After three years as The New York Times public editor, Clark Hoyt is departing, leaving his final column on Sunday with something of an exit interview.

Some of the highlights:

* He felt like an internal affairs cop: “It takes a lot of courage for an institution like The Times to invite someone like me into its midst: an outsider with no investment in its mystique or the quirks of its newsroom culture. I was handed the equivalent of a loaded gun -- space in the newspaper and on its Web site to write whatever I chose about its journalistic performance. My contract stipulated that I reported to no one and could be fired for only two reasons: failing to do any work or violating the company's written ethics guidelines. I tried hard to be responsible with the power."

* Biggest disagreement with Executive Editor Bill Keller? John McCain story: “When we had what was certainly our disagreement of greatest consequence -- over the Times article suggesting that John McCain had had an extramarital affair with a young female lobbyist -- Keller showed great equanimity. I said The Times had been off base. Though the story gave ammunition to critics who said the paper was biased, and it was no help to have the public editor joining thousands of readers questioning his judgment about it, Keller said mildly that we would just have to disagree on this one."

* Did one writer really threaten suicide? “A writer shaken by a conclusion I was reaching told me, if you say that, I'll have to kill myself. I said, no, you won't. Well, the writer said, I'll have to go in the hospital. I wrote what I intended, with no ill consequences for anyone's health.”

* On the Times as liberal rag: “If The Times were really the Fox News of the left, how could you explain the investigative reporting that brought down Eliot Spitzer, New York's Democratic governor; derailed the election campaign of his Democratic successor, David Paterson; got Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat who was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in ethics trouble; and exposed the falsehoods that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, another Democrat, was telling about his service record in the Vietnam era?"