Doing his best impression of Phil Hartman doing an impression of Admiral Stockdale, yesterday Ohio Governor Ted Strickland answered the latest batch of questions on Rebategate.
Patrick Preston of WCMH-TV, the reporter who first broke the story and has been doing a tear-up job of getting to the bottom of the whole mess, had a chance to confront Strickland with the latest gap in the story.
First off, we see a shifty eyed Governor attempt to tell us that he didn’t know when he was told about the whole incident. Odd, eh? You’d imagine if something was a big enough deal that he felt it was necessary to implement an executive order, that he’d probably have an idea of when he found out about the incident. Apparently not.
But the most interesting part of the interview is Preston’s question about the five month gap between the Department of Development finding out about the outsourcing and the implementation of the executive order banning said outsourcing.
PRESTON: Is that the sort of issue you’d expect to be informed of right away?
STRICKLAND: Yes, especially if it was the result of a violation of existing rules and regulations. That’s the part of this I find most…most troubling. If the rules had not already been in place it would not have been as troubling to me as knowing that there were rules in place that were not observed and followed. That’s when I think it was most appropriate for me to be brought into the loop because it involved a decision as to whether or not personnel would be help accountable and what that accountability would entail.
In the article Preston notes that he asked the Department of Development why the Governor wasn’t notified and they had not yet responded at time of posting.
Lisa Patt-McDaniel is the current Director of the Ohio Department of Development. Her boss just said she screwed up. That’s bad.
Imagine that, an appointee of the Governor screwing up. Shocker.
Ohioans deserve a competent executive branch. Time after time after time, Ohioans have learned that is something they can’t expect to find in Ted Strickland’s administration.
