Politicizing higher ed, KY-style

In Kentucky, where everything is political and finding truth is like looking through gauze, I guess it's no big surprise that the state's Council on Postsecondary Education wanted to reappoint a holdover from the troubled administration of Gov. Ernie Fletcher to be its permanent head and didn't bother to do it correctly.

Attorney General Jack Conway, a Democrat, says President Brad Cowgill, a Republican Fletcher appointee, was named improperly. And it's indeed disturbing that, according to Conway, the council violated open meetings law and didn't follow other procedures in deciding to turn Cowgill's interim job into a permanent one.

And I hope Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, is telling the truth when he says it isn't personal. It's about finding the best candidate, sayeth the guv.

But this whole mess feels political to me. Two points seem lost. Cowgill, a former state budget director, struck me as a pretty impressive guy, and the council's work and vision for where higher education needs to go in KY is very astute. Check it out, including their plan to double the number of degree holders in KY by 2020 and why this is so important.

So, why not let policy trump politics and do everything on the up-and-up? But I forgot for a moment that this is Kentucky.