California dreaming, Kentucky scheming

Getting out of the business of shilling for politicians has never felt so good to me as it did this morning when I read the following effort from Gov. Steve Beshear's new blogging defender:

What the writer is trying to do is draw a parallel between Kentucky's relatively brief and uneventful budget stand-off and California's fireworks. There is actually a lesson to be learned here about partisan politics, though using the budget process in Kentucky this year to shill for one of the participants is a bit of a stretch. In both California and Kentucky, Democratic legislators championed tax increases and Republicans pushed for massive borrowings. In Kentucky, Beshear "passed" a budget by giving in to Republicans. California's Democrats will wind up "giving in" as well.

Our massive borrowings may not match up to California's in terms of sheer size, but proportionally, we are already way ahead of them.

Trying to score political points from these sorry episodes is hardly worth the embarrassment.