Day One: Everything Changes. Day 207: Everything Has Changed. The governor didn’t take my advice. In a piece published in Tuesday’s Sun, we concluded by calling on Mr. Spitzer to “repent, before it is too late.” Instead, he went to the editorial board of the Daily News with a limited denial that seemed calculated to avoid the perjury trap.

The problem is, not one person in a hundred believes he is telling the truth. He lied before, about his father’s loans to his campaign, and admitted it to the News. That upset Michael Goodwin, who wrote a devastating column about Mr. Spitzer’s integrity. He was incensed by Mr. Spitzer’s excuse, “I had to.” To me, that is a much better excuse than “I did it because I could.” Who else would lend Eliot Spitzer $10 million besides his multi-millionaire father?

His latest departure from truth, denying involvement in the plot to trail Senator Bruno, is simply not credible. The modified, limited hangout which he gave to the News would not deceive a cub reporter, much less an editorial board. Once again we have the situation where a politician digs himself into a deeper hole each time he speaks.

The irony here is that what he is accused of, even if he did it, is not criminal. The former governor, George Pataki, denied Mr. Bruno permission to use the state plane after they had a dispute over the State Racing and Wagering Board, which Mr. Bruno viewed as his private property. Mr. Pataki thought it was part of state government.

When Mr. Spitzer became governor, Mr. Bruno asked him for permission to use the plane again. He quickly became a frequent flier. When his quarrel with Mr. Spitzer over pork in the budget descended into personal abuse, the governor could simply have done what Mr. Pataki did. Instead, he tried to show that Mr. Bruno used the plane for political purposes. Sure he did.

If it were state business, the petitioners could have come to Albany to see him. The development of teleconferencing also limits the need for face to face meetings, unless money is being passed from one person to another.

Mr. Bruno was smart enough to attach some flimsy state purpose to his helicoptering, so that according to the state’s lame rules on the subject, he was in the clear.

But he had no authority to command the use of the plane in the first place if the governor had forbidden him to use it. Instead, the governor engaged in a foolish plot to discredit Mr. Bruno for using state resources that are not supposed to be used for political purposes. The charge was true: Mr. Bruno did use state resources — police, pilots, and the plane — for his own political purposes. In fact, Mr. Bruno used the same state resources that Mr. Spitzer used in tracking the Republican majority leader of the Senate. What you have here is the pot and the kettle.

The way the game will play out is that Mr. Bruno will try to nail Mr. Spitzer by using the courts and investigators to expose the governor and his aides, Richard Baum and Darren Dopp. Mr. Spitzer will argue that these are internal executive matters, over which the Senate has no jurisdiction. The district attorney of Albany County, David Soares, is a wild card. He seems to have no problem bringing felony indictments against state-wide elected officials for relatively minor missteps.

In a way, one can say that all the parties are getting what they deserve. One group, however, that is not being served is the people of the State of New York, who deserve a state government that confronts issues, resolves acute economic problems upstate, spends funds equitably, avoids incurring further debt, and behaves in a responsible manner.

The sooner this nonsense stops and the parties get back to state business, the better.

Yet no passion is greater than the desire for revenge, particularly if it involves the humiliation of one’s enemies. So it is likely to continue until the combatants exhaust themselves.

It is unfortunate that the high hopes of “Day One” have turned into a squalid squabble by Day 207. For any responsible party, getting back to real work cannot happen too soon.

Mr. Stern, president of New York Civic, was New York City’s parks commissioner under Mayors Koch and Giuliani.

For more coverage of Governor Spitzer and his staff, including e-mail traffic between his press adviser and columnist John Podhoretz during his period as attorney general, see our home page at nysun.com.