Governor LePage just invents the news now.

I usually have a bit of fun imagining the mechanics of the hair-brained goings-on of the Blaine House, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that this action must be part of an elaborate coping mechanism.

It is easier, I suppose, to find the humor in the latest LePage foibles than to truly examine how sad and embarrassing it is that the Governor appears to have completely lost what little sanity he had left. Confronting the devastating reality in which an actual newswoman-turned-spokesperson allowed herself to participate in a mock interview as a means of circumventing an actual, transparent interaction with the media is so pathetic that joking about this is more palatable than reconciling what it means for everyone involved.

Imagining LePage, this great cheerleader of transparency, sitting alone with a small crew of confidants trusted to look the other way on reality in order to make their livings while they manufacture propaganda with a news aesthetic as if they were a Cold War era Communist dictators is as devastating as it is morbidly hilarious.

According to MPBN:

The latest video message from the governor looks and sounds like a TV news interview – at least for the first few seconds.

“Governor, during the 125th Legislature, you led the way to reduce the tax burden on Mainers, so congratulations on that. In fact, it’s the largest tax cut in Maine’s history,” says Adrienne Bennett in the video. “How is it that right now you’re getting push back from Democrats, in particular, about putting more money back into the pockets of Mainers?

“Well, it’s politics,” LePage responds.

The woman interviewing the governor used to be a television newswoman. But these days Adrienne Bennett is LePage’s communications director – although in the five-minute YouTube video, she is only identified by her name and not her title.

And the crew producing the video was paid for by the taxpayers. Rather than cover the costs out of executive branch funds, Bennett says the administration decided to call upon the Department of Transportation.

That’s what this has come to.

UPDATE (11:29a): I have received multiple reports that the comments on Governor LePage’s YouTube video have, not surprisingly, been disabled. Gerald Weinand reports: “After two of us left comments on the YouTube video, the LePage team disabled them. So much for the “most transparent administration in Maine history.”

Alex Steed

About Alex Steed

Alex Steed has written about and engaged in politics since he was an insufferable teenager. He has run for the Statehouse and produced a successful web series. He now runs a content firm called Knack Factory with two guys who are a lot more talented than himself.