Sunday Roundup of Kentucky papers: Some important stuff here
Matt Gunterman July 8th, 2007
In case you missed it, here’s the roundup of what the Sunday papers in Kentucky had to say about the state of political affairs in the commonwealth.
From the Herald-Leader’s Joel Pett:
And even though this Herald-Leader editorial on Senator Mitch McConnell appeared Thursday, it’s still worth a closer gander here.
What’s important about it? Essentially, it makes the case that McConnell is the wrong man and wrong type of man to be leading the Republicans in the Senate at this point in our nation’s history.
McConnell is vulnerable for reelection next year and he is very much aware of it. Vulnerability for party leaders in the Senate is a rather new development, really. In fact, it was unheard of until McConnell and his fellow Republicans took out Democratic leader Senator Tom Daschle in 2004. The editorial could have pointed out that McConnell, with the Daschle episode, sowed the seeds of his own current discomfort on that one, and perhaps it did allude to it in the lede: “Be careful what you wish for — you just might get it.” Yep. So, in short, McConnell poisoned his own well. He was willing to sacrifice institutional integrity and functionality for his and his party’s own short term gain, and it’s now biting him in the ass now and is likely ruining his own chance at having any sort of positive legacy as a leader in the Senate.
Read: McConnell’s Clout: Immigration Debacle Hurts Senator’s Prestige
The Herald-Leader also had an excellent editorial today debunking false claims being made by the Ernie Fletcher campaign about Steve Beshear’s involvement with Kentucky Central Life Insurance.
The Courier-Journal today publishes a powerful editorial outlining many failures of leadership of Governor Ernie Fletcher, and it also highlights how others are stepping in to fill the void left by Fletcher’s failures.
Read: Why Not Leadership?
The dean of Kentucky political reporters, Al Cross, weighs in with his opinion of just how badly Governor Fletcher mishandled and misplayed his calling of the special session.
Read: Fletcher the Loser in Special Session Debacle
The best of the commentaries on Fletcher’s missteps on the special session comes from Larry Dale Keeling. You should read the entire piece, but I’ll include some excerpts below:
Fletcher never sees it coming
House had signaled adjournment for weeksBy Larry Dale Keeling
HERALD-LEADER COLUMNISTFRANKFORT — From day one, Gov. Ernie Fletcher and his closest advisers have been plagued by an inability to anticipate the possible negative consequences of their actions.
It never seems to occur to them that their bright ideas may have down sides. More than anything else, it is this failure that has produced the frequent displays of political ineptitude derided by prominent members of Fletcher’s own party.
Thursday, when House Democrats effectively shut down his ill-considered special legislative session less than two hours after it began, Fletcher suffered another embarrassment that he and his aides should have seen coming. Everyone else did.
After all, House D’s had been signaling their intentions for the last couple of weeks, countering all his arguments about the urgent need to enact incentives for alternative-fuel plants with expert testimony and evidence to the contrary.
A politically savvy governor, even one trailing in the polls during a re-election campaign, would have backed off rather than risk humiliation.
But not Fletcher. Not only did he call a special session without agreement from all sides on the issues and legislation to be addressed, he eviscerated his own argument that the session was all about the urgency of dealing with energy incentives by tossing 66 other topics into the mix.
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And Senate Republicans displayed no real enthusiasm for a fight with the House over continuing the special session.
During the debate on the House floor over the constitutionality of the Democrats’ vote to adjourn, Speaker Jody Richards dared, “Anybody want to go to court over it, have at it.”
Senate President David Williams had no interest in taking up that challenge. “I will not be a party to using the court system to try to force the other body back,” he said on the Senate floor.
[...]
Fletcher being Fletcher, and never anticipating consequences, he may well pursue some legal action. But the court hearings and briefs involved in such a case would just keep the weakness of his political leadership, as evidenced by his failures in this special session, in the news during the rest of the campaign.
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- Ernie Fletcher , Special Session , Steve Beshear
- Comments(1)
I especially like Pett’s addition of the candlelight. It really sets the mood.