Richardson gives emotional farewell to the House

That life almost ended on the night of Nov. 8 when Richardson was found in his Paulding County home after calling his mother and saying it was "too late."

Richardson opened himself up Thursday and offered a taste of the personal wasteland that led him to the brink. He and his wife had divorced in 2008, but Richardson said "I held out hope I was going to put my family back together again. I thought it was going to happen, and when the realization hit me a few weeks ago that it wasn't, I didn't think there was a reason to live, and I did not wish to live."

"I should have died," he said to a stunned and silent House Republican caucus.

His fall from power, of course, was not precipitated by his attempted suicide. No, he had appeared to have made a full political recovery from that moment. But his fate was sealed when his ex-wife went on television and told an interviewer that her ex-husband had cheated on her and had an affair with an Atlanta Gas Light lobbyist while he was simultaneously pushing legislation that would have benefited the utility.

Richardson and the rest of the caucus were in the House chamber on Thursday to choose his successor because the final spiral Susan Richardson's interview caused assured his colleagues that Richardson could not remain as speaker.

With that as the backdrop, what must it have been like for Richardson to sit in the chamber Thursday, there in the second row, the eyes of dozens of soon-to-be-former colleagues and the media he disdained and shunned trained on his back.

Few could see his reaction when lawmaker after lawmaker took to the podium, either to nominate a candidate for Richardson's job or to campaign for it themselves. The theme of each was a need to "move forward," to "change," and to "put the past behind us." Richardson said nothing, until called to the podium to say farewell.

"You as a House have accomplished much for which to be proud," he said. "I'm grateful you allowed me to be your leader. Along the way, wherever and whatever we may have failed, I take full responsibility for those failures. All of them. When you leave here today, you leave all those behind. And you leave them on my shoulders as I walk out of here. They're mine."

But, what is sure is that he touched many of his colleagues who were willing to allow him the closure of a final speech.

"I teared up," said Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta). "It was good to see him strong enough to be able to address the body and be able to talk about such a sensitive issues. He is a man who has been hurting, and he was man enough to come up and talk to us about it. You've got to respect that."

The speech was "transparent, emotional," said Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ranger). "We certainly wish him the best and will be praying for him and his family."