Speaking of Jeb

The press in Florida likes him less and less every day. From the Miama New Times:

I was going to point out how Jeb Bush had quietly put into place a mechanism by which ultraconservative judges routinely fill vacancies on the state's appeals courts. He accomplished this back in 2001 by having the state legislature change a few rules. Specifically, the governor was given the power to appoint the people who nominate judicial candidates, thus ensuring that all nominees sent to him for consideration stood on the "right" side of gay marriage, school vouchers, and so on.

As a result we have First District Court of Appeal (DCA) Justice Paul Hawkes, who worked for Bush and former House speaker Tom Feeney; Second DCA Justice Charles Canady, a former Republican congressman and Bush's general counsel; Third DCA Justice Frank Shepherd here in Miami, who was the local managing attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative activist organization; and my personal favorite, Third DCA Justice Leslie Rothenberg, who, while running for State Attorney, signed a Christian Family Coalition pledge opposing gay marriage and supporting religious displays on public property.

That's the story I wanted to write, which would have included efforts to get a comment from Jeb Bush or a spokesman. That would have required the cooperation of Jacob DiPietre, who runs the governor's press office in Tallahassee. And that was a problem. Months ago I forever gave up on dealing with DiPietre and his staff.

I'd been seeking comment from Bush regarding Rothenberg's appointment. But forget about a quote from the governor; I didn't even get so much as a peep out of DiPietre. And I'm not talking about a quick call I made on deadline. This was more than three weeks of calls, sometimes daily. Nada. Zip.

Initially I was stunned. Then I was fuming mad. This had to be the most arrogant and unresponsive publicly funded press office I'd ever experienced. I thought back on all the contentious stories I'd written about government agencies big and small, as well as police and fire departments, the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, and I couldn't remember ever having dealt with a public-information office that simply didn't return a call -- ever.