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A
Cheap Lesson, As Lessons Go
Score
one for the Republicans: Gov. Warner deserved to get
his hand slapped for the way he accounted for staff
expenses. Now, get over it -- it's not a big deal.
I
was tempted to use that old line about Caesar’s
wife to open this column, but thought better of, for
two reasons: I
couldn’t remember exactly how it went, and it
would have been just a little much, actually.
So,
Gov. Mark R. Warner has had his hand in the cookie
jar, moving a million dollars from other agencies to
cover the expenses of his own office?
Excuse me while I yawn.
A
million dollars? Are
you kidding me? Please.
These legislative money committees drop that
much change on the floor most days.
Sometimes
the biggest enemy of any political organization,
administration, etc. is a slow
news
cycle. What’s usually left on the cutting room
floor can flare up into
Pearl Harbor
headlines during a slow
news
cycle.
How
slow was this one? I
was reading
Preston Bryant
’s expose of the evil and sinister Richmond-
Reykjavik
axis when he bells went off on this one.
Headlines blared across the state and it led
Tom
Whipple
’s clip service with the top six slots the
following day.
But
that’s all this is — slow news cycle stuff.
Almost all. There
are a couple of minor points that need to be made.
State
Auditor of Public Accounts Walter J. Kucharski gave
the disarrayed Republicans something they haven’t
had all summer — a touch of cohesion — with the
breathless, deeply intoned,
news
. Thank you,
Walter. They’ve
been looking for some excuse to have a group hug for
a long time. Thank
you for giving it to them.
(Don’t
ever let folks tell you Kucharski doesn’t know
which side of the bread gets buttered.
Yeah, he’s up for reappointment.
Yeah, the Republicans will reappoint him.)
And
let’s not forget Del. Leo Wardrup, R-Virginia
Beach, hands-own winner of Chicken Little’s
The-Sky-Is-Falling Award.
Leo compared this one — a budgetary
housekeeping practice that reaches back through
other administrations — to the collapse of the
Enron Corporation!
(Leo,
I think what you need to do it get yourself a brown
paper bag and breathe into it for a little while.
Maybe lay down for a few minutes.
And, hey, don’t let your prescription run
out next time.)
Love,
hate, or be indifferent to Mark Warner, he has
brought business acumen, and discipline, to the governor’s
office unseen in years and years.
From cutting useless and obsolete boards and
commissions to streamlining the state’s cumbersome
procurement process, nearly every move he’s made
has made sense. And
if you look beyond the hype, this one did — sorta.
Staffers
immediately trotted out the fact that other
governors routinely appropriated staffers from other
departments to help shoulder the load in the
governor’s office, the effect being that they were
paid for by one office budget, while working in
another.
At
least Warner, they said, was up front about it.
Okay.
Fine. Excuse
me while I yawn again.
Here’s
the thing. That
kind of lame excuse making, of story-telling, of
jumping up and down and pointing to others who’ve
done it, too, doesn’t cut it.
It doesn’t become you.
My
instincts tell me this flap was planned, managed,
and choreographed very carefully, start to finish.
And that it worked.
I might be wrong.
But I don’t think so.
Sure,
this is nickel and dime stuff and the coverage and
scrutiny is out of all proportion to the facts of
the case, but when someone turns on the light on in
the kitchen and there you are, flat-footed, with
your hand in the cookie jar, well, there you are.
What
to do? Show
some class. Put
a check mark by the opposition on this one.
They scored. Give
it to them graciously.
And learn from it.
This was a cheap lesson as lessons go.
--
November 1, 2004
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