A WEEK AGO I COULDN'T have told you the name of the governor of New York. I'm not proud of that. I should have known. Especially because he would become so famous so suddenly. "Of course, Gov. Eliot, um. . . Wasn't he a something before he became a something?"

Apparently, yes. Eliot Spitzer was a self-righteous prick before he became a scandalized schmuck.

Watching his awkward attempt to man up in the midst of his public humiliation was the short course in Spitzer 101. His two press conference appearances since being outted as Love Client Number Nine had all the appearances of candor, with none of the satisfying chewy taste . Spitzer spoke like a semaphore, flashing words like "atonement" and "remorse" and "apologize" in sentences crafted with the grace of Morse code. He acknowledged responsibility for wrongs he never admitted. He shouldered the burden of disappointing millions of New Yorkers who believed in the values "I tried to stand up for" when in fact it was laying down that got him into the mess he's in.

Like New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey's famous "I am a gay American" speech, Spitzer's oddly worded resignation statement seemed more like a political address to the future. It was all about values rather than judgement. As if there were values involved other than the $4,300 price tag for a piece of tail. And in true American compound-the-hypocrisy fashion, the famous faithless husband acknowledged his fall from grace before the world with his stunned and catonic, yet loyal, wife beside him, boring laser hole into his skull with her sad tired eyes.

Humbug. It's all humbug.

(And I wonder how much Kristen charges for a humbug job.)