“Contrary to what some Republican bloggers would have you believe, we at Fired Up Missouri hardly ever get our best stuff from Rod Jetton.”   FiredUp Missouri 5/20/08

You Heard It Here First

Rod “Village Man” Jetton, Chris “The Imposter” Koster, and Jason “What Rod Said” Crowell were seen at the St. Charles Ameristar Casino this weekend, enjoying all the amenities the gaming giant has to offer. Oh, and Jeff Smith was also there, even though he apparently wasn’t being allowed onto the casino since his court date for breaking the law at the Isle of Capri in Boonville is just a month away. And let’s not forget that Jetton, Smith and others were spotted at the same club back in March to catch of glimpse of Paris Hilton.

Readers might think it’s not so unusual to see a trio of legislators partying hard on the heels of the close of session. But this scenario is notable for several reasons.

First, it fuels the ongoing speculation that Jetton has been hired by Koster to do campaign work. It would also explain why Koster, now a Democrat, was so eager to help Crowell and other Jetton clients filibuster the repeal of the Village Law Jetton passed for a developer.

If there was one aspect of the Village Law debacle that ALL of the media missed is that the legislation would have allowed businessman/developer Robert Plaster and others to circumvent the process to , say, put a casino in near a lake in Southwest Missouri.

What makes the latest Ameristar visit so intriguing besides the Village Law implications and Smith’s indiscretions is that the recent “boys night out” is that it was being paid for by the 106^th Campaign Committee controlled by Tilley. Oh, and wasn’t this the group of folks that were busy trying to block a repeal of the Village Law?

Second, Jetton has tried very hard to pass himself off as a cultural conservative who lives by Missouri’s common sense social values. If reports of his shenanigans at Ameristar are true, they would undermine the church-boy image. Showing up at Ameristar would almost be enough on its own to put the trio out of favor with the evangelical crowd.

Critics argue that the conventional wisdom will soon be that Jetton’s tenure as Speaker was one of the most scandal-plagued since Bob Griffin’s. On top of that, his critics say, he took a caucus that had potential to accomplish a lot for Missouri and divided it by playing favorites and engaging in Griffin-esque tactics. And where have the Democrats been all this time? Where have FiredUp and the muckrakers been? Where is the invective or slanderous innuendo concerning Jetton? Curiously, there has been very little.

Given its longstanding tradition as a journalistic gladiator, always willing to speak truth to power, we would expect this type of thing to show up on FiredUp Missouri. But that raises another interesting wrinkle worth mentioning: Jetton seems to have received some sort of immunity from the muckraking blog. Many Republicans have speculated for some time that Jetton is a source of information for FiredUp and the Democrat slime machine. That would at least explain how the St. Louis Post Dispatch’s lengthy (and detailed) editorial on Jetton’s legacy did not make the blog’s front page. Suffice it to say that if such allegations of corruption and incompetence were made against any Republican not on FiredUp’s list of sources, the blog would have had a field day . . . which says a lot about its true motives.

Bottom line: There seems to be some simple connect the dots to be done, as Baghdad Tony Messenger would say. Tony (or anyone else in the media), how bout it?

Well, it’s time to leave this tangled web so I can get back to writing more headlines about the Webbed Menace.

Until Next Time:

Related:

Jeff Harris press release:

“Throughout this campaign, Senator Koster has continued to show his confusion about just what it means to be a Democrat,” said Jeff Harris. “I know that standing up for regular folks and against rich corporations is a new concept for him, but taking up a fight on behalf of the Republican Speaker and his cronies is a flat out insult to Democrats, to working families and to communities across this state.”

In the final days of the session, Senator Koster also took a bizarre stand for a Democrat, by filibustering a bill that would have repealed the so-called “Village Law.” That law allows developers to skirt local and county regulations. Not only did Koster side with wealthy developers, he was also personally championing a fight on behalf of his friend, the Republican Speaker of the House Rod Jetton. The Springfield News Leader reported that Koster met with Jetton to discuss strategy for filibustering this bill to benefit Jetton’s rich developer friends.

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