The Martin Chronicles is relishing the prospect of reporting on one of the oddest alliances to be struck in the long rich history of corruption and cronyism that is Kentucky politics.We refer of course to the bed being shared by the bilious blowhard County Boss Steve Arlinghaus and the reanimated Villa Hills Councilman Mary Koenig.
We have to go back to the end of the last millennium in order to fully appreciate the richness of the unholy pairing of Arlinghaus and Councilman Koenig. Arlinghaus was an old-fashioned Kentucky Democrat back in those days. He also had the unenviable position of standing between Fraulein Koenig and her dreams of glory for her son mAdam. How? Arlinghaus and mAdam Koenig were competing for the same seat on the Kenton County Fiscal Court.
Mary Koenig's remorseless emasculation of Arlinghaus has become the stuff of political legend. Koenig and a flock of Rhine maidens she recruited went door-to-door telling everyone who would listen all the ugly details of Arlinghaus' then-recent, messy divorce. And there were ugly details galore.
Yes, we know. All voters like to believe they don't respond to mud-slinging and bogus attacks. But they do. Every single time. Koenig did know that then. And she knows it better than ever now. Young mAdam rolled to victory over Arlinghaus. It was mAdam's first step in what has proven to be a long, unremarkable political career devoid of accomplishment. It all started with his mother's vicious airing of baskets-full of Steve Arlinghaus' personal dirty laundry.
Flash forward roughly fifteen years. My how things have changed. Arlinghaus is now the Tea-Party-pinhead-endorsed, rock-ribbed Republican Kenton County Boss, squandering taxpayer money on granite counter-tops and pushing for so many taxes that even the Sheriff of Nottingham would blush.. Koenig has returned to Villa Hills Council, using public money and employees to finally fix the "Harry Rigney Park problem" behind her house on East Laguna and already "approving" improper expenditures.
Best of all? The two will spend the next two years spooning tightly together between the political sheets to turn over control of Villa Hills to Kenton County.
The vacuous voters of Villa Hills will be getting EXACTLY what they voted for yet again.
