Ron Williams has a very informative column today. Hey, even a broken clock….
[Ginger Gibson] was sitting in a Senate hearing room a half hour before a discussion of the Department of Corrections’ budget was to begin. […]
Gibson, a Senate staffer and another reporter were present when [Terry] Spence [the former Republican Speaker who was defeated for reelection] proceeded to rag heavily on The News Journal reporter who had recently written an article about how former Republican legislator Vince Lofink had been reimbursed for tuition to receive his master’s in education degree. That reporter was Gibson, who sat silently as she listened to Spence, addressing her as a total stranger, railed on and on about how he did return phone calls to that pesky little reporter, whoever she is, and he didn’t understand what all the hubbub was about.
It was about $756,000 in Republican expenses and perks that the Democrats, now in control, found they could cut from the state budget. The state auditor said the tuition payment to Lofink, approved by Spence, as were all the other expenses such as gold-embossed business cards, was improper and that Lofink should pay it back.
Spence, according to Gibson, continued to berate the reporter who wrote the story and question why anyone thought it was worth the paper. After nearly 10 minutes of reporter-bashing, Gibson finally spoke up and clued in Spence; that reporter would be me, she said.
Spence then proceeded to stammer and stutter his way through various phases of apologetic requests for forgiveness since he really didn’t mean to be so critical, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, Spence also acknowledged that he was probably going to run again because Majority Leader Pete Schwartzkopf, who had been critical of Spence in the article about Republican spending, had gotten too big for his britches and “had [testicles] like steel” and needed to be brought down a peg or two.
The person here who has unimaginable and undeserved hubris is Terry Spence. Ron Williams does not go into much detail in his column as to what Gibson reported, so let’s remind ourselves of the true scope of Gibson’s story:
[T]he GOP spent their budgets to support themselves when they were in control of the House. This report has the feel of a tip of the iceberg — as in there is likely more there to look at. But it is very good to see how the people who want to lay claim to making a better use of tax money (largely via hyping their own bete noirs, insensible math and trying to paint everyone else as being profligate) are especially profligate on their own behalf. Using Delaware tax money.
Among the items Democrats say were partisan and should not have been funded with tax dollars were the salary of a political consultant who many longtime staffers say never came to work, thousands of dollars in improper tuition payments to a former Republican legislator, questionable payouts to political advisers for unused vacation and sick time, and money for a Web site that delivered Republican perspectives.
A no-show legislative job, giving themselves more benefits than prescribed and trying to build a partisan messaging website that was supposed to be a stand-in for a vehicle that actually told the people of Delaware about the business being conducted on their behalf. Perhaps that is what they mean by open government.
So, against that backdrop, Spence feels himself to be the true victim here. A victim of ace investigative reporting on the part of Gibson which accurately exposed the GOP’s misappropriation of taxpayer funds during their control of the House. A victim of a new Majority Leader who seeks to clean up the mess of the former Republican majority. Spence sees nothing wrong with his party running a political operation out of the General Assembly and on the taxpayer dime. He sees nothing wrong with berating a reporter for nothing but reporting on the what should be considered outright fraud and theft on the part of Spence and LoFink. Third, he is angry at Pete Schwartzkopf for rightly being critical of his these actions.
Like a criminal who is angry at the Police for getting caught.
And he wants to run again?
Bring it, Spence. Bring it.