Kyle Whitmore of AL.com writes that the appointment of
Strange, which gives Bentley the authority to name his successor as Attorney
General of Alabama, is a new low for his state:
Gov. Robert
Bentley and Attorney General … I mean … Senator Strange made me feel sorry for
Don Siegelman, and until this morning I didn’t think that was possible.
Now, though, I just feel pity. Imagine, what it must feel like to step from
prison a free man again, to see something like this, the most politically
corrupt act in Alabama politics in my lifetime, if not his: The appointment of
Luther Strange to the United States Senate.
To emerge
from that prison, having spent years behind bars, much of it in solitary, only
to see the current governor and attorney general acting like this — that’s the
cruelest punishment I can imagine.
I first
wrote about the possibility of a deal like this in November, when it became
clear that Jeff Sessions would be climbing the ladder to join the Trump
administration. The column was a joke: Robert Bentley having his Rod Blagojevich
moment, with the ghost of Blago’s ego whispering bad ideas into Bentley’s ear,
tempting him to save himself by offering the guy investigating him for crimes a
deal of a lifetime.
I’m not
trying to get credit for saying “I told you so” because at the time I didn’t
really believe what I was writing, myself. In part I was trying to send a
message: Don’t you even think about it. It was a flight of fancy, a
worst-case-scenario, a sick little fantasy of what it might be like to be
inside the mind of a lonely, desperate man trying to save himself. I wrote it
because it was fun.
And then it
all came true.
On Thursday
morning, Bentley appointed Strange to the Senate. Next, he will get to pick
Strange’s replacement as Alabama Attorney General. And you can bet that whoever
he chooses will have strong opinions about special investigations in Montgomery
politics.
Already
we’ve seen Bentley appoint Stan Stabler to lead the Alabama Law Enforcement
Agency, only for Stabler to next cook up a half-baked report accusing his
predecessor, Spencer Collier, of wrongdoings. Those accusations were rejected
by a grand jury and Collier was all but exonerated.
(…)
It’s so
nakedly political that someone should charge them with indecent exposure.
But who? Not the state authorities. The feds? Don’t bet on Attorney Gen. Jeff
Sessions riding to the rescue.
Nope. This,
Alabama, is the government we elected, and it’s the government we’re stuck
with.
I’m not here
to say “I told you so” because I was wrong. This was Bentley’s Blagojevich
moment, alright, but there is one big difference.
Bentley
might just get away with it.
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