Great Scathing Toledo Blade Editorial on GOP Coin-gate

This is good.

I have been so busy reading the Toledo Blade's amazing and ground-breaking coverage of the Ohio GOP Coin-gate scandal, I never took the time to read their editorials. Yesterday's was great. Apparently, the paper has been getting pummeled by critics, including the Governor.

Payback is sweet.

In the editorial, they smack Taft and other GOP leaders:

the resignation on Friday of James Conrad, director of the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, is grossly inadequate penance. His total lack of oversight aggravated this crisis, and he simply gets to walk away? No matter what, he must be held accountable.

But the buck didn't stop at Mr. Conrad's desk. Governor Taft belatedly accepted full responsibility for the scandal at a press conference Friday. Maybe he should follow Mr. Conrad's lead and get out.

He also should apologize - first to every citizen in this state for his utterly inept stewardship of public funds and his abuse of public trust, and second, to this newspaper for his verbal assaults on our reporting.

Ouch. Taft deserves it. Maybe he should just resign. And, he's not the only GOP leader wrapped up in this mess.

Now that criminal charges are imminent, and prosecutors say they believe Mr. Noe may have converted a huge chunk of the public's investment to his personal use, we hear a much different tune from Mr. Noe's defenders.

Attorney General James Petro and Auditor Betty Montgomery kept their heads down for weeks, which provides an ironic twist to a quote by Ms. Montgomery in one of our Friday stories: "I hope my record will reflect after all these years that I am guilty of doing nothing."

Though she didn't mean it like it sounded, we couldn't have said it better ourselves. She and the attorney general did nothing until they were shamed into it. You can bet that the two of them have erased any trace of Tom Noe from their Palm Pilots; suddenly they are on the side of all that is good and righteous.

Both Petro and Montgomery are running for the GOP nomination for Governor next year. The third candidate is Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. He was also a big defender of Noe.

Imagine if there were a few more newspapers like the Toledo Blade in America. Imagine a press willing to stand up to elected officials. Imagine that.

Maybe the Toledo Blade could give a seminar on reporting to the White House press corps.