Chris Newton participated in an interview with News Channel 9 in Chattanooga. He still doesn’t get it.

I did the best I could while in office and I’m sorry for the outcome of the last few months,” Newton says.

It’s a bittersweet election for the former State Representative. Since he was 21, he’s been an elected official for Bradley, Meigs and Polk counties.

And while he says he never sees himself running for office again, Newton ironically says he’s never felt better.

“There’s been like a load’s been lifted off my shoulders,” Newton says.

He did the best he could? I am having trouble believing that. In fact, I’m not sure that Newton even knows what that means.

“I think if there’s one downfall that I had personally, it’s that I allowed that position to consume me, to become my identity,” says Newton.

Newton says what he did was was business as usual in Nashville and that’s why he resigned November 1st.

What a perversely weak man. First, allowing the position of state representative consume you oughtn’t result in the routine taking of bribes. I would think that letting the position “consume you” would result in overzealous representation of your constituents, not personal enrichment at the expense of betraying their trust. Second, he cops out and blames it on “business as usual.” Horrible. And he says this as if it was a justification for his behavior. This “boy” (I refuse to call him a man any longer) deserves what he gets.

Newton calls money the key to political corruption, and says there’s no hope for Nashville unless the politicians get back to their roots.

“They need to take a look in the mirror and they need to ask themselves, ‘are we doing everything that we should be doing to ensure fairness, integrity, and ensure that we’re doing things in an ethical manner?’”

Newton says that’s how he plans to live his life. And he says he hopes others learn from what happened to him, cautioning, “Don’t make choices that you cannot live with.”

Newton’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for February. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

Consider the source. The entire story sounds as if he was on Oprah, bearing his soul for all to see, expecting some sort of absolution. Well, this Baptist ain’t buying it. Newton can do us all a service and completely disappear from public life. He’s done enough damage as it is.