodd's unequivocal nay, seemingly supporting and opposing, then reacting angrily when the other candidate that tim russert had noted inconsistency on an issue.

that night as the democratic candidates have debated at drexel university, the city of brotherly love, citizens of the second floor had critiqued the credits performance in cyberspace. focusing on the leading candidates about the licensed by. my support for obama and antipathy for hillary were well-known on the second floor, had been a catalyst for a rapidfire involving me and for clinton loyalist. hillary clinton just gave the best defense of our license plate on national television that i have heard yet. e-mail, too. and choose our taking heat for it. as coach east said you listen with forked year. what i hear was known about and equivocating as usual. and edward, and obama's after four and obama's sport us without equivocation. broadus amo. e-mail for.

you got me there. but she's the only one who has a thing to lose by even defending them. e-mail five. agree with floyd. she was a disaster. should have either sold us out which they will ultimately to our stuck to a tough position that she is giving life to the emerging, central criticism that she won't take a real position on anything. the next a rudy giuliani, the vents leading candidate for them a potent nomination for president, launched a broadside attack against hillary over me and positions on the licensing plan, a tax on harry continued for the next two weeks and mark the first time she showed real vulnerability of what many people had predicted would be a clinton run away. among those betting heavily on hillary was david paterson who had abandoned his almost certain to just the state's powerful senate majority leader, a largely ceremonial job, eliot's lieutenant governor.

it appeared he expected eliot to appoint him to replace hillary in the united states senate in the event of hillary's move to present. that would've meant moving joe bruno's deputy majority leader are not spent into the position of succeeding him as governor. because by january 2009, they would have succeeded joe but as president tim pouring of the civic on the question of whether hillary -- whether it would have a would have appointed paterson to replace hillary, i don't think eliot had an answer. although the question has been on everybody's mind, regardless of whether he had made any in pleasanton and to david, i doubt, i doubt he would have appointed him to replace hillary clinton. i do not believe eliot web would have risen placing the state any of those forehands. relative to them, david paterson

is a variable benjamin disraeli. as hillary was being pummeled over the license issue, other assume alice of trantwo's, the most harmful opposition from the possible exception of hillary, which may have been this positive, had come from mayor mike bloomberg and shelley so that the mayor had worried out loud to giving illegals the same licenses to lawful residents would render new york state license ineffective as photo identification necessary for boarding a domestic. that wasn't true. but it brought into play the contentious issue of realizing. trantwo's responsibly burgs state concerns had been any and angry. bloomberg is wrong at every level, dead wrong. actually wrong, legally wrong, morally wrong, ethically wrong. at doing the strident tone of many of eliot's statement earlier in 2007.

it also wasn't the first time that mike bloomberg had forgotten the boundaries of his authority to give legally pronounced our latest hands-on issue or a thing clearly outside the jurisdiction. bloomberg's medicine is an accurate reaction and eliot angry and highly quotable response occurred in the first week of the debate. and it made it safer for others to oppose eliot plan. since they were challenging and in temperate bully, as eliot becoming viewed by many, the most damaging reversal of our support came from hillary in the course of five minutes in and from shelly silver over a printed several weeks. when shelley jumped ship, the polls on the license issue were running almost 70% against. daily defections by democratic legislators made would have seemed unthinkable, passage of law to block or plant increasingly likely. after the presidential debate,

and in turn second floor called on to pull the plug on the plan before the democratic controlled assembly followed the republican state senate in passing a bill to block it. the group discussion of whether to fight or fall would help a senior executive staff retreat on election day at eliot farmhouse, into a late-night conference call on november 12. the retreat has been canceled and rescheduled several times before we finally convened on election day. the official agenda and my own for this meeting capped changing. as news events unfolded. one of my items has been to build a second floor consensus for removing malcolm smith as the senate minority leader. keep on looking at this one up from because she was helping me prepare all this. however method recently performed so badly there seems to be little utility in beating a dead horse but he had recently

died is that by saying the governor had put him up to fight a play against joe bruno with the irs. but he just couldn't do it. it just wasn't right. in fact malcolm loved it is time and went can't start to point his finger. our continued efforts to pursue bruno in this manner and to put malcolm in the middle by using him as our messenger had been sheer stupidity, at least bridges, or both. the retreat had been for the most part upbeat. were not causing losses for democrats and local election contest around the state. although proponents of pulling the plug on the license but had not gotten a commitment from l. it at the retreat, it seemed to them that this would eventually happen. on november 12, 2007 can i echo

