Master of puppets, Reid's pulling her strings

With apologies to Metallica's James Hetfield, who recently admitted to leaning conservative-to-libertarian in his political beliefs, we can't help but have the title track from the band's third album, "Master of Puppets," go through our heads as we dissect Alison Lundergan Grimes' recent exhibit of saying one thing in Kentucky and doing another in Washington, D.C.

Because Lundergan Grimes knows how important coal mining and coal-fired electricity production is to the state's economy, she's positioning herself to Kentucky voters as a defender of the coal industry. This is in stark contrast to the national leaders of her political party, most notably Senate President Harry Reid and President Obama, who can no longer be accused of not running a war on coal after an EPA bureaucrat got caught using that phrase to describe the federal government's position.

In fact, Lundergan Grimes said that she planned to discuss coal's importance to Kentucky with Reid at a D.C. fundraiser for her a couple of weeks ago.

Except she didn't. A recording of her remarks shows that not once did she mention coal when she was in the room with Reid and his cronies. The Lundergan Grimes people claim that instead, she discussed the matter with Reid in a private conversation, but evidence indicates that no face-to-face meeting occurred, and neither did a phone conversation. What makes this even more fascinating was that the story was broken not by any conservative outlet, but the left-leaning Politico, which one would think would be sympathetic to her campaign and not interested in reporting news that will hurt her chances of being elected.

It's obvious that Lundergan Grimes thinks Kentuckians are dumb enough to believe she will be an independent voice for our state and its interests if she is elected to the Senate. No one with an ounce of intelligence believes that. She will do exactly as instructed by Obama, Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the out-of-touch leaders of the national Democrat Party unless the matter can pass without her vote. Then, and only then, will she be given dispensation to vote against the Democrats and with Kentucky. One only has to look at former Congressman Ben Chandler's votes on cap-and-trade and Obamacare to see how that works.

The story gets more interesting. One of Kentucky's most disgusting liberal pundits, who formerly operated a blog out of Lexington but now blogs for a leftist Louisville outfit, has been doing a guest gig for a couple of national outlets recently. He's claiming that the recording was made by a Mitch McConnell operative who infiltrated the fundraiser, and is crying foul about it.

This coming from the same category of people who cheered when Jimmy "Thank God for Obama, now I'm no longer the worst president in American history" Carter's grandson recorded Mitt Romey's truthful remarks about 47 percent of Americans being lost to Republican candidates because they're takers, not taxpayers? There's a reason we hold this particular Louisville blogger in so much disregard.

A pro-Republican PAC has seized on Lundergan Grimes' lies and has produced a commercial on the subject, and it's getting heavy rotation on television. This, while her campaign has placed a media buy in community newspapers, extolling her virtues as a nonpartisan, independent voice for Kentucky and Kentuckians.

No one's buying that. We admit to not being the biggest fans of Mitch McConnell, but for the most part we think he's supported policies that are good for Kentucky.  It's painfully obvious that Lundergan Grimes will be under the control of the most liberal politicians D.C. has to offer. She will do what they say and vote how they say, irregardless if it hurts her home state. She should change her name to "Mary," short for "marionette," since she will belong to Reid and Obama and Pelosi and will be their puppet if she's elected to the Senate.