Gov. Ultra-Sound has kitchen problems

If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen brings on a new dimension to the Governor’s Mansion this past week.  The head chef, who was not vetted, had a criminal record for embezzlement.  According to The Richmond Times Dispatch:

Controversy is simmering in the kitchen at Virginia’s two-century-old Executive Mansion. If it boils over, Gov. Bob McDonnell could get burned.

State police confirmed a criminal investigation into unspecified improprieties in the kitchen operation. Authorities say the mansion’s celebrity chef, Todd Schneider, is the focus. Schneider has left after nearly two years, saying he wanted to concentrate on his catering business.

No charges have been filed, no arrests made. There’s a lot we don’t know. However, newspaper reports indicate McDonnell’s staff did not conduct a required criminal-background check on Schneider. Had they, they’d have learned Schneider was convicted of embezzlement, for which he received a six-month suspended sentence.

That this is a sensitive investigation is an understatement. Personal or professional indiscretions — if that’s what they are — could, in the eyes of law enforcement, qualify as law-breaking.

That’s not what McDonnell needs, not now — not atop the battering he’s taking in public-opinion polls.

The mansion investigation is unfolding as the Republican presidential contest is narrowing and speculation is accelerating about presumed nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate. McDonnell makes no secret of his interest.

How might the state police probe complicate McDonnell’s ambitions? The governor’s office answered that question the old-fashioned way: by changing the subject.

Why didn’t McDonnell’s staff follow procedure?  A kitchen is an easy play to siphon money off the top.  How much has this negligence cost the taxpayers of Virginia?

Part of  me would feel sorry for Gov. U-S (U-S is short for Ultra-Sound) if he only hadn’t signed that bad legislation that required medical procedures that were unneeded.  But he did.  He is no longer Virginia’s golden boy and I haven’t seen him showing up on the morning news shows.  That’s politics for you. 

Is Kitchen-gate a serious political event or is it just a gotcha moment? 

Romney’s veep-vetters, should they consider McDonnell, have plenty to parse in his record in Richmond, especially given the continuing controversy over his awkward handling of legislation requiring ultrasounds for women having abortions.

That’s a policy question with a political dimension, possibly explained away as a bona fide conservative struggling to strike a balance between the philosophical excesses of his party and the practical realities of the law. It’s a bit of a stretch, given that a recent poll by Quinnipiac University shows McDonnell on the wrong side of the issue: 52 percent of Virginia voters oppose compulsory ultrasounds.

Goings-on at the governor’s official residence potentially delve into personal questions, the political dimensions of which can be lethal. It’s one thing to be pecked at by opponents and the press for an unpopular position. It’s another to risk being pilloried for behavior — your own or others’ — that potentially raises questions of attentiveness to detail, of judgment.

Virginians have seen this before, and they’ve seen it exact a toll on marquee politicians.

Take Governor Chuch Robb, for example.  Governor Chuck Robb ran into problems in the Governor’s Mansion when rumors of coke sniffing at parties in Tidewater that Robb had attended years before.  He repeatedly stated he had no knowledge of such goings on but rumors stuck to him like glue.  When he was elected to the Senate, more rumors surface, this time from Gov. Wilder, his arch enemy, about parties and women.  Who made all this stick?  Republicans.  I expect that Kitchen-gate and ultra-sounds might just find a away to hang around for a while.  Political swift- boating isn’t pretty and it isn’t fair, it just is. 

So is this one Kitchen-gate or Chef-gate?