This Op-Ed piece also appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader on December 5, 2005.

As I was leaving Good Night and Good Luck, actor-director George Clooney’s brilliant film about CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and the so-called “McCarthy Era” of American politics, I found myself thinking about…Greg Stumbo!

Besides bearing a physical resemblance to McCarthy, Kentucky’s crusading Attorney General also has adopted his tactics – “McCarthyism,” as it came to be commonly known — as he has widened the scope of his investigations of possible merit-system violations in the administration of Governor Ernie Fletcher.

Just as McCarthy (R-Wis.) inspired widespread fear and loathing with his bogus list of communists and their sympathizers in the federal government, the media, and Hollywood, so has Stumbo virtually paralyzed state government with his relentless snooping into the e-mail traffic of just about every Fletcher confidante except the family dog. Nobody is sure where the Attorney General will strike next. Nobody, that is, except the media, who sometimes has been the first to know when and where a subpoena will be served, all the better to get tape of somber agents carting computers out of government offices.

So allow me to play the role of Murrow and ask a question of Stumbo’s supporters in and out of the media: Is the continuation of his crusade really in the best interests of the people of Kentucky?

Even if you assume a worst-case scenario from the administration’s viewpoint, the damage done to the commonwealth by possible political interference in only a handful of state government’s 37,000-plus jobs is a mere pittance compared with the cost of Stumbo’s investigation in terms of dollars, energy, morale, and manpower. I wonder if Stumbo and his lackeys in the media understand what a Pyrrhic victory is? And I wonder how the editorial writers and commentators would be playing the story if a Republican Attorney General was practicing Stumboism – ah, McCarthyism — against a Democratic Governor?

But let’s not get into politics. Heaven knows, there’s been more than enough of that. Let’s talk about the people who really count the most – state-government employees and their fellow taxpayers. During my year and a half in state government, I was impressed with the overall quality of my fellow workers — Democrats and Republicans, merits and non-merits, veterans and neophytes. It was gratifying to learn that the vast majority seemed only concerned with doing the best job they were capable of doing. I thought about them when I read what playwright Arthur Miller said about why he wrote The Crucible, a masterpiece that used the Salem witch trials to expose the evils of McCarythism.

“I was struck hard by the breathing heroism of the victims who display an almost frightening personal integrity. It seemed to me that the best part of this country was made of such stuff; and I had a burning desire to celebrate them and to raise them out of the historic dust.” State employees shouldn’t dread going to work. Yet fear now is a palapable presence and a daily distraction throughout state government at a time when the commonwealth’s elected leaders are heading into a legislative session with many daunting – maybe impossible – challenges to confront.

Unfortunately, the merit investigation is driving the best and brightest out of state government at a time when the Medicaid mess has become a full-blown crisis, when government must adopt an energy policy that guarantees that all our citizens will have heat this winter, and when funding for education continues to fall well below the national average. I’d suspect the editorial boards of our state’s two leading newspapers, The Courier-Journal and The Herald-Leader, would endorse the lessons taught by both the Murrow movie and Miller’s play. And I know, from reading both papers, that they have denounced the Bush Administration for trying to establish a new era of McCarythism.

And yet both enthusiastically support the continuation and spread of Stumboism. They seem to take glee in the Fletcher administration’s misery instead of being concerned with the debilitating effect that the continuation of the crusade will have on the commonwealth’s ability to deal with the issues that are far more important to the people of Kentucky.

For all intents and purposes, the merit-system battle is over.

Needed changes already have been made and more are coming, thanks to the work of Secretary Erwin Roberts and his Task Force. Potential violators have been identified, embarrassed, and drummed out of state government. The Attorney General has made his point and exacted his pound of flesh.

How much more does he need? When is enough enough? And does he have an exit strategy, or does he intend to keep the investigation going until his agents have unearthed an e-mail from the Fletcher family dog?

If Stumbo wants to claim victory, even a Pyrrhic one, so be it. But there are no winners in this mess. Now it’s just a matter of determining how big the losses will be and how long the administration will be distracted from doing the people’s business. Surely that would be Edward R. Murrow’s take on Stumboism.

(Editor’s note: Billy Reed, former executive director of communications for the Kentucky Commerce Cabinet, is a 46-year journalism veteran and a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.)