Kathy Konst To Join Collins Administration
The Buffalo News reports that Kathy Konst will resign from the Erie County Legislature in mid-August to be the new environment and planning commissioner it the Collins Administration. The current commissioner, Holly Sinnott is returning to the private sector.
There is plenty of speculation on whether there were any ulterior motives in Chris Collins hiring her. The opening sentence of the Buffalo News story even ends saying that Konst’s departure from the legislature may improve Republican chances of winning her seat in this year’s elections.
The 5th District race has now been turned on its ear. Konst’s name remains on the ballot since the deadline for a withdrawal has passed. So she will be a noncandidate who still will appear on the ballot against Republican Dino Fudoli.
Right now, they are the only candidates in the race. However, a few days remain for a candidate to enter as an independent, according to this year’s state Board of Elections political calendar.
I’ve already seen some comments on Twitter accusing Collins of “screwing” Democrats again with this hire. That’s a pretty intellectually dishonest thing to say, considering that Kathy Konst is far more responsible for her leaving the Erie County Legislature than Chris Collins is. Remember Konst had to accept the offer. She could have said no. Regardless of what Collins’ motives were, it was her decision in the end.
No smart person would argue that Barack Obama didn’t have an ulterior motive in nominating Republicans to his administration. Nevertheless, it is those who accept the offers that deserve more blame. To blame Collins for hiring Konst gives her a free pass for turning her back on a job she was elected to do.
The Buffalo Bean 
Let me paraphrase your opinion and blogging on Kathy Konst, based on your archives:
1. Kathy Konst challenges Jon Powers in NY-26 Dem primary: yay Kathy.
2. Kathy Konst challenges Dale Volker for NY Senate – 59: boo Kathy. She’s a corrupt scumbag of corruption.
3. Kathy Konst returns quietly to Erie County Legislature: crickets chirpingt
4. Chris Collins hires Kathy Konst: Hey! Leave that nice, awesome Kathy alone!
Obviously, you didn’t read through my archives at all. If you had, you would have found that I neither praised or criticized Konst for entering the NY-26 race. I was, however, critical of Dem leaders publicly endorsing Powers before the primary – and therefore supported her position on the matter. I also was never critical of her challenging Volker, but of the electoral fusion nonsense that was a distraction in the race… and while I know Democrats are against holding member of their party accountable, it is pretty sad that when it was reported that she had allegedly voted in Florida and New York in the same election, or that she had missed a filing deadline, you never mentioned those stories… according to your archives.
Of course, your reading skills clearly failed you again with this post, as the entire point of it was that Konst, not Collins, should be “blamed” for leaving the Erie County Legislature.
It’s OK, Democrats have microscopic memories.
Hm. That must be why you gleefully reported about issues that popped up during the Volker race.
And as for Konst in the NY-26 race, if it was bad for Powers, you were all over it like white on rice. I mean, that was kind of your raison d’etre, as evidenced by your decidedly mid-2008-era tag cloud, and your Jack Davis ads.
In other words, you flipped when it was harmful to Dems and flopped when it was harmful to Repubs.
Is that the best argument you could make? that is what took you a week to contemplate?
And please, you are the last one to lecture anybody on how they blog, when you so blatantly ignore certain stories that are by anyone’s standards newsworthy – but don’t fit your agneda..
Of course you keep ingoring the fact that you totally misinterpreted (or probably just didn’t really read) what I wrote about Konst joining the Collins administration. But, I’ve learned to expect such things from you.
I am sure you will have some other lame ass response, complete with a latin or french expression to make your comments sound more reasoned than they actually are.
It took me a week to respond because I come to check your site when you update it.
Some of us actually work during the week, instead of blogging, tweeting, and commenting on blogs all day.
Matt, I love it when you get bitchy and manage my time. You always like to be on top of what I’m up to, and for this you should be commended. Everyone should be on top of what I’m up to.
But you’re right. My work schedule while also raising a three year old, a nine year old, and keeping my wife of almost 15 years happy is totally your business. When I get up in the morning, what I do during the day, and when I take all that crazy time to tweet out 140 characters’ worth of text is really a disservice to people who aren’t your concern.
And let’s be clear, since we’re all laying out how much everybody pays attention to everyone else’s private business, that you don’t post crap because you don’t have the foggiest clue what you’re talking about when it comes to New York, or WNY politics. You see everything as a republicans good/democrats bad mindset when that is, in fact, only a small fraction of what goes on here politically. You know this, because I tried to do you a favor and explain it to you.
So am I to extrapolate from your comment that when you were furiously blogging about how bad Jon Powers sucked and how beautifully wonderful Chris Lee was and carrying Jack Davis’ paid-for water for a time back in 2008 that you were neglecting your duties at work? Because that’s what you just accused me of.
Looks like a hit a nerve. How cute.
Now isn’t that rich… You, of all people, are accusing me of having a “republicans good/democrats bad mindset.” That’s a knee slapper. Your blog/twitter are practically all regurgitated WH and Dem talking points (but i guess that’s okay since you claim to be a moderate) and excessive snark to compensate for lack of actual thought.
Well, I have the benefit of knowing what I’m talking about and thinking about it. You have the benefit of thinking Dick Cheney is a good American, George W. Bush was competent, threat levels were raised in the runup to the 2004 election for legitimate, non-political reasons, and you write about a “culture of corruption” while openly supporting the corrupt Tom Delay.
If that’s what passes for “actual thought”, I’ll take regurgitated snark any day.
If you think Cash for Clunkers and Obamacare are good ideas then you clearly don’t know what you are talking about or thinking about…
Cash for Clunkers moved metal. If waiting for a rebate check is evidence of failure, then I guess all rebate programs are failures, whether they advance the underlying sales numbers or not.
As for “Obamacare”, you’re right. I think it’s a lame idea. It’s an idea that’s been hijacked by compromises.
I’d be much more in favor of a British style NHS system whereby a certain baseline of medical needs was provided for under a single-payer plan, but enhanced and additional medical care could be financed individually or through separate medical insurance policies.
Also better would be a hybrid system such as Germany’s, or a mandatory insurance scheme such as Switzerland’s.
The problem is that any plan that promotes universal coverage with a subsidy for the poor will be demagogued to death by the Republicans and glibertarians who will scream “socialism” from the rooftops.
And no one will ask, where are the teaparties against universal health care in France, in Germany, in Switzerland, in Canada, in Norway, in Sweden, in Holland, in Spain, in Italy, in Austria, in Denmark, in the UK, in Ireland, etc.
Yeah, the UK’s NHS system works really well… the problem with these government-run HC is that democrats pretend tha the health care is either cheap or free (it isn’t) and higher quality (it never is) … Obama has no interest in reducing the costs of health care… but making taxpayers pay for it and pretending like it is free…
As for cash for clunkers, no one argues that a lot of cars were sold… but have we not learned from past mistakes (remember the housing crisis) and thought better of this? lots of people went from having no car payments and minimal insurance payments to having a car payment (likely $300-$400 a month) plus a significantly larger car insurance payment…that’s a big burden to add at a time when it probably was not a good idea… with unemployment likely to pass double digits, and a slow economy in general…
you have to consider all the consequences. You can’t just say “they sold a lot of cars” and pretend like this was a good thing. in the long term, this will likely have a real negative impact on the economy… consumer spending will take hit… you better believe that.
as for the administration of the program… it was a disaster… no point in sugarcoating that.