Madrak on Meehan

Susie over at Suburban Guerilla used to write for one or more Delaware County newspapers. She has a good post on the leading contenders for the 7th congressional district. Here is an excerpt on Republican Patrick Meehan:

Once appointed in 2001, Meehan immediately started a number of high-profile public corruption prosecutions, almost all of them of Philadelphia Democrats, for pay to play scandals. (He did announce one or two investigations into small-town Republicans, but the investigations were, of course, dropped without indictment.)

Since by then I was no longer in the newspaper business, I amused myself by writing letters to the editor. Every time I saw another shallow yet glowing story about “reformer” Meehan, I’d write, “What is it about Pat Meehan that causes him to have amnesia every day when he crosses the county line to go to work? Because either he never noticed any pay-to-play action in Delaware County while he was D.A., which makes him stupid, or he’s only prosecuting Democrats, which makes him corrupt.”

But for some reason, they never printed my letters. This was even more amusing to me, since the Philadelphia Inquirer had to know I was right. After all, their own reporters did many, many stories about Delco pay-for-play scandals.

Democratic frontrunner Bryan Lentz has been pointing out that some of Meehan's ballot petitions have some problems. See "Can Corbett be unbiased in probe of Delco nominating petitions?" by William Bender of the Daily News (4/03) for details.