Kentucky pain: Dem guv caught lying about "snubbing" Obama

Kentucky's Democratic governor faces a tough reelection this fall in a state where President Obama is not very popular. So there is political gain, one would think, in being anti-Obama. But there is no political advantage in being caught lying--especially in a sneaky manner.

From AP

Gov. Steve Beshear was accused of snubbing President Barack Obama when the president visited Fort Campbell earlier this year to meet the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden.

But internal emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Beshear was the one who received a cold shoulder during Obama's visit to the Army post on the Kentucky-Tennessee line: The governor wasn't invited.

One of Beshear's closest advisers, Katie Dailinger, had quizzed the governor's secretary, Sally Flynn, in an email on May 6, the day of the Obama visit, asking if she had received an invitation for the governor from the White House.

"No," Flynn responded. "I didn't."

The White House confirms Beshear wasn't invited. On Planet Politics, "a prior commitment" is the polite way of saying "get lost." Beshear's "prior commitment" was a horse race.

David Williams. Beshear's Republican opponent, issued the following statement about the Democrat's lie:

There's no other way to look at this than Beshear has been caught lying in an cynical effort to gain favor with Kentucky voters who don't approve of Barack Obama. In doing so he lied to members of the media and to the general public about his own schedule, and he never gave a second thought to what effect this could have on troop morale. I'm disgusted by this rank partisanship. Every Kentuckian now has reason to believe that anything they hear from the governor's office is said to mislead and confuse. This guy will literally say anything to get reelected, even if the truth is a casualty.

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