Bentley’s departure will be remembered
Robert Bentley materialized practically from nowhere to become governor of Alabama. His departure from that office will be in large type on future time lines of this state’s history.
Bentley on Monday finally accepted the inevitable — we were beginning to wonder if he was as oblivious to reality as the limbless Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” — and resigned after pleading guilty to a couple of misdemeanor charges, one step ahead of impeachment and potential ethics prosecution that could’ve sent him to jail for years.
Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey was promptly sworn in as the state’s 54th governor, and the second woman to hold the office.
Resigning certainly was the right thing for Bentley to do, although we’re not going to spike everyone’s collective sugar levels by magnanimously praising him for that decision. The taint of disgrace cannot be erased from this situation, even though he left voluntarily. The events of the last year, and particularly the last week, preclude that.
Bentley was an unknown (outside his district) state legislator who in 2010 took advantage of the same desire by voters for something new and against the grain that was manifested in the 2016 presidential election. He was a folksy doctor who pledged not to take a salary until the state reached a certain employment level, and the spiel worked as he defeated better-known and -heeled opponents to become governor.
We’ve been displeased with his performance in that role for a while. He’s been ineffectual, inflexible and stubborn. He stepped in P.R. goo on his inauguration day with a clumsy remark about “Christian brothers and sisters,” and never really mastered the bully pulpit that is the only true political clout possessed by someone holding his office. He’s flailed away for six years at the massive problems facing this state without any real cohesion and with the aura of someone badly over his head.
Those significant issues have been overshadowed by salaciousness for a year, however, after reports surfaced of Bentley’s purported “improper relationship” with adviser Rebekah Caldwell Mason.
It was difficult to suppress giggles at audio recordings on which the elected governor of Alabama sounded like an old lech. The real issue, however, were the additional accusations that Bentley used state resources and the power of his office to further and mask his relationship with Mason, and to wreak havoc on anyone who tried to reveal or impede it.
We’ve called for Bentley’s resignation more than once, but we hesitated to support impeachment efforts against him until we were convinced that this was about more than punishing him for having an affair (we’ll stop being coy and use that word). A septuagenarian having a late-life, marriage-destroying crisis may be a queasiness-inducing prospect, but it’s not illegal.
However, the state Ethics Commission last week recommended that ethics and campaign finance charges be pursued against Bentley, finding probable cause that he violated state ethics laws. The House Judiciary Committee a couple of days later released a
131-page report from its special counsel detailing why Bentley should be impeached.
You can judge for yourselves — the Judiciary Committee placed everything it has online at www. bentleyinvestigation.com — but we think the evidence was both damning and revolting. We add the latter not because we were repulsed by the elected governor of Alabama supposedly opening the door to his hotel room in Washington clad in his boxer shorts, thinking Mason was knocking, or the text message “… Bless our hearts/ And other parts” that has provoked so much national ridicule. Politicians have been doing such things for 200 years; getting prudish about it now would be silly.
No, we’re revolted by the notion of Bentley telling his ex-wife’s chief of staff that she’d never work in Alabama again if she revealed the affair, and that Alabamians “bow to his throne.”
That was sheer megalomania, a sign of someone out of control and willing to do desperate things to keep what he had, without a lick of concern for what’s best for Alabama.
It’s no surprise that Bentley’s lawyers tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the release of the Judiciary Committee report. They also tried, and again failed, to halt the impeachment proceedings.
It’s also not a cliché, but the truth, to point out that with the state attorney general’s office also investigating Bentley, he was cornered with his back literally against the wall.
The Republican leaders of the state House and Senate called for his resignation; so too did the state Republican Steering Committee. His support on Goat Hill probably was at “Nixon in August 1974” levels.
Bentley’s situation was terminal. The only question was whether it would end the easy way or the hard way.
He chose the former, which is the best thing for Alabama, which badly needs to move forward from this mess. Our only concern is that it seems like Bentley received a deal to go away.
It’s not that we want a pound of his flesh, or to hound a man who’s lost everything like Javert in “Les Miserables.” We just fear that with Bentley gone, the investigation of his and others’ actions will either cease or become a low priority.
The people of Alabama need to know what happened; it’s the only way to keep it from happening again.