A short while ago, State Attorney General Greg Stumbo declared that he would not be a gubernatorial candidate in 2007 unless Governor Ernie Fletcher became “wildly unpopular.” Then (coincidentally?), dropped in his lap was that famous 288-page document from Doug Doerting, assistant personnel something-or-other in the somewhat infamous Transportation Department, with all sorts of claims about abuses in hiring with regard to merit jobs in his department. The Transportation Department was a source of constant irritation to Governor Patton’s administration because its honchos simply couldn’t escape the long arm of the law. One remembers, for instance, all the problems with kickbacks related to the painting (or non-painting) of the I-64 bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville. Mr. Doerting (conveniently) retired at the end of May.
Interestingly, this is a recent paragraph by Tony Fyffe in the Big Sandy News of Louisa, Ky.: In the four-year-old lawsuit, former highway department official Dan Hall accuses Doerting, assistant director for personnel services, of telling Hall to drop an issue involving alleged fraud in the highway department. Hall claims his reports of fraud and abuse led to a false job evaluation and his eventual removal from his job. Strangely, this matter, initiated in 2001, has not yet been resolved, and has the smell attached to it that Doerting has introduced in his recent maneuverings. Surely, AG Stumbo will look into this matter, though one should not hold one’s breath, democrats not anxious to put the hurt on one of their own, and, after all, Stumbo has only been in office for a year and a half…not enough time to take a look at the backlog.
Of similar interest was this statement by Stumbo noted in the Louisville Courier-Journal of May 17: Stumbo also said he was disappointed that his office had not been notified earlier of Doerting's allegations by state Auditor Crit Luallen or the Executive Branch Ethics Commission. Doerting met with officials in those offices earlier this year before meeting last week with Stumbo's investigators.
So…Stumbo is on the record as raising a humongous stink that just might cause the governor to be unpopular shortly after asserting that he would run only if the governor became unpopular. He has even talked already of the inevitable “smoking gun,” as well as the damning proof already in hand…but as yet not disclosed. He has performed admirably for the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Courier-Journal, both papers willing to make a deal even with the devil in order to do damage to Fletcher.
However, he may be pushing his luck a bit too far, with reference to Luallen, a popular democrat who has the added advantage of being a woman at a time when women are classified along with minorities, especially in the above-named papers, as being victims in a society in which victim-hood has risen to a place of unmitigated prominence. It has certainly been bandied about all over Kentucky for months that Ms. Luallen has her eye on the top job. So…in his slam against the lady, Stumbo may have crossed that unforgiving vale of chauvinism. If so, he’d better hope he finds lots of smoking guns in Doerting’s piles of papers. Not only will that help him against the guv; it will also help him against the lady. In fact, just as a show of good faith and all, maybe he ought to settle in on Doerting’s alleged peccadilloes. Nah! Never happen!
And so it goes
Jim Clark
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