big eliot to an event at the new york hilton for the state universities liberal arts college purchase was honoring cunningham. after la's brief and gracious remarks focusing on nelson rockefeller's legacy in the performing arts in the state university, we were chatting with a group of friends, someone raise the license of and eliot, absurd edit cause his' popularity ratings to decline from near 7010 year 30. i to eliot aside and i asked him, what he would do if hillary or barack called and asked him to pull the plug and to the private republicans of what always being perceived as a potential 2008 wedge issue. eliot, responded that he, not clinton or obama, was governor of new york. i took that assurance to the bank, and to the conference call late at night, when all but i on

the senior staff try to persuade eliot to cut. i didn't need to argue the plan's merits as most of those urging eliot to surrender actually thought the plan was beneficial. instead, i argued that we were getting the reputation of backing down from clearly stated principles, whenever we were faced with a possibility of defeat. after hearing everyone out about the license plan near midnight, november 12, alia said that he had quote crossed the rubicon and he would stick with the plan. early the next morning as i was getting ready to leave manhattan, for a trip to state university campuses in the north country, eliot called me at my home to tell me that hillary had phoned and asked him to drop the licensing plan. eliot's voice was somber and sad, and before i could ask, he said he had agreed to pull the plug on the plan in

washington, d.c., the next day, november 14, 2007. i appreciate the fact that he called himself before i could hear this news in the other way. i neither try to change his mind nor parade him for doing something he clearly didn't want to do. my unexpressed question was how he could have been so resolute the night before when i had posed a hypothetical that had now come to task. instead of asking it, i did some sleuthing small talk about my eminent drive to the adirondacks. dinner that night with lake placid mayor jimmie rodgers and lunch the next day with freshman assemblyman darrell alber dean. who was this guy i was making small talk with? not eliot. that moment was death valley for me. it wasn't because the license plan was so damn important. initially it had been a good plan, especially given the federal government consistent

failure a comprehensive deal with the multifaceted problems created by the permanent illegal alien population. the revised three-tiered plan introduced real problems of administrative complexity. i didn't reckon that this particular moment was the low point because of the spectacular reversal in eliot's poll numbers. it was eliot complete reversal. it was eliot complete reversal in less than 10 hours on the position of principal. once stated publicly to the senior staff and privately to me. that caused my spirits to plunge. however, as a thing about low points point, unless you not actually engage them correctly them there's no place to go but up. thank you. [applause]

>> so that's what the book is about. that's what the book is about, and this is a brief, didn't seem to you, seems to like it was endless, right? [laughter] smack but that is a brief excerpt from a very, very detailed discussion of the license issue. and there are similar discussions of the budget and a trooper gate, and a compensating judges, and other controlled and of the attorney general, et cetera. so i would be very pleased and honored to answer any questions that you might have. it was that long? [laughter] >> no questions? >> you can always count on a friend to ask a question during the awkward pause. >> everybody knows all the bad things that happened to new york state, to everyone, and all the

dashed hopes and everything. everyone knows about all the bad things that were the result of all this. but aside from, aside from you having written a book, you know, a good thing, but aside from that, are there any things that were a good result from any of this awful event, you think? >> let me answer the question this way. what about all the good stuff? okay, you read a lot about the good stuff in the book. it's in there, things we attempted to do. and actually, someone very close to this, this administration, asked me and try to dissuade me from writing this book and said, why don't you write about all of the good stuff that was done and all the dedicated people. and indeed i dedicated the book to those people. i'm looking at some of the people that i dedicated the book. the dedication of the book is

this book is dedicated to the hundreds of men and women who followed eliot spitzer to albany in 2007 in an effort to improve new york state. and also to the staff of the second floor who school bus when we arrived and continued their fine work after we departed. so that was a lot of good work done during the administration. but, you know, the good work was so overwhelming -- overwhelmed by these tragic am the failures and these lost opportunities. you know, when i greeted the administration, i gave it a decent grade. i used to be a college professor so i know how to grade and i gave it a decent grade. but this was an administration that was capable of a+ work. and again, the failure that occurred during this administration cannot be remedied in a day or a week, or in a year or even in a decade.

i mean, when an administration like this goes down, damage is also done to all of the policy, all of the policy, all of the institution that that administration champions. so what i said to the person who asked me not to write this book, i said that though, the book you want me to write about all the good stuff to be even a sadder book, a sadder book than this one because it would be a book exclusive am exclusively about dashed hopes and perhaps somebody will write that book. and the damage goes on, it goes on. is happening today in new york state. the reason we don't have a budget has to do with a better harbor that was sown during the spitzer administration, the election next year is likely to produce more, unit, bad results.

