NYT public editor Daniel Okrent does his version of "regrets?/I've had a few ..." as he gets set to move on.

An excerpt:

11. Thank yous: I've mentioned my associate Arthur Bovino several times in my column, but at no point have I said that without him there wouldn't even be a public editor's office; the roof would have caved in months ago. Copy editors Steve Coates and John Wilson have at many points prevented me from making a fool of myself (when they failed, it wasn't for lack of trying). My old friend Corby Kummer, moonlighting from his job at The Atlantic Monthly, read and commented on all my columns before they went into the paper. Susan Kirby edited the periodic letters columns. Several score members of the staff of The Times were helpful, tolerant and pleasant, yet always true to the institution.

Mostly, of course, I have to thank the paper's readers. I especially cherish those whose periodic unhappiness with The Times, even at its most intense, is the byproduct of their loyalty to the paper, and their appreciation of its importance to their lives.

This attitude was best symbolized by a lengthy message I received my first week on the job, from the economist and former Wall Street Journal editorialist Jude Wanniski. His letter coursed through page after page of criticism of The Times's coverage of topics as diverse as its unquestioning acceptance of the assertion that Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds during the Iraq-Iran war (Wanniski maintains the Iranians were responsible for the atrocity) and the paper's abiding disregard for supply-side economics. At the end of this acidulous letter, Wanniski appended a P.S. "Having said that," he wrote, "it remains one of my life's great daily pleasures."

12. I wish I hadn't made so much noise, in print and in various interviews, about how hard this job was. Dexter Filkins, in Baghdad, has a hard job; Steven Erlanger, in Jerusalem, has a hard job. By any reasonable standard, public editor is a walk in the park.

13. During a tense encounter with a group of writers 17 months ago, economics reporter Louis Uchitelle asked what I hoped my legacy would be. I really had no answer, but like any good reporter, Uchitelle persisted; like any unprepared news subject, I dodged.

But a response came to me on the subway that evening, and I sent it to Uchitelle the next morning. "The true contribution that I can make to The Times," I wrote, "will be the product of 18 months of policies restated, staff members angered, readers disgruntled, procedures revised, and all the other missteps and false starts that must arise from an effort as new, as untested, and as inchoate as this one. When I move on, my successor will know how to do the job, and the people at The Times will know how to deal with it."

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Barney Calame.

For my part, I'll miss Okrent. I think he was an inspired choice as public editor. His columns always had the ring of truth -- and you can't say that about a lot of editors' columns.