The battle over Eliot Spitzer's executive order to give New York State ID cards to applicants without a social security number is escalating across the Op-Ed pages of the state.

New York Daily News:

Ruben Diaz, the Democratic state senator and Pentecostal minister from the Bronx, calls it the "worst display of racism" he's seen since his days as a young soldier in South Carolina in 1960.[...]

At least three of those who spoke at the Senate hearing are connected with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been spearheading legislation against legal and illegal immigration.

FAIR's founder and longtime leader John Tanton is perhaps the biggest nativist in the U.S. today and an open proponent of population control.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Tanton's FAIR received more than $1million in funding from the Pioneer Fund, an organization dedicated to promoting eugenics and "race betterment." The Pioneer Fund's leaders have even advocated sterilization of the "feeble-minded."

Tom Tancredo, the Republican congressman from Colorado who is running for President, testified against the Spitzer license policy at an Oct. 3 Republican Assembly hearing in Albany.

Tancredo told the Denver Post in July 2005 that immigrants "are coming here to kill you, and you, and me and my grandchildren."

He has also said: "There are places right now in East L.A. and southern Texas ... there is absolutely nothing you would say that makes them part of the United States of America."

These are the kind of people that Republicans in Albany called in as "experts" to testify about Spitzer's license policy.

The Albany Times-Union:

Eliot Spitzer's ID Card proposal is in free fall. His nominal allies are putting some daylight between themselves and the governor; admonishing editorials and stories published today are here, here, here and here; Joe Bruno, God help us, was on Lou Dobbs last night; and to put whipped cream and a cherry on top of the debacle, Darren Dopp is now refusing to testify in the earlier Spitzer/Bruno spat.

In short, Eliot is pretty much looking at a perfect political storm, one of his own creation, one might add. As we noted yesterday, the discussion of this proposal - which coincidentally is sound policy that would benefit the state - is officially off the rails.

So what to do? The governor could save himself, the remainder of his agenda, the prospects of Democrats in the election a few days away - and more importantly, in the election now a year away - and perhaps even his ID card policy, but to do that, he needs to give a speech like this one.

My fellow New Yorkers,

I come to you today with a message I would prefer not to have to give you, but see little choice in delivering: I have made a mistake. You may have heard of it. It concerns my policy to give all residents of this state a state drivers license regardless of immigration status.

Now, don't get me wrong: the mistake is not in the policy itself. That policy is sound. You don't get people like Richard Clarke and Bill Bratton to endorse a given policy if it has negative consequences for the people's security.

Rather, my mistake was this: I did not first reach out to you, my fellow citizens, to get your support before announcing this policy. However, in a democracy, the people need to be heard, no matter how much their government is convinced of its rightness on a given subject. You were not heard before my administration announced its decision, and in consequence, you are angry. Let me be the first to say that you have every right to be angry.