When Ernie wasted our money on work-for-less study (a blast from the past)

Remember the bad old days?

"Values voters." Bush. Bad music. The issues of The Last Word with the gray background screen. The Extremist. The chat room war.

And Ernie "Hey Bert" Fletcher.

The Republican Governor of Kentucky was resoundingly defeated for reelection in 2007, but observers are still scratching their heads over Fletcher's rise to power.

In 2006, it was revealed that Fletcher wasted $10,000 of taxpayer money on a "study" of so-called "right-to-work" laws. The Fletcher regime paid an economist to conduct a right-wing "study" that would appear favorable to such a law.

In other words, the Fletcher administration was starting with a conclusion and working backwards from it - and using the taxpayers' money for it.

The report the state paid for was almost identical to one in Michigan 4 years earlier by the same author for a right-wing think tank.

Lawmakers questioned Fletcher's wasteful expenditure, because it was obvious Fletcher had chosen that economist because he was already known to favor work-for-less laws.

In fact, Fletcher's budget director admitted as much! "I am not surprised that the text in this report is similar to a report that he's written before because we had read his earlier report before we hired him," he said.

Organized labor representatives also criticized the report as the ideologically driven waste that it was.

Ernie Fletcher was like a Bluegrass Bush. His entire administration revolved around an ideological agenda. It was like a Six Flags of bad ideas.

But Ernie is out of office now and in disgrace.