Sunday, October 26, 2008

This is the thanks he gets? Stumbo turns on McConnell after Mitch's big favor to him

When former Attorney General Greg Stumbo sought to take down Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher, no one aided Stumbo more in his quest than Sen. Mitch McConnell, who was once Fletcher's political mentor.

By staying silent and not speaking out about Stumbo's politically-motivated prosecution of his protege, McConnell gave Stumbo confidence and strength. In fact, McConnell may have saved Stumbo's political career by not using his influence with the U.S. Attorney's office to have Stumbo's role in the Johnny Ray Turner-Ross Harris scandal (and he had a key role, we hear) further investigated. We hear that Stumbo was under close scrutiny for his role in vote buying and other fraudulent activity in southeastern Kentucky. We're sure that all it would have taken to have him thoroughly investigated and possibly indicted would have been a phone call from the GOP leader of the U.S. Senate to the federal prosecutor, and Stumbo may have been in deep, deep trouble.

But for whatever reasons -- reasons that obviously are coming back to haunt McConnell as he fights for his political life this year -- the senior senator from the Bluegrass State chose not to get involved. He never made any statements in support of his party's first Republican governor in three decades -- a man he had tirelessly worked to get elected in 2003 -- and he never targeted Stumbo for any criticism or retribution.

McConnell's dishonorable acts during the hiring investigation emboldened Stumbo and helped the deadbeat dad attorney general kill Fletcher's re-election chances. Stumbo owes McConnell a debt of gratitude for his help in his effort to bring down Fletcher.

So, how does Stumbo pay McConnell back? He lashes out at McConnell because the senator had a short-lived military career.

Stumbo's comments last week while stumping for Democrat challenger Bruce Lunsford, on whose ticket Stumbo ran for lieutenant governor last year, were yet another thinly veiled attack on McConnell's sexuality. Democrats have long whispered vile rumors about McConnell's discharge from the Army, and the "Mitch is Gay" claim has been around since McConnell unseated Dee Huddleston for the Senate seat in 1984.

While there's nothing new about the "Mitch is Gay" attacks, we find it very odd that such claims would be coming from Stumbo. After all, Stumbo made himself a hero among Kentucky Democrats by bringing down a Republican governor, and he couldn't have done it without McConnell's help.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

"Yellow Dog" has dog dung for brains

The contributors to Bluegrass Roots continue to show that they are among the most ignorant people in the Commonwealth when it comes to contributing to political discourse.

A few weeks ago we ripped "RDemocrat" a new one for claiming that Ernie Fletcher would not have declared an emergency to deal with gas price gouging when Hurricane Ike hit Texas, when in fact Fletcher did exactly that when Katrina struck Louisiana three years earlier.

Now the contributor there who shows his ignorance is "Yellow Dog," who conclusively proves he has dog poop for brains by claiming there's no such thing as voter fraud.

To quote one of our favorite philosophers, Bugs Bunny, what a maroon.

Uhh, Yellow Dog, haven't you ever heard of vote buying? Voter fraud is a time-honored tradition in Kentucky, especially east of I-75. One of your party's sitting state senators stands guilty of voter-fraud related offenses. And not too long ago, about half of Bath County was nailed for voter fraud.

You Democrats really need to do your homework before you go shooting off your mouths, lest you prove to everyone just how dumb you are.

On second thought, never mind us. Every time you say something stupid or just plain wrong (or in this case, both), it just helps our cause that much more.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

McConnell sinks to Ben Chandler's level

The dirtiest trick we've ever seen in Kentucky political advertising came in the 2003 Democrat gubernatorial primary, when with less than a week to go in the election, Ben Chandler launched this attack ad against Bruce Lunsford:



You know the rest of the story. Lunsford, having no time to produce an ad to refute the ridiculous charges that he personally was responsible for the woman's abuse, dropped out of the race and endorsed Jody Richards. Richards came within a whisker of beating Chandler. Lunsford, still angry over Chandler's dirty trick, endorsed Republican Ernie Fletcher in the general election, which was won by Fletcher.

We always felt that instead of dropping out and endorsing RIchards, Lunsford should have stayed in the race and instead punched Chandler's lights out the next time the two of them came face to face. Had Chandler done that to any of us, we'd probably have an assault charge on our record now because we wouldn't have let Chandler skate with anything less than a bloody nose, a black eye and possibly a couple of knocked-out teeth.

Given that we consider the 2003 Chandler ad personally blaming Lunsford for what happened in one of his Vencor nursing homes to have been seriously below the belt, we are disappointed to see that Mitch McConnell is doing basically the same thing, trying to tie Lunsford personally to deficiencies in the Valor health care clinic for veterans.

While we've always admired McConnell's tenacity and instincts in campaigning, we think his latest ads concerning Valor and Lunsford are along the same lines of the 2003 Chandler ad we detested for its nastiness.

Shame on you, Mitch McConnell. We expect you to fight tough, but we also expect you to fight fair. Pulling one of Ben Chandler's dirty tricks from 2003 doesn't win you any respect. These ads are dishonorable, but then again we've come to expect that from you. You lost all sense of honor when you abandoned your political protege to Greg Stumbo's wolves three years ago.

Bruce Lunsford, you'll get a pass from us if you decide to slug McConnell in the snout for this. We won't mind if you do to him what you should have done to Ben Chandler.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

A poll we'd like to see

We would like to see voters who are likely to or leaning toward voting for the Republican presidential ticket polled on the following question:

Why are you voting for the McCain/Pain presidential ticket?

1. Voting for John McCain

2. Voting for Sarah Palin

3. Voting against B. Hussein Obama

We suspect it would be a close race for first between numbers 2 and 3 above, with number 1 finishing a distant third.