There's Jordan and Pippen
Notes from walking through the Capitol corridors just now: 1. On the way out, rounding to the second floor stairs, I see two guys engaged in animated conversation outside the governor's office, right there in the hall. Why, it's Beebe and Harriman, governor and right hand, Jordan and Pippen, someone once said. I ask why they don't use their office and tell them it's already out that Maria Haley is going to Economic Development and that their office leaks like a sieve. Harriman, possessed of comic timing, says, yeah, leaking is getting to be a problem: Some of these things are leaking 24 hours later than we intend for them to. Beebe says one of the best things I wrote recently was when I took him to task for loose lips for talking publicly about de-merging Health from Human Services, unless, that is, he was floating a strategic trial balloon, in which case: never mind. 2. Sen. Dave Bisbee is chairman of the Senate Efficiency Committee, which met secretly yesterday and forced the retirement as Senate chief of staff of Bill Goodman, one of the most veteran and competent and respected legislative employees of the last three decades. Bisbee, one of the now-outvoted good guys resisting the new order, said the power-hungry and small-minded Brotherhood did it and he doesn't know why, because "I don't understand how anybody couldn't get along with Bill Goodman," Bisbee said he has no idea who'll replace Goodman, "but it'll be a vote of 8-to-4, I know that." 3. A competent, well-intended House member told me he's fed up because "19 guys in the Senate are running this state." I thought the Brotherhood was 21.