A Statewide Embarrassment

There's really nothing else one can do besides point a finger in the direction of it and shake his or her head.  With a release from his office yesterday, Matt Blunt officially jumped the shark and became the complete embarrassment that he'd threatened to become for some time.

I won't even bother excerpting any of the release, since it is lunatic in its entirety --a step back through the looking glass to the Spence Jackson era when the governor's press shop was treated as little more than a very expensive right-wing blog.  As you might imagine, it assaults Jay Nixon for holding positions he's never espoused and bothers not with any pretense of relevant or newsworthy action by the governor or his administration. 

It's a taxpayer-funded negative campaign attack, nothing more.

Informed by the latest silliness, a few further thoughts spring to mind about what's going on the waning days of the lame-duck Blunt administration.

One is a question about whether the media will play this straight or treat it for what it is.  Frankly, failure by the political press to call the governor out for this embarrassing episode would suggest that the media no longer serve their traditional purpose as referees in political matters.  Even-handed analysis would undoubtedly show that recent Blunt broadsides have been beyond the pale.

Another centers on when folks will stop pretending that the toxic sludge leaking out of the Blunt press shop has anything whatsoever to do with governing the state and admit that the operation now exists wholly as an adjunct of the Missouri GOP and the Kenny Hulshof campaign.  Campaign svengali John Hancock has had his hand on the tiller of both the Blunt press operation and the Hulshof campaign strategy for some time now, and it is only willful ignorance or elective blindness that keeps those in the media from recognizing and pointing out that the two elements of Hancock's business have become essentially indistinguishable, to the great detriment of Missourians.  

A final thought is that people, both regular people and members of the media, ought to remember keenly how Matt Blunt comported himself in the final days of his term.  If we judge by the smarmy, self-promotional infomercial that now graces the governor's otherwise empty campaign website, Blunt plans to emerge again from under his rock at some future moment and hold himself up once more as a virtuous Republican candidate for some office.  Anyone who holds the office of Governor in high esteem should not lose track of the manner in which Matt Blunt is now bringing shame to the mansion.  How anyone could suppose that he'd inspire pride in another office after his recent performance is an insoluble mystery. 

Matt Blunt is a statewide embarrassment.  It's a point he drives further home each and every day.  We fool ourselves by pretending otherwise.