Bill Straub: Bevin’s claim of ignorance over removal of Jane Beshear’s name from center has hollow ring

It’s becoming increasingly easy to imagine Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin – sans beard — assuming the role of the late John Banner as Sgt. Hans Schultz in a reworking of the classic “Hogan’s Heroes’’ television show.

After all, Mad Matt already has appropriated Schultz’s catch phrase: “I see NOTHING! I know NOTHING!’’

The governor is pleading ignorance (insert cheap laugh) over who specifically ordered the unceremonious removal of former First Lady Jane K. Beshear’s name from the Capitol Education Center, an honor bestowed upon her by her husband, Bevin’s predecessor and nemesis, former Gov. Steve Beshear, a story first reported by the Herald-Leader’s Jack Brammer.

Not only did Mad Max maintain he hasn’t the foggiest notion why Ms. Beshear’s name was drop-kicked from the structure, he maintains he doesn’t even know where said building is located, firmly establishing that he remains unfamiliar with his neighborhood’s surroundings after more than seven months on the job. It’s almost adjacent to the Governor’s Mansion to the south and easily spotted from the east porch of the Capitol Building itself, easily within Bevin’s view as he departs after a long day of figuring out how to make the lives of the commonwealth’s poor women and children even more miserable.

It’s a relatively small building that once contained the heating and air conditioning units that served the facilities on the Capitol grounds. It was built in the late 1980s, way over budget and schedule, which, as every non-comatose person in the commonwealth is aware, is often the case with state government construction projects. Former Associated Press reporter Mark Chellgren and I encountered then-Gov. Wallace Wilkinson one afternoon early in his tenure, observing the structure, smoking cigarette after cigarette as was his habit and growing angrier by the moment over delays and costs.

“Sometimes I come out here and see this thing and think son of a b—h,’’ Wilkinson said.

So it is not an anonymous facility. But just 20-or-so years later it was abandoned, a white elephant, no longer able to handle the heating and cooling needs on the campus. Jane Beshear, as first lady, raised funds to outfit the center as an education and welcoming facility for the more than 60,000 students, teachers and other guests that visit the Capitol Campus each year. It opened in February 2013.

This would exist as little more than a passing curiosity were it not for the fact that Bevin and Steve Beshear, along with the Beshear’s son, Andy, the attorney general, are engaged in a “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’’ sort of showdown. Bevin is looking to drastically restructure, or dump, Beshear’s initiative to expand Medicaid, a move that has provided health care to an additional 440,000 Kentuckians. Mad Matt already has deep-sixed kynect, the state’s Obamacare program that was lauded from coast-to-coast.

Beshear, understandably and honorably, took umbrage with Bevin playing fast and loose with the health care of Kentuckians, an issue that seems to elicit little more than a yawn from the current office holder.

Complicating matters further was Bevin’s decision to “reorganize’’ the Kentucky Horse Park Commission, thus displacing its members, including – you guessed it – one Jane K. Beshear.

Now, dissing a political foe’s spouse generally is considered bad form even under the most ungracious of circumstances. A second bite of the apple is downright offensive and provides additional insight into the character of the person doing the low dealing.

Bevin, as noted, maintained he knows nothing about the situation and was not involved – a claim that must be taken at face value even though it would be the first time in the long history of the commonwealth that the governor wasn’t consulted about an obviously touchy political situation.

Regardless, Bevin appears to be in no great hurry to get Kentucky Finance and Administration Secretary William Landrum, whose agency handles such matters, on the horn to tell him to put the former first lady’s name back on the building because he doesn’t need the resulting headache.

So the status remains quo and, like it or not, the onus remains on Mad Matt’s back. And it’s still a controversy.

Administration defenders, the hearty but few, argue that naming the building in Jane Beshear’s honor shouldn’t have been bestowed in the first place – none of the other buildings on the Capitol grounds have been named in someone’s honor. But there are only three other state government facilities in the general vicinity, not counting the parking garage, and none of them render themselves easily to honorariums, unless you want to name them for those who have had real influence on state government over the years – maybe the Leonard Lawson Capitol building or the Bill Sturgill Governor’s Mansion.

Perhaps, in order to raise revenue, Bevin could sell the naming rights – how does the Yum! Brands State Capital sound?

Jane Beshear raised the funds necessary to outfit the education center. It’s different from the other three buildings where government work actually takes place. There’s nothing sacrosanct about it. So let’s stir the pot and remove the name of our political foe’s wife. As they used to say in those great old TV ads for Guinness (the world’s finest potable) “BRILLIANT!’’

More importantly, the incident shows further what a small, petty individual Kentuckians have chosen to lead them for the next 3 ½ years. Picking fights, insulting foes, threatening those who refuse to bow to his demands, belittling the poor, rejecting compromise, displaying an overarching ego, Bevin constantly exhibits all the traits that plague modern American politics.

This most recent incident is a prime example – he could transform it from a tempest to a teapot with one call. Instead it lays there like road kill on a yellow line on a steamy July afternoon. Then he dismisses the entire incident with a wave of the hand, telling reporters, “It’s not even worth one drop of ink from any of you.’’

Thanks for the advice, pal. You can stop that wasteful use of ink with a single executive action.

Still, there exists a recent effort to assure the public that maybe Mad Matt isn’t that bad. After all, he allegedly had a successful legislative session, although that assessment is rather like saying Gen. Pickett experienced rousing success advancing First Corps toward Cemetery Ridge because the doomed infantrymen carried out his orders.

Bevin gleefully signed a budget that gut-shot higher education, cut most state agencies by 9 percent, thus guaranteeing a downgrade in the state’s already sloppy services, and failed to provide pay raises for teachers.

How much more success can the commonwealth stomach?

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.