Posted: Wednesday, 10 February 2010 10:47AM
Bob's Not A Mellow Fellow
Steve Corbett Reporting
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
No matter what the political hacks tell you, do not believe for one second that Bob is in any way mellow.
Powerful state Sen. Robert Mellow, the ranking Democrat in the Senate, is in a constant state of agitation.
Not one to relinquish control in any matter, personal or otherwise, the 67-year-old, 11-term lawmaker has for years refused to address ongoing and serious allegations about the way he does the people’s business.
And now, after announcing yesterday that he will not seek re-election, Mellow will soon be gone from the shining halls of state in Harrisburg. Mellow will finish out his term in November and then ride off into the Peckville sunset.
That’s why, in his honor, I am hereby naming the tiny downstairs bathroom in my home “The Bob Mellow Toilet.” Each day when I flush, I will bow my head and give thanks that Mellow has disappeared in the swirl of political history.
I now will pause momentarily for you to regain your composure.
Many of you are enamored by Mellow.
I am not one of you.
Mellow has manipulated the sacred system for family and friends for decades. Mellow has used the public trust to benefit himself and his supporters. Mellow has finagled, connived and taken money in so he could hand money out.
A caller to “Corbett” yesterday berated me for saying that Mellow has done far more harm than good in his almost 40 years of “public service.”
But what I said is true. Nobody can put a price tag in the public trust. And Mellow sold public service to the highest bidder. He disgraced himself by placing party politics above the crucial needs of people. By doing so, he harmed his reputation forever. All the projects and clambakes and honorary degrees in the Commonwealth cannot replace the luster of pure public service.
Mellow long ago sold out the bulk of the people he is paid handsomely to serve.
Yes, he has done far more harm than good.
And the most powerful politicians in Pennsylvania let him get away with it because they, too, played politics above people. Every name brand Democratic leader on Capitol Hill has allowed Mellow to call the shots and control public policy because they needed him to help them do the same.
Only recently has Mellow come under the kind of scrutiny that should have come his way decades ago.
For that reason, his control has slipped.
Mellow no longer strikes fear in the hearts of voters. No longer does Mellow intimidate the masses. No longer is Mellow a sacred untouchable.
Citizen advocates and members of the press have started to watch Mellow and vigorously challenge his behavior. The people have called on him to be more accountable than ever. Formal complaints can no longer be ignored.
That’s why Mellow folded.
Maybe he truly wants to spend more time with his family as he said in the sappy press release he issued yesterday on the very day Gov. Ed Rendell presented his budget address to lawmakers.
Mellow, by the way, did not attend the address. Instead he hid out somewhere, awaiting the applause.
But maybe he ought to also get ready for an official knock on the door.
FBI agents have already interviewed Mellow’s ex-wife about complaints that Mellow used public money to pay the rent in a building that housed his office – a building she and he once owned.
Even when Mellow retires, the people need to know if what he did was proper.
Mellow’s campaign committee also is under investigation for writing checks to cash without explaining exactly who received the money.
I’m even named in an official legal complaint against Mellow for a column I wrote on this site about Mellow’s Senate staffers using state telephones and state time to sell tickets to the senator’s annual clambake fundraiser out of his government offices in Harrisburg and Peckville.
So far, though, nobody from the state attorney general’s office has contacted me.
I’m still ready, willing and able to talk with investigators.
I’ll meet you in the toilet.
|
Corbett
E-Mail
Print
