In his first public statement on the corruption charges levied against him, Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) confidently and energetically denied that he had done anything wrong.

“I’m here to tell you right off the bat that I’m not guilty of any wrongdoing,” he opened. “I will fight, I will fight, I will fight until I take my last breath.”

He did not discuss the specifics of the charges, saying, “I’m not going to do what my accusers and political enemies have been doing” by addressing a complex issue in “thirty-second sound bites.”

“I intend to answer any allegation that comes my way,” he continued. “However, I intend to answer them in the appropriate forum, a court of law. And when I do, I am absolutely certain that I will be vindicated.”

He insisted that he would not resign, stating, “I’m not going to quit a job that the people hired me to do.”

He also put himself in the rare class of accused felons capable of publicly quoting Rudyard Kipling from memory:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating…