Thursday, December 20, 2018

"Inept, arrogant and weak"

Joe Gerth at the Courier nails Gov. Sociopathic Narcissist:

With the stunning failure Tuesday night of Gov. Matt Bevin’s special session, the Louisville Republican cemented his place in the history books as the most inept, most arrogant and one of the weakest governors in Kentucky’s history.

It was his ineptness that caused him to pick fights with the General Assembly that didn’t need to be fought.

It was his hubris that caused him to call the legislature into session without its consent.
And it was his weakness that allowed the General Assembly — of which his Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses — to walk out on him after being in session less than 24 hours.  

There hasn’t been a weaker governor since the Democratic legislature stripped powers from Republican Gov. "Flim-Flam" Flem Sampson in the 1920s and gave them to a three-member commission composed of Sampson and the Democratic lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Bevin still has considerable power that comes with being governor — especially in a power vacuum created when the legislature goes home — but compared to other governors, he's now the 97-pound weakling in an old Charles Atlas ad.

He’s weaker now than former Democratic Gov. Paul Patton was following the revelation in 2002 of an affair with a Western Kentucky nursing home operator that almost toppled him during his second term.

Weaker even than former Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones was after he appeared on KET during the 1994 legislative session to denounce Democratic leadership when his budget and health care proposal appeared dead.

SNIP
The state's festering budget crisis was built over decades by politicians of both parties, and is by no means solely Bevin's fault.

But the feckless and arrogant decision to call legislators into session without their consent — just one week before the Yuletide? That's all Bevin's.

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