We are savoring the moment. It won't last long.
On Valentine's Day a right-wing Republican governor, Paul LePage, sent his legal counsel, Dan Billings, to convince the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee that Joseph Ponte should become corrections commissioner in part because an article in the Portland Phoenix "looks at Mr. Ponte's professional background and concludes that he has the skills necessary to run Maine's corrections system," as Billings told the committee members. (For the article, see "At a Turning Point," by Lance Tapley, February 9).
We wrote that Ponte received high marks from prison reformers as well as from officials with whom he had worked. Ponte straightened out two of America's most violent lockups, Walpole in Massachusetts and Shelby County in Tennessee.
Billings said LePage chose Ponte because he wanted someone with an outsider's perspective "to address a number of issues in the department, including some that have been areas of concern for a long time."
Democrats had made noises about opposing Ponte because he had worked for the past few years for the Corrections Corporation of America, and they feared that LePage had brought him to Maine to privatize the prisons. But LePage and Ponte denied this intent.
Senate Democrats on February 15 joined Republicans to unanimously confirm him.
Related:
Back from vacation, Your credibility's shot, Going, gone, More 
- Back from vacation
Governor Paul LePage recently returned from a Jamaican vacation, which provided fodder for some political controversy, and probably helped him avoid getting into new messes.
- Your credibility's shot
He used his ability to appeal to a significant minority of the electorate to propel himself and his pals into the governor's office.
- Going, gone
Republican Governor Paul LePage should do himself, his party, and his state a favor by pulling a Sarah Palin and resigning.
- The quiet man
Governor Paul LePage has, perhaps unexpectedly, refrained from loudly saying stupid things over the past month or so, since GOP legislators confronted him and told him he was a problem child.
- I can't recall
“I can think of no single measure that would do more to strengthen the credibility of state government than . . . the institution of recall.”
- Middle of the road
LePage has accomplished something no Maine governor has ever been able to achieve: He's spread joy across the entire ideological spectrum.
- Strange bedfellows
It doesn't get weirder than this. A liberal Democrat from California wants to help conservative Republicans in Maine find somebody to run against moderate GOP US Senator Olympia Snowe.
- Addicted to distraction
I have just finished conducting extensive scientific experiments that required me to wear a white lab coat, to order my deformed assistant to dig up corpses from fresh graves, and to combine common household chemicals in plastic soda bottles. The results of my tests are indisputable.
- LePage and Pingree steal each other's material
Democratic US Representative Chellie Pingree does this hilarious imitation of Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage.
- Blue city in a red state
Maine changed last Tuesday. By a slim margin, citizens voted to send Tea Party-backed Paul LePage to the Blaine House next year.
- Know what you're doing
Any idiot can be governor. I'm not saying Republican Governor-elect Paul LePage is such an idiot. But if it turns out he is, it's comforting to know that it won't make much difference.
- Less
Topics:
This Just In
, Politics, Criminal Justice Committee, Dan Billings, More
, Politics, Criminal Justice Committee, Dan Billings, Paul Lepage, government, Valentine’s Day, Joseph Ponte, Less
