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Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

Kilgore shows some spunk

By PRESTON BRYANT
DEC. 22, 2003

It's not as though Attorney General Jerry Kilgore really had to snap sharply a week or so ago in defense of his office's handling of the infamous GOP eavesdropping case that the press refuses to let die -- but lots of folks are glad he did.

During a recent press forum at the Capitol attended by Kilgore, a Republican, and Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, it didn't surprise anyone that the nearly 2-year-old eavesdropping affair came up yet again. What did surprise a few was Kilgore's fast-pitch throwback of a grenade tossed to him by Kaine.

Specifically at issue was the recent revelation that Kilgore staffers were at a March 25, 2002, meeting attended by, among others, Ed Matricardi, the chief Republican eavesdropper on a Democratic conference call. That meeting, you see, was a mere three days after Kilgore's office first learned of Matricardi's potentially felonious wire-tapping, and the purpose of it was to discuss a public relations strategy for an appeal to what turns out to have been a bad lower-court ruling on the Republican-led remapping of General Assembly and congressional districts.

Kaine, in effect, suggested before the press corps that Kilgore had somehow acted unethically by allowing staffers to attend that meeting with Matricardi and other Republicans to discuss the very thing -- redistricting -- that had been the subject of the criminally intruded upon Democratic conference call.

Kilgore shot back: "I hope you're not going to lecture me about ethics, Tim Kaine." And in response to more Kaine needling, Kilgore snapped, "I have no duty to answer to you, Mr. Lieutenant Governor."

The reason, in part, for Kilgore's somewhat uncharacteristic spunk is that which nobody seems to fully appreciate: those staffers in attendance of the meeting that happened to include Matricardi had absolutely no idea Matricardi was suspected of any criminal wrong-doing.

Why? Because Kilgore had wisely chosen not to spread that fact -- or any specific details at all -- around his office, for doing so could've undercut the State Police investigation he most certainly knew was coming.

And just why did Kilgore -- himself a former state and federal prosecutor -- believe an investigation was in the offing? Because it was Kilgore who'd personally instructed his trusted counsel, Bernie McNamee, to report to the State Police what generalities McNamee by this time had been told of the possible, if not probable, eavesdropping crime.

Kilgore's a pretty prudent fellow. It comes with being a thoughtful conservative. He knew enough to draw a closed circle around the one person in his office to whom Matricardi had boasted of his surreptitious doings, the office's chief administrator, Anne Petera. Kilgore also knew that any odd deviation from the normal course of events -- such as abruptly stopping the March 25 meeting -- might've suggested something was up to Matricardi and others who'd soon be under investigation, if they weren't already.

All of Kilgore & Co.'s actions in handling this matter drew kudos recently from the very guy who'd successfully investigated, prosecuted, and secured multiple convictions in the case, U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty. And who, pray tell, would've known more nitty-gritty details about who did what than this prosecutor and his team of investigators?

"From my perspective," McNulty said several months ago to a reporter, "it's clear that the attorney general's office did the right thing by quickly referring this matter to law-enforcement officials." (McNulty, by the way, is the very prosecutor former state Democratic Party chairman Larry Framme had urged early on to take charge of the case.)

So when a guy like Kilgore -- who's been widely praised around the state for having done the right thing in reporting the eavesdropping incident -- is pelted by critics and accused of unethical behavior, well, he has a right to bite back.

This is not to say, however, that Kilgore is shedding his Mr. Nice Guy image. That'd be tough to do since he is, after all, such a genuinely nice guy.

Rather, it simply demonstrates that the attorney general, who's most certainly going to be the GOP's nominee for governor in 2005, knows an unwarranted political attack when he sees one. Let's not forget that his three most vocal Democratic critics over the past week or so have been guys contemplating statewide campaigns: Kaine, who is Kilgore's likely opponent in the next governor's race; Sen. Creigh Deeds of Bath County, who may run for lieutenant governor; and Alexandria's Del. Brian Moran, who's weighing a possible bid for attorney general.

Rank-and-file Republicans seem to have gotten a kick out of Kilgore's snap at Kaine. They know Kilgore's not the kind of guy who picks a fight, and now they know he won't back down from one.

State Democrats are being beaten on most every front these days, so it's understandable that they're going to attack when they see (and even erroneously perceive) an opening. That's just the way the political game is played.

What's got to be frustrating, though, is how tough it's becoming for Democrats to credibly attack a guy like Kilgore who everybody knows is a political straight arrow.

And now folks know he's a straight arrow with some spunk.

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