THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 11, 1997 TAG: 9701110013
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 37 lines
The same evening that Gov. George F. Allen was delivering a chummy, ecumenical State of the Commonwealth address, somebody, under cover of darkness, went through the Capitol and secretly distributed copies of a memo that proves that not all members of Allen's GOP team are hearing their quarterback's signals.
The memo, which was slipped anonymously under the office doors of a number of Virginia lawmakers Wednesday night, was an outline for a counterattack against critics of Allen's environmental record. It recommended, in Nixonesque football metaphors, a series of devious blitzes against the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which has issued a damning appraisal of Allen's environmental performance.
Critical to this attack was to be a series of well-planned and well-disguised leaks to the news media intended to tarnish Allen's critics.
The memo was written by Michael McKenna, a political appointee who is director of policy and planning at the Department of Environmental Quality. Mr. McKenna was conveniently unavailable to provide any public information about his scribblings.
Democrats reacted with predictable, but appropriate, horror. To its credit, the Allen administration seems to have reacted with appropriate honor by ignoring McKenna's memo. All well and good. But, at the risk of wearing out the metaphors, McKenna needs to be hit with a penalty for ``personal foul,'' and shown his way to the bench.
More to the point, it's time for the Allen administration to realize that the public's patience has worn thin with such shabby, politics-as-usual shenanigans. Allen is demonstrably weak on the environment. A campaign to clean Virginia's air and water would serve Allen and the commonwealth better than a campaign to dirty the reputations of his critics.