Kirby…Kirby….Kirby….2.0
State rep Dan Kirby's saga is slowing to a close after his second attempt to resign in as many months. The committee "investigating" Kirby and Democrat David Fourkiller successfully beat down any attempt to widen the investigation and bring former Representative Randy Grau in for questioning on his part in the scandals. Kirby has resigned effective March 1st, missing the chance to be the first state representative in state history to be forcibly removed from office
The damage goes far further than just Kirby and Fourkiller. Newly elected Speaker Charles McCall found himself disciplining two of his supporters in just over a month, leaving many of this other supporters wondering if they would be the next to be thrown under the bus. Carol Bush of course being the second McCall supporter embroiled in a controversy over an infamous interview where she slashed House leadership along with Christians and the majority of the Oklahoma voters.
Former Speaker Hickman, whatever faults he had, at least tried to protect his team members including helping to cover up the Dan Kirby dalliances. Illegally so some might say but at least you can say he was a leader that tried to cover his troops.
McCall is unique in that he has only a handful of years experience as a legislator before being elected Speaker and also for buying the election with generous donations to House members running for office. McCall is way, way, out of touch on the issues facing Oklahoma this session.
What is interesting is that House Minority Leader Scott Inman suddenly found his voice, going so far to use the word "sordid" in his statement according to the Tulsa World.
"The allegations that were set forth in the report of the House Special Investigation Committee were troubling and should never be tolerated," said House Minority Leader Scott Inman, D-Del City. We hope the victims of this sordid episode find some measure of comfort in the announcement,"
Evidently our little inoculation story did its job and Inman found courage in the fact that the media wasn't going to look too deep into allegations of his own problems.
