If I could, I'd tell politicos that doing wrong is always bad, but lying about it is always worse.

        I'd say being a hypocrite means you may maintain a snowy white reputation for a while but you'll have to pay for dark deeds sooner or later.

        And I'd remind them that their responsibility to not screw up extends beyond their own personal circumstances.

        When they shame themselves, they despoil those who've trusted, believed in and voted for them. Look at President Bill Clinton's supporters.

        If my elected public servants choose not to heed this instruction and instead misuse their power and authority, then I'd do to them like I'd do my children.

        I'd forgive them eventually. But in the meantime, they'd be in for some strong, old-fashioned discipline.

Patton

        Gov. Paul Patton would get used to my woodshed, because that's where I'd haul him if I could. And no amount of tears or media mea culpas would change that.

“Personal weakness”

        Kentucky's governor of seven years Friday tearfully apologized to the people for his “failure as a person” to be faithful to his wife of 25 years and for lying about it to just about everyone a day before.

        The governor confessed that he had had an extra-marital affair with a nursing home operator who now is suing him for sexual harassment.

        Tina Conner, owner of a now-bankrupt Birchtree Healthcare in Clinton, Ky., claimed in the lawsuit and in news media interviews that their affair stretched from 1997 through 1999.

        She said the governor used his office to help boost her business and later used it to destroy her business when she stopped taking his calls.

        The governor denies that.

        “I have not let my personal weakness affect my administration of government,” he said Friday.

        “Under no circumstances have I or anyone under my direct control tried to punish Mrs. Conner. I hope she will go forward with her life as I am going to try to go forward with mine.”

        Not so fast. Kentucky's Executive Branch Ethics Commission may have a few questions first. Besides that, I've got a few matters that, as a Kentucky voter, I need cleared up.

        First: How dare he? He didn't just cheat on his wife; he involved state government and public funds, too.

The state's business

        Ms. Conner's primary business, a nursing home, is regulated by the state. Its income — mostly Medicare and Medicaid money — flowed from the state.

        During the affair, Gov. Patton's chief of staff ordered Medicaid to grant Ms. Conner's nursing home higher reimbursement.

        Gov. Patton placed Ms. Conner on the state's Institute on Aging and on the Lottery Board.

        And Gov. Patton helped Mrs. Conner's dirt-moving firm — which she owned with her ex-husband — become a state-designated “disadvantaged business.”

        All this at a cost to taxpayers.

        When the state cracked down on Mrs. Conner's nursing home last December, it was just two months after she allegedly ended the affair.

        Inspectors filled 168 pages with unfavorable reports about the home, detailing 38 “major” violations of rules, up from nine violations the February before, The Courier-Journal reports.

        Let's assume Gov. Patton didn't sic regulators on this nursing home. If its infractions were so bad, why wasn't it closed before?

        Even if he's absolved of official wrongdoing, Gov. Patton will have confirmed some people's notions that Kentucky politics is run by good ol' boys who sometimes ain't so good.

        E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395.

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