If the Al Gore or John Kerry’s daughter(s) hung out with Heidi from The Hills, how do you think your liberal media would have covered it? Do you think they would have spent more time on it that they did Hillary’s new hairdo?

Look. I really don’t really care if John McCain’s luscious little daughter is friends with Heidi, or even Spencer, and his Creepy Flesh Colored Beard.

It just pisses me off to think about how Your Liberal Media would have fixated on it FOR DAYS if it were the other way around.

If the Mountain Party is so awesome, then why haven’t they been able to get more than one candidate elected to anything, ever?

Everyone needs to read this blog post by West Virginia Public Radio reporter Emily Corio.

For those of you wondering what the WVU Board of Governors would be like under the leadership of Carolyn Long, the answer appears to be “more of the same.” As Corio points out, the BOG still refuses to reveal what was in the first so-called exit agreement for Mike Garrison that they approved last week — even though a document approved by a public body is supposed to be public information.

And that’s just part of it. From judging their continuing actions, it’s clear that the members of the BOG feel that they’re entitled to deliberate virtually everything in secrecy, then release half-truths to the press and the public. Corio:

How am I supposed to tell listeners what happened at this meeting if public officials use vague language, issue statements to some reporters and not others, and then refuse to give straight answers to reporters when asked? More importantly, how can you, a member of the public be informed and engaged if you do not have access to this information?

Corio doesn’t exactly come right out and say “This is fucking bullshit!,” but her sense of frustration is absolutely palpable. Which is good. Feel the burn, Emily.

I’m honestly not sure if the BOG doesn’t want to, or just doesn’t know how to conduct an actual open meeting. (The people in charge seem the most clueless of all.) But they damn well better learn. We are watching.

I want pictures of moving trucks in front of Blaney House.

If you can’t do that for me, monetary donations are always welcome.

But I’d rather have the pictures.

West Virginia doesn’t need a third party.

West Virginia needs a second party.

People like Joe Manchin and Steve Goodwin know that they can get away with virtually anything because they never have to worry about The Other Side mounting a serious campaign to oust them from office or power.

I continue to be amazed that West Virginia Republicans haven’t been able to make hay out of Mike Garrison and Heathergate. A more egregious abuse of power would be hard to find, even here.

I’m a liberal Democrat, but I’m the first to admit that West Virginia desperately needs a 2 party system, i.e., a stronger Republican party. But when this is all that the Editor and Publisher of the state’s largest Republican newspaper can be bothered to say about Democratic party insiders handing WVU’s top job to one of their own, I know not to get my hopes up:

“Perhaps it wasn’t an exhaustive search. Maybe Gov. Joe Manchin and members of the WVU Board of Governors, many of them Manchin appointees, did believe Garrison was their man from the start. It’s more likely they considered him a strong candidate and used the search to assure themselves of that by comparing him to others.”

First of all, strong candidate my ass. Second, because Garrison wasn’t a strong candidate, the search had to be fixed from the outset. Not only was the search not exhaustive, there wasn’t really a search at all. Steve Goodwin hired a headhunter whose actual job was to tell the other applicants not to get their hopes up, because the search committee “already had a candidate in mind.” As Judge Robert B. King boldly said, the result was “preordained.” Mike Garrison was the de facto President before the search ever began, and acted the part.

Does Nanya Friend really believe that even a semi-legitimate, competitive search process would have produced — in lobbyist Mike Garrison — a finalist whose application would be summarily thrown in the trash at any college or university outside West Virginia?

Good grief. All that Steve Goodwin and Joe Manchin “assured themselves” of is that people like Nanya Friend would look at the motions they went through and be foolish enough to think it was on the up and up.

And it worked.

It’s Magrath.

Not McGrath, Macgrath, or McGraw.

Magrath.

And it’s pronounced Muh-graw. Yes, like that bunch of Muh-graws.

Virtually every print, television or radio story broadcast or published in the past week has explicitly pointed this out. Pay attention.

Hey, you! Are you a disgraced, corrupt politician who has had trouble finding work in the real world? Then West Virginia University is the place for you! Who cares if State law doesn’t allow straight severance packages — experts like Steve Goodwin will create a custom, bogus project just for you! Because if you can’t ride off into the sunset with dignity, you can at least ride off with a duffel bag full of taxpayer cash.

