Strickland's Pay to Play Scheme

Matt Dole at LincolnLogsBlog points out the latest nonsense coming from the Ohio's leftysphere in defense of Ted Strickland's culture of corruption and pay-to-play schemes:

Let’s think about this for a second and see if Bryan hasn’t made our point for us unintentionally.

Why do people give to politicians? They agree with their ideology? Sure. Ideological agreement leads a lot of people to give to candidates. They are afraid of “the other guy?” Absolutely. The Anti-Hillary faction is good for a few million to McCain, Romney, Giuliani, etc. They want some spoils? Uh-yeah.

Now, let’s review this situation… Some of the companies who got contracts from Strickland gave to Blackwell and Strickland. Did they do this out of ideological purity? I don’t think so - they gave to two divergent ideological candidates. Did they give out of fear? Nope - again, they gave to both candidates (unless it was fear of Bob Fitrakis… and if anyone was afraid of him winning they have bigger issues even than pay-to-play).

… So what does that leave. Hmmm… It seems to me these folks gave to cover their asses, trying to grease some wheels in anticipation of getting some state contracts.

This is exactly right. If the lefties were convinced that Ted Strickland wasn't engaging in activities that they just spent the last election cycle attacking, they would be saying that these transactions are nothing more than the coincidence of "good" government doing business with good companies. But they aren't doing that, are they? Nope...they are engaging in the sort of rhetoric that most of us called "hackery" when we saw it during the Taft administration. There is no defending the indefensible...

If the lefties were intellectually honest with themselves and their readers, they would demand answers from the governor and the Ohio Democratic Party. The resulting noise machine defense of this practice by the Ohio leftysphere speaks volumes to the Ohio electorate... The last election cycle was marked by a multitude of lies by Ohio Democrats desperate for a win. How much this will cost us is yet to be determined, but I expect the price will be high.

UPDATE: Matt Naugle chimes in at RightAngleBlog.