Thoughts on Frankie Coleman
Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman is a talented, dedicated public servant who has done much to improve Columbus, one of the nation's best cities to live. As Lee Fisher's running mate, he provide great ticket and demonstrated that he was a rising star in our party. Mayor Mike Coleman will continue to serve the residents of Columbus well, and I firmly believe that Mike Coleman will eventually be a statewide officeholder, if not elected to Congress.
But this post isn't about Mike Coleman. It's about his wife, Frankie. Frankie Coleman has been accused by a former Bob Taft employee of submitting false time sheets related to her employment with the Ohio Department of Commerce. Frankie Coleman denies these allegations and has stopped making any public comments since her parking records were released, records that are circumstantial evidence supporting the allegations.
Governor Ted Strickland did the right thing by immediately asking the Inspector General to investigate the issue and the IG is the office is the appropriate body to handle such complaints. Republicans appeared well-prepared to mount an offensive on this which suggests that there may have been some coordination with the ORP to use this situation for the GOP's political advantage. For the ORP and conservative bloggers to feign outrage that Marc Dann's office is not also investigating this is, as our President so often has said, "staged political theater" as the IG, and not the AG, is the proper investigatory authority to examine such allegations.
I don't care if the Taft employee, who has since been fired, did or did not coordinate with the ORP to raise this allegations in a manner to maximize the political advantage of it. Frankie says she worked the hours she put on her timesheet, there's an IG investigation looking into, and I'm confident the truth will come out.
At this point, only Frankie Coleman knows the truth. And if she has "fudged" her timesheet, then she should do the honorable thing and repay the taxpayers of Ohio the money she was paid, but not entitled to, and she should be disciplined appropriately just as any other state employee would have. Which means, that if Joe Schmoe state employee would not be fired over it, then neither should she. Frankie Coleman should not be treated harsher or lighter than any other state employee for a similar offense.
That being said, I am disappointed that Frankie Coleman didn't know any better and realized that she was going into work with Republicans putting her in the crosshairs. After all, this is the same party whose supporters tried to use corporate filings in Kentucky to question the sexual orientation of Ohio's current First Lady and her marriage to the Governor. And that was while Governor Strickland was only a threat to their power. Now that the Republicans are out of power, Frankie Coleman should have known that she needed to go out of her way to prevent even the slightest appearance that Republicans were hungry to pounce upon. She was politically reckless at best.
But the gall of the Ohio Republican Party and the conservative bloggers to try to make this into something more than it is an act of revisionist history. This is not, as the conservatives suggest, anywhere close to what happened under the Taft Administration and Coingate. It's a sad attempt of a corrupt ideology trying desparately to making this anthill into a mountain.
What happened in this case? An allegation was raised about a spouse of a prominent member of our party. Upon hearing the allegation, Governor Strickland ordered the appropriate investigatory agency to investigate the matter. The rest will develop over time.
Governor Taft? He took unreported gifts from a major donor and beneficiary of a large amount of state largess (in forms of money and political appointments.) Taft became the first sitting Governor convicted of a crime committed in his official capacity, something that Ohio Attorney Discplinary Counsel publicly reprimanded the Governor for doing. And what did the Ohio General Assembly under Republican rule do? Nothing. No impeachment, no censure, no reprimand resolution, not even a vote of no confidence. In other words, Ohio's Republican legislators showed less outrage at Governor Taft's ethical transgressions than Ohio's lawyers. In fact, the ORP's official stance at the time was that this was "much ado about nothing" as Taft's crime was nothing more than a paperwork error.
Coingate involved millions of dollars. In fact, corruption in BWC under Republican rule factors in the tens of millions of dollars which makes the allegations against Frankie Coleman pale in comparison. What did Ohio's Republican Attorney General do at the time? Not much. Ohio's Republican Auditor? Same thing. In fact, Ohio's Secretary of State, who had no horse in the race, came out and initially tried to defend the investment arrangement with Tom Noe. Ohio's Republican elected officials, unlike Governor Strickland in this small personnel matter, did nothing when millions of state dollars were at stake, even after federal authorities contacted them with grave concerns about the lack of oversight and unusual nature of the arrangement with Noe.
And of all people, for Matt Dole at Lincoln Logs to express feigned outrage that this is some huge Democratic scandal takes testicles so large I wonder how he can move after his incessant defense of war profiteer Bob Ney and his corrupt defense contracts for poker chips and golf exchange.
If Frankie Coleman is guilty of padding her timesheet, she should admit it and face the consequences. But to try and blow this up as if it equates to what Ohioans have had to endure from their state government under Republican rule demeans the severity of Tom Noe and Bob Taft's crimes.
