Friday, August 30, 2013

Political civility: Hardly concern for Kasich's guy

No one has taken on a more challenging mission in Columbus than State Sen. Frank LaRose of Copley, a Republican,  and former State  Rep. Ted Celeste of Cleveland, a Democrat . In their laudable bi-partisan effort to restore a hint of sanity to politics, they are pursuing a goal of creating more civility  in political discourse.  Good luck on that.

They have scheduled an off-the-record meeting on Sept. 17 at the Statehouse of dozens of lawmakers to work out a plan to advance  their goal. My guess is that it would be easier to squeeze the juice back into a lemon.

Until then, they could have a sitdown with Gov. Kasich's top spokespserson, Rob Nichols, who resorted to a sneaky form  of Red-baiting in his attack on Democratic Rep. Debbie Phillips, of Albany.

Phillips had written to Kasich and Scott Nally, director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, demanding  an official explanation of why  the director of the EPA's surface-water division was forced to resign.

George Elmaraghy had informed his staff that his resignation was prompted  by  "considerable pressure" on the Ksaich administration from coal companies.  The coal industry has been among  Kasich's biggest political donors.  The Columbus Dispatch reported that King Coal has given $1 million to Kasich and some friendly lawmakers.

But we digress:  Asked about Phillips , Nichols snapped in an email to a reporter:

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a job creator that she hasn't opposed, vilified or protested at some point.  If she had her way, we'd all be living on a collective farm cooking  organic quinoa over a dung fire.  So, I think we'll take her views in context."

By the way:  Not being a quinoa kind of guy, I had to look it up.  Glad to know the people around the governor are so clued in these days. .




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