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Will Forte, the over-the-top comic who plays Zell
Miller on "Saturday
Night Live," just received a carload of fresh material.
Miller has been caught with his hand in the taxpayers' cookie jar -
sort of.
When this nationally famous figure left the
governor's office in 1999,
he pocketed more than $60,000 in taxpayer funds earmarked for
entertainment and other expenses at the Governor's Mansion, WSB-TV
investigative reporter Dale Cardwell revealed last week.
Miller also picked up a check for more than $20,000 for "unused
leave"
- a sum to which he was not entitled as a constitutional officer,
Cardwell also reported.
At first blush, such stuff may sound shockingly
sleazy. Bear with us.
Miller has an explanation, contained in prepared statements issued
through his attorney. In essence, Miller says that he was
technically eligible to take the
mansion money as his own because no one said he could not. "When I
retired from state government, I received only what I was advised
was
legal, ethical and traditional," his statement read, citing an
attorney
general's official opinion from 1969.
Never mind that every other living governor from
Jimmy Carter to Sonny
Perdue told reporter Caldwell that they did not consider the mansion
money theirs - and that they would not have taken it. The cash was
meant for use at the mansion, not for lining the occupants' pockets,
they said.
Common Cause and other good-government sorts
denounced Miller.
As for taking the "unused leave" money, Miller - who served as a
constitutional officer from 1975 to 1999 - said he was unaware of
the
rules barring the state's highest elected officials from cashing out
their leave. He paid the money back - six years later - when the
Atlanta TV guy started asking questions.
Ordinarily, this kind of corner-cutting in
government is so commonplace
that hardly anyone notices (or cares) anymore. In fact, a weather
report
temporarily pre-empted the second installment of Cardwell's TV piece
on
Miller.
However, folks, don't write this off as just another
run-of-the-mill TV
tale. This is about the Paul Bunyan of Peach State politics - a
Georgia giant who in at least three recent books ("Corps Values," "A
National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat"
and
"A Deficit of Decency") set out to establish himself as an arbiter
of
moral behavior in public office.
In his latest volume, "Deficit of Decency," Miller
advises his readers:
"Is it decent? is the right question. It's one all of us know and
can
answer, law degree or not. Is it decent? demands not wordy responses
or
over-educated legal beagles to interpret it, but simple truth, which
doesn't need many words and doesn't lean into the technical."
A year ago, an angry, almost apoplectic Miller didn't hesitate to
appear on national TV to rage against what he considered a loss of
moral
compass by his fellow Democrats.
In the summer of 2005, he declined to stand before
the cameras to
comment on his own conduct, instead assigning a legal beagle to
offer
technical interpretations.
If the writers at SNL can't make you fall down
laughing with this
stuff, send for Cardwell. He can crack up the country with accounts
of
what he has discovered about Miller.
There also is delicious irony and a bit of sad
history worth
considering here.
Throughout much of his political career, Miller
claimed as his role
model Georgia Gov. E. D. Rivers (1937-1941), an ardent New Dealer
who
introduced an impoverished Georgia to free schoolbooks, a nine-month
school year and an improved public welfare system.
Alas, Rivers' achievements were eclipsed after he left office by
what
Miller once termed "vicious stories" of corruption that riddled his
tenure. The wrongdoing involved prison pardons, paving contracts and
allegedly swiping stuff from the old Mansion. During his 1991-1999
administration, Miller repeatedly cautioned his inner circle,
"Rivers
was a great governor, but I don't want to be remembered like he
was."
Of course, reports on Miller, so far, are not nearly as serious as
the
accusations against Rivers. However, the beginnings of the parallels
are
obvious.
Supporters of Gov. Eugene Talmadge, once an ally of
Rivers, lit the
flames of controversy that wiped out the reputation of "Bow-Tie
Eddie."
One wonders whether some of Miller's fellow Democrats, tired of his
invective and "decency" sermons, have not set out to do the same to
Zell.
Word has it, there's much more to come.
(You can write to Bill Shipp at P.O. Box 440755, Kennesaw, GA,
30160.
You can e-mail him at
bshipp@bellsouth.net )
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