Stumbo admits investigation motivated by politics, mainstream press ignores this revelation

Lost in the recent dust-up between Kentucky's labor unions and the Bruce Lunsford-Greg Stumbo campaign was Stumbo all but admitting that his drive to prosecute Gov. Fletcher was motivated by the thoughts of political gain.

As usual, the state's mainstream media whiffed. Our friends at The Conservative Edge took note, but few others did. That is a sad commentary on the perceptiveness of our press and the depths to which the Fletcher-haters in this state will go to avoid the obvious.

Those of us with knowledge of the situation have realized that since the whole deal began nearly two years ago. Of course the Democrats denied that from the get-go and have continued to deny it, but there has simply been too much evidence, ignored by the mainstream press, to the contrary.

The partisan Democrats and the Fletcher haters and the newswriters and editorialists hung on every word uttered by the likes of Stumbo and his lackeys Scott Crawford-Sutherland and Pierce Whites, and treated the unconfirmed allegations written in the grand jury's final report as red-letter gospel. They never paused to think that just maybe, perhaps, possibly, there were underlying motives for what Stumbo was doing.

It has been pointed out time and again that the grand jury investigation was unprecedented in this state. Despite ample evidence of merit system violations by every Democrat governor since the state instituted its civil service program in 1960, no one was ever prosecuted. All allegations, even those admitted to by Paul Patton when he got involved in the promotion of a Vehicle Enforcement officer who got his mistress Tina Conner out of a speeding ticket, were pursued by the Personnel Board and the Executive Branch Ethics Commission after that body was created in the 1990s.

For the first indication of partisan motivation, look no further than the week in November 2003 when Fletcher was elected. In their quest to help find an opponent for Fletcher in 2007, the media began identifying potential rivals and asking them about entering a race four years hence. Stumbo's response was especially telling. He said that he would not enter the race unless, and we quote the Prick from Prestonsburg, Fletcher became "wildly unpopular."

How ironic that the merit system investigation caused Fletcher's popularity and approval ratings to plunge. Never mind that Stumbo is only running for lieutenant governor on someone else's ticket instead of the top spot himself. He turned his prediction into a self-fulfilling prophecy through the investigation.

The press and Fletcher's critics have glossed over Crawford-Sutherland's close ties to Fletcher's 2003 victim Ben Chandler. They have also not pursued the composition of the special grand jury that indicted Fletcher and several of his administration's staffers. Had they done even the most rudimentary of investigations, they'd have learned that the grand jury was made up primarily of Democrats and state merit employees, two groups hostile to Fletcher in the first place.

So there is plenty of circumstantial evidence so far to prove that the investigation and indictments were motivated by politics and not by facts. But the icing on the cake came a couple of weeks ago, when the state's labor leaders began feuding with Lunsford and Stumbo.

In a story about reports that Stumbo had made political threats to Charles Wells, director of the Kentucky Association of State Employees, the Lexington Herald-Leader quoted Stumbo as saying that he expected the state employees' group to support him because he had pursued the merit system investigation.

As we noted, The Conservative Edge was all over this but hardly anyone else took notice.

What more evidence does one need to come to the conclusion that Stumbo ran with the probe to curry favor with the state workers voting bloc? That's as much of an outright admission that you're going to get!

Of course, we don't expect much from the Stumbo-lovers and Fletcher-haters that populate the press and the stark raving loony Democrat blogosphere. But the truth is out there if anyone wants to take notice.