He'll Drink To That

My oh my, do we have to hose down the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning!

This is what they have to say about Gov. Ed Rendell's appointment of former PA State Senator Joe Conti to head the Liquor Control Board:

"...Rendell should know that creating a taxpayer-funded soft landing for a retiring elected official is exactly the type of garbage that has sickened Pennsylvanians. Perhaps the governor's landslide reelection has gone to his head. To conjure up such a cushy patronage job in a year in which voters booted out 24 incumbents takes a brazenness the size of Lincoln Financial Field."

I don't know if the author of this diatribe is in need of a round of shots, or if this person had already indulged before going to work on his or her keyboard.

That being said, though, I have to admit that they have a bit of a point. LCB chairman Jonathan Newman didn't know about Conti's hiring as CEO until Tuesday. But Kate Phillips, Rendell's spokeswoman, said that there had been discussion with Newman and other board members for years (to be honest, I think Newman is PO'ed primarily because he didn't get the job himself).

I should also point out that your humble narrator was once one of the biggest critics of the PA State Store system, regarding it as an idiotic relic of the "blue law" mentality particular to this commonwealth. The stores were dirty, the hours of operation were highly inconvenient, the selection was lousy, and the prices were outrageous. However, I have to give the system its due and acknowledged that it has cleaned up its act to a large degree (private ownership would be best, but if the system were dismantled now, all of that lost state revenue would have to be replaced somehow, and that makes me a bit uneasy to say the least).

The Liquor Control Board takes in about $1.7 billion annually, according to an article by Inquirer staff reporter Mario F. Cattabiani yesterday, and as Rendell said, "Do you hear of any $1.7 billion company that doesn't have a CEO?" Besides, Conti ran the committee in the PA Senate that was responsible for LCB oversight, and he ran two family restaurants, according to Alison Hawkes of the Bucks County Courier Times: the Cross Keys Inn in Buckingham and Pipersville Inn before selling them in 1999.

Would "a nationwide search," as advocated by some, have found a better candidate? For how long would such a process have dragged out? And for anyone decrying Conti's new six-figure salary, let me point out as others have that Conti (pictured) could make vastly more in the private sector if he'd chosen that route (and are insanely exorbitant CEO salaries somehow the fault of Ed Rendell?).

Yes, it would have been preferable if Rendell had done this "by the book," but as someone who is making his farewell tour in government, I guess he decided to cut through all of the BS and get the guy he wanted (a Republican whose term in office had ended, let's not forget, so there's definitely no "quid pro quo" here from which Rendell would benefit).

So let's all just relax and "belly up to the bar" on this one, OK?