1. I want to know who the HELL asked Mike Garrison to stay around and “consult”? Who, exactly, wants to keep this lying, corrupt sack of failure on the payroll? We deserve to know. And what subjects has he been retained to consult on? Day-care center design? Issuance of fraudulent degrees? Suicidal PR mistakes? Healthy eating choices?

It’s like asking Nixon to stay on to consult on the integrity of the White House.

2. Steve Goodwin is a compulsive liar. Earlier this week, he announced that Garrison would no longer be an employee of WVU after September 1. Goodwin’s statement was plainly intended to make people think Garrison was leaving WVU. Yet only 2 days later, we learn the truth: Garrison will be staying on indefinitely in a position that looks, walks, and quacks like an employee — it’s just that the school will call him a “consultant” instead. If Steve Goodwin decided to call Garrison “America’s Next Top Model,” would that make it so?

It’s no surprise that Garrison’s sticking around in a big-money job. No, the weird thing is that Goodwin felt compelled to make a clearly deceptive statement about it only 2 days before the truth was announced. He must have known he was going to come off as a ridiculous liar, but he said it anyway. What possible explanation is there for that? I honestly wonder if the man has some sort of unaddressed mental problem.

3. This is proof positive that Garrison can’t get a job in the real world. Believe me, if they could have gotten him out of there, they would have, but no one was willing to pay $250,000 a year for a no-talent politico who reeks of corruption and can’t earn his keep. The only thing Garrison could do to earn his own way is lobby — but he knows he can’t go back to that game if he wants to keep his political future alive.

4. Why the hell is Joe Manchin allowing this to happen? He was well down the road toward putting this thing to bed as a PR issue. Garrison has stepped down. Joe has appointed superstar board members not beholden to WV politicos, and the school had picked a well-respected new interim president. After all that, why in God’s name would he allow a move that will let this scandal fester endlessly, like an ugly, oozing sore?

5. Did WVU’s new interim president really have anything to say about this? Because Magrath must know that the real reason Garrison is staying at WVU is to undermine him. For years to come, Mike Garrison’s job in life is going to be guerrilla warfare against whoever is in charge of WVU. Garrison wants Magrath to fail, and he wants whoever takes over permanently to fail, too, so he and his ass-kissing cronies like Derek Long can tell everyone what a huge mistake it was to get rid of him.

It’s bad enough that so many of Garrison’s backers will be on the Board fighting tooth and nail to humiliate Magrath and his successor. But it’s absolutely insane to have the disgraced former president INSIDE the university actively tearing down everything the new president tries to build. McGrath must be either crazy or a saint to take this job with so many long knives aimed squarely at his back.

6. The public deserves to see Garrison’s new contract. It’s probably being reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office right now. And they would probably hand over the proposed contract if someone sent them a FOIA.

Am I the only one who notices that the trio now running the Board of Governors consists of 2 county school superintendents, and a coal heir who spends more time at the Berry Hills Country Club than he ever spent at WVU?

I fear that Joe Manchin has greater control over the Board of Governors than ever before.

As someone in the comments aptly pointed out, I have a hard time imagining the glitterati on the BOG taking direction from the Braxton County Superintendent of Schools. But Carolyn Long’s family has a history of involvement in Democratic state politics. It’s not like Joe Manchin pulled her name out of a fucking hat. And you probably recall that her son, Derek V. Long is a well known Garrison fluffer, who left this glorious comment Garrison’s glorified Myspace page blog:

“People are intimidated by a young, energetic and successful University President who does not meet some cookie cutter standard a few radical academics think is a must for a successful University climate.“

And then there’s Ted Mattern, the guy who Joe Manchin tried to get the State Board of Education to hire instead of Steve Paine. All because Mattern is married to Gayle Manchin’s former college roommate.

And last but not least, there’s Drew Payne. Seriously, is this what WVU considers a distinguished graduate? A coal heir whose idea of fiduciary duty consists solely of meddling in the University athletics program? Really? Also remember that Payne, like his buddy Steve Farmer, is yet another BOG member who was in the tank for Garrison YEARS ago.

THESE are the people in charge. Please forgive me for not seeing the glass as half full.