A hilarious reaction

For three years now, the state's two largest papers have been relentless and never-ceasing in their attacks on Gov. Fletcher. Be it in the editorials, the opinion columns or the news sections, Fletcher has been a constant target of the Herald-Leader and the Courier-Journal. While that's to be expected from the opinion purveyors, the news stories have been especially outrageous. The reporters and editors seem to take great pains to go to press with any story that might prove embarassing to the state's first Republican governor in a generation and his administration, all the while avoiding stories that might cast Fletcher in a different light. This blog has repeatedly pointed out legitimate, factual news stories that would have greatly altered the public perception of the personnel investigation and the Fletcher administration, using the same information that the big-city papers are privy to, but have been ignored by the mainstream press.

That's what makes it so funny to watch the Democrats' response to a couple of late-week stories in the Herald-Leader about Steve Beshear's role in the Kentucky Central debacle of the late 80's and early 90's. One might think they had called George McGovern or Bill Clinton the Antichrist.

Slander Nickolas over at bluegrasslibelreport.org called Alessi's first story "a hit piece." His toadies in the comments section chimed right in. The liberals who populate PolWatchers' comments area said Alessi had taken the bait, whatever that means.

If this had been a story about Ernie Fletcher having done something several years ago, the liberal bloggers and blogees would have been applauding Alessi's investigatory acumen. But since the story concerns their darling Beshear, who apparently walks on water each day before hitting the road with newly-disengaged Dr. Dan Mongiardo to campaign on a hollow campaign of restoring integrity and ethics to Frankfort, they've gone ballistic.

As for us, we're glad to see the press finally doing its job, but a story that reflects negatively on Beshear is not the same as one that reflects positively on Fletcher. The papers would have to do this type of story every day between now and the election to do the same damage to Beshear that they've done to Fletcher, and that still wouldn't make up for all the anti-Fletcher reports we've been subjected to since Doug Doerting took his ill-gotten "evidence" to Greg Stumbo in a fit of pique over not getting a hotshot job in the Transportation Cabinet.

We sure aren't going to turn into Herald-Leader fans because their political reporter has finally done his job, but we are glad to see that Beshear is finally getting some way-overdue scrutiny. He's not the ethically clean white knight the Democrats want you to believe he is. We've known that and we and other conservative bloggers have tried to spread that message, but the mainstream press needs to get its act together if that word is going to be delivered to the masses in Kentucky.