Wednesday, December 27, 2006

When loose cannons misfire...

Dan Druen is back in the news again.

When the Executive Branch Ethics Commission tagged the former Transportation Cabinet administrator last week for his starring role in the merit system investigation, the one-time villain became the darling of the state's Democrat-sympathizing media for uttering the equivalent of four little words: "Fletcher told me to."

Instantly, Druen went from zero to hero in the eyes of the Herald-Leader and Courier-Journal. They see Druen as leading the charge to take Gov. Ernie Fletcher down, and just in time for the 2007 gubernatorial election.

In their zeal to pound Fletcher, and the resulting lionizing of Druen for this brief fleeting moment, the state's liberal media and the slobbering Fletcher-hating Democrats are overlooking one key fact:

Dan Druen is in major CYA mode. No way does the originator and architect of the infamous "hit list" want to own up to his own transgressions. Nosiree. He wants to topple the administration that put its trust in him for a sensitive position, and whose trust he betrayed.

At the height of the investigation, when indictments were flowing like beer at a New Year's Eve kegger, two critical pieces of information -- long since vanished from public consumption.-- emerged. One was a huge profile that the Herald-Leader did on Druen. It almost -- almost -- made him a sympathetic figure. The other was a transcript of an interview the attorney general's office conducted with Druen, leaked in typical unprofessional Stumbo/Crawford-Sutherland fashion, right before Fletcher issued his pardons.

Taken, read and digested together, they leave no doubt that Druen was the "brains" behind the hit list. In Stumbo-speak, he was the daddy, but like Stumbo, he denies his parentage and refuses to pay support despite the DNA signature. And what's more, to mirror Stumbo, he flings baseless counter-allegations when confronted with his progeny.

If Druen was acting on orders from Fletcher, why did the two never meet until well into Fletcher's term, and then in a social setting rather than on official business?

Dan Druen has done enough damage to Ernie Fletcher and Kentucky Republicans. His refusal to take his medicine can only cause more trouble. Remember that the only felony indictment to come out of the merit system investigation itself was against Druen for allegedly shredding documents, and he never implicated the governor in that. It's obvious the shredding was done on Druen's own initiative. If the governor had been responsible, there's no doubt the biased grand jury would have indicted him for that as well as the three misdemeanors.

Druen needs to shut up before he causes more problems and digs a deeper hole for himself and Kentucky's GOP. This loose cannon needs to be taken out of service. Hide the powder and the cannonballs and keep them away from him.

If Druen wants to do everyone a favor, he'll depart Kentucky post-haste, never to return except to visit relatives on an infrequent basis. We'd be better off he he went back to Virginia and took up his former trade of furneral director. Obviously it was something he was good at. He may have already killed the governor's re-election chances.

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