Newspaper reporters find out that the Missouri Department of Revenue is giving away or selling without bids equipment that was used by state-owned license fee offices before they were privatized by the Blunt Administration. So all of a sudden bids are taken (though only fee office operators appointed by the governor are able to bid), but the DOR spokeswoman says it had nothing to do with news accounts or admonitions by State Auditor Claire McCaskill.
Now the governor's campaign committee, for a second time, has filed paperwork with the Missouri Ethics Commission acknowledging an "oversight" in reporting use of a Ford Explorer from Mike Kehoe Ford in Jefferson City. The first time the campaign filed an amended statement came when a forgotten use of a tour bus from the same Ford agency was added in April, one day after the Democratic party filed an ethics complaint about it. Coincidentally Kehoe was appointed to the State Highways and Transportation Commission. But Blunt's people were quick to say that the filing had nothing whatsoever to do with the ethics complaint; they just happened to come across this oversight while they were looking through campaign documents.
The pattern is obvious. If someone catches the Blunt campaign or Blunt's appointed state officials in an ethical quandary, suddenly action is taken...but not because they were caught.
Missourians grew used to inept leadership during the Holden years, so Matt Blunt's administration is just more of the same in that regard, but the apparent attitude that they can do anything until they get caught, then they can claim they were the ones who found out about the problem and corrected it (albeit poorly) and no one will notice is an insult to Missourians.
The Associated Press article on the Ford Explorer fiasco can be found at:
http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050826/NEWS01/508260374/1095
4 comments:
I would hardly consider having to drive a Ford Explorer a benefit. It would be more like a punishment, not only to me, but also to the people behind me on the road.
That said, any graft is bad graft, so don't let these guys off the hook, especially if they are selfish enough to drive an SUV in the first place.
In related news a blog is reporting that McCaskill will run for US Senate! Her campaign slogan should be "binging sanity back to Missouri government."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=162x3926
Seth, the US Senate is a federal office headquartered in Washington,DC not Jefferson City therefore a slogan "bringing sanity back to Missouri" might not be very appealing nes pas?
Of course it will, Bond and Tallent have not done a whole lot for the state in the period of time they have been behind the Beltway.
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