but if you read the book carefully you will see all of the great ideas that we had. and we get some stuff. you know, we did some stuff. i'm looking at a couple of young people who work for me, and one of them still works in the administration, and he is doing marvelous work, you know, and he is doing great work. but it was just overwhelmed, you know, overwhelmed. i'm sure something good happened that day that the tsunami hit, right? but people are not talking about, you know, the good ml from that day. they are talking about the tsunami. >> would do, could you, is there anything you think you could have done to make things a little different? >> yeah, yeah. look, when you write a book like this, you've got to do it with brutal honesty, with respect to

everybody else and just sell. there's probably a level of 12 places in the book why take myself to task for stuff that i didn't do right. as the book points out, when i saw, and i didn't know what i was looking at, but i knew there were problems there at the end of the transition. i had penned a letter to eliot sank i am not attending to administration. sylvia began trying. she said please, do not go to work for eliot. and gave me some recent that i should have joined this administration. i might've had some better ability to help him, i got really believed in, if i had not joined. i point out that during the trooper gate investigation, i was one of five of the old lawyers that were pressed into defending the second floor and the executive chamber in trooper gate. and i made it basic rookie error there in the terms the way we

handled it that i should have advocated, as i say in the book, instead of being a lawyer and doing this in a lawyerly way, i should have screened at the top of my lungs, we're going to turn over every document regardless of the required at we do it or not regardless of privilege, we're going to turn over every document that we will load them in a truck, we will hand him over to the times union so they have them and the "new york times" and the post and the daily news. we will put all the witnesses, as i say, in a bunch and we will park them in front of the public integrity commission, and andrew cuomo's office, and the district attorney's office, and there's going to be a neon sign flashing say we want to testify, now. i should have done that, and instead, i acted like, you know, a lawyer represent some corporation. the state of new york is not a corporation. people on the government, okay? and i made a mistake there, and my colleagues the senior lawyer

team made a mistake. and i made, you know, many other heirs. when you do this, you know, you know, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. so i felt it was necessary, you know, to confess my sins in this book. again, this was the spitzer administration. this was not a failure in the failing of simply one man. it was the failure of the administration. yes, ma'am. >> i am a marine. >> hi, morning. how are you. >> i am sure many people will think this in the coming months, but comparing eliot success during his tenure as a g. and then to sort of see him and compare the governor period of time, is it that much of a difference between the roles you play as an ag and the role you play as a governor, was a factor? >> as i said in a book i was asked, unit, 100 times in

interviews, that was going to be the unofficial interviewee about eliot's manifest destiny. and every time i was asked, do you think he can make this transition, his weapons have been complaint, indictment, accusation, subpoena, can this guy -- so prosecutorial make the transition. and i said of course. i have seen him make transactions all the time. he does it with poise and confidence, and i do not believe that it was that disconnect, that it was, this guy was a born prosecutor. i believe the problem lay elsewhere. as i say in the book, it's pretty clear to me that the conduct that he was engaging in was going on throughout 2006, by the time he became governor he had to know, eliot is so brilliant, andy had been a prosecutor. he had been ahead of the rackets

bureau in the manhattan d.a.s office. this guy knew he was going down. he knew he was going down soon. he was walking around throughout that plague year with the understanding that there was a gun, unit, aimed at the back of his head and was not a question of whether that gun was going to go off, but when. and in the mental anguish, i mean, you know from your own life, i know from my own life, when anguish is going on you do not perform the way you would otherwise perform. and this kind of mental anguish, knowing that he had all of this on his shoulders and is all going to come to not, i believe that that just tortured him and lead to all of the mistakes that i don't think it was his inability to adapt. i think it was his inability, you know, to do with the mental anguish. and that's because he is human. that's because he is a human.

so that's what i think. yes, ma'am. >> do you believe that governor spitzer can rehabilitate himself politically? >> i believe that eliot, you know, is capable of most things other than beating the intent. [laughter] >> i do. incapable of feeling of doing that as well. i do, i do. look, the guy is brilliant. he is just, and again, it's not simply, you know, not just he is more. goes in my neighborhood, smart is just a dime a dozen. we're all smart here. but this guy, again, there've been 1550 state ag's in this country. and i'm somewhat of a scholar of that particular office or at has never been anything like eliot spitzer in terms of his effectiveness, his quality, his

power, et cetera. and i think he still has all of that. i think he is all of that intelligence. and he has now got, you know, the stuffing kicked out of them. and if he does what i did, frankly, he needs to do something like this. he doesn't need to publish it, but he needs to go back over this period of time and connect the dots, connect the facts, examine all of these events, questions, why he did that budget, why he picked those sites, why he would draw a line in the sand and immediately step back over that line. why he would come after a while, seek the most ridiculous demands that shelly silver would make, we are near the state university here, and as i put in the book of shelly comes into her office one day and he says we need a