Things are settling down in Kentucky after the Grand Inauguration featuring enough horses in the parade for every Indian to have had five on which to ride over Custer’s body at the battle of Little Big Horn. Actually, the new king had been crowned at the send-off dinner for KET’s Al Smith a few days before, a sort of Jackson-Jefferson Day dinner masquerading as a celebrity-fete. I tuned out after 17 minutes because it was getting too deep in the TV area. Later, Smith gave the state board of education a whacking in a Lexington Herald-Leader op-ed, calling its turndown of Beshear’s suggestion on how to do its commissioner-search job foolish and mean-spirited. He scorned the board on the program, as well.
True to form in Kentucky-crony politics, Beshear picked as his communications director someone who is tied as closely to KEEP as a bit is to the horse’s tongue. KEEP is the horse-force driving casinos as heaven-sent but only when at race-tracks. The appointment created a smell so strong (some claimed manure from the parade had been spread in the capitol) that the resignation of Mr. Osborne was almost as prompt as the acceptance of the goody, in the first place. KEEP will have to find another “inside operator,” but that shouldn’t be too hard, since the new guv is on the record as insisting that casinos will turn Kentucky into another Eden…before Adam took the gamble, of course.
Then, along came the new Finance and Administration Cabinet secretary in the person of Jonathan Miller, who conveniently dropped out of contention for the top job and endorsed Beshear last May. It turns out that Miller has made some miscues in hiring and “promoting” employees as state-treasurer (or is that just awarding some “raises”), but not to worry…everything will be straightened out. Beshear has said that top employees must take training in how not to do such things, but one suspects a simple dose of integrity is all that’s necessary.
Miller managed to “promote” a secretary hired in 2000 in a $21,000-a-year job to one now paying $78,981, with $25,000 accruing in raises in just the last three years. It turns out that the secretary accompanied Miller to Las Vegas for non-state business last May, so one wonders if they took a bit of vacation or carried out that four-day venture on state time. Actually, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader (15 December), Miller said, “No state-government work,” but also said, “We (presumably he and the secretary turned chief-of-staff ) had business meetings.” In Las Vegas…just the two of them…four working days? Couldn’t such non-state-business meetings be held in Frankfort? What business? Whose business?
The real kicker, of course, lies in the fact that Miller couldn’t remember when asked in October if the secretary was in on the jaunt (seven days after dropping out of the primary after spending a million big ones) and had to go check his records…or something, since, as he said, he traveled with a lot of different people. Well…Miller was also Democrat Party chairman while he was still treasurer and had a lot on his mind, what with the demanding treasurer’s job (which the repub candidate promised to try to abolish since it involves virtually no work), as well as getting his new benefactor elected, so he needs some slack cut for not remembering that trip in the merry month of May, whether he went alone or with whom. Wonder who paid the secretary’s tab, since no state funds were used? Ah…that “personal business,” he mentioned, as noted in the H-L.
Yeah…business as usual with the old democrat machine now back in place. That means no worry about any hiring or other patronage practices, since the new attorney general is a democrat, just as the attorney general was during the wooly Patton administration, although Ben Chandler at least fried his guv’s hide with regard to the Louisville vote-scheme. Philandering Paul pardoned four and thus kept himself, also, out of the fire. He claimed that Ben just wanted to be governor…sound familiar?
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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