The public alignment of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board and the administration of Mayor Francis Slay is now complete, with the Post’s amazing and appalling coverage and editorial on the resignation of Recorder of Deeds Sharon Carpenter for nepotism and Slay’s continued support of her candidacy for the office.
Imagine the opportunity for chastising the mayor that was handed to an editorial board that for years has been hounding elected officials – most of them, like County Executive Charlie Dooley, African-American – for even rumors of impropriety and corruption. An official who has served in a citywide office since 1980 abruptly resigned when an obscure primary opponent, Ed McFowland, produced evidence that Carpenter had hired a relative to work in the office. Carpenter resigned, as she was compelled by law, but also promptly announced that she intends to stand for election in August anyway – and even asked publicly for the mayor’s support.
And the mayor granted her his support in the August 5 primary! That is hardly a stand for good government or ethics in public service. It’s difficult to imagine the severity of the thrashing that someone like Dooley would endure from the Post if he endorsed someone for an elected office that the candidate had just been forced to quit because of a confessed act of nepotism.
The Post lets Slay off the hook for irresponsibly continuing his public support of a toxic candidate apparently because of their deep-rooted political ties. For a half-century, Carpenter has been committeewoman of Slay’s home 23rd Ward, once serving opposite the mayor’s father, the late Francis R. Slay, as committeeman. There are remnants of a South Side political machine that supports this mayor, and he lacked the moral and political courage to defy it and withdraw his support from his longtime ally. With our understanding of Slay’s politics, we are not surprised that he acquiesced to Carpenter. It’s the Post that has acted shamefully in not taking him to task for his open support of poor governance. This is the same editorial board that has chided Dooley (in the preemptory tone the Post shares with Slay and his chief of staff, Jeff Rainford): “It’s time for St. Louis County to get off the corruption train” and “Mr. Dooley needs to clean house. He needs to do so quickly.”
But the Post goes far beyond merely letting the mayor off the hook. In one of the most bizarre passages of editorial writing we have ever encountered, the Post actually takes up the whip for Slay and begins to imagine future incumbents who should fear future candidates that the Post imagines Slay will endorse over them. This creepy flight of fancy – editorial board as imaginary dirty operative for sitting mayor – jumps off from Slay’s devious play of appointing Jennifer Florida to succeed Carpenter while encouraging the whisper campaign that the mayor might endorse Florida as an independent to run against Carpenter (presuming the veteran pol still wins the August 5 primary against McFowland and Jimmie Mathews).
The Post goes on to boast that the mayor’s supporters have amply funded Slay’s candidate to unseat incumbent License Collector Mavis Thompson. The Post then drags aldermanic President Lewis Reed into their fantasy, as this editorial board cannot resist doing. This is the editorial board that rejected Reed’s previous bid against Slay for mayor before filing even opened. Now – three years before Slay’s next primary challenge – we have the daily paper’s editorial board fingering the shaft of the political knife with Slay and imagining, with apparent delight, the mayor sponsoring a candidate to run against Reed in his current position. “Don’t think he hasn’t given it some thought,” the Post says of Slay. Mind you, this is an editorial board of a newspaper in effect endorsing the political manipulation of a sitting mayor before it even happens.
It’s time for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to get off the Mayor Slay train. It needs to do so quickly. It’s a crazy train.
