Yesterday's Jefferson City News-Tribune has a letter to the editor [1] that is a genuine candidate for most insane letter to the editor ever published.  Mr. Frank Rycyk writes, inexplicably...

The Missouri Constitution mandates that the governor and the attorney general are each elected, separately, by a vote of the people. At the federal level, the attorney general is appointed by the president.

Is it wise to have these two top elected officials, in Missouri, of two different political parties? One might argue that this creates a system of checks and balances.

Appearances suggest otherwise. Is Missouri becoming the laughing stock of the other states?

There has got to be a better way! A Missouri constitutional amendment may be in order.

We might actually have a situation, for once, where the federal government is doing something better than Missouri.

I submit that having the attorney general and other top-level officials, appointed by the governor would be a better way.

I admonish the Missouri legislation and/or the Missouri citizens to create a constitutional amendment which will avoid such poor displays of partisan politics in the future.

We could, in other words, "avoid such poor displays of partisan politics" by allowing a governor like Matt Blunt to appoint an Attorney General of his own choosing, someone non-partisan and fair-minded like Thor Hearne, perhaps.  We'd then no longer have to worry about becoming a "laughing stock" for other states because all of the governor's law-breaking and malfeasance could be swept tidily under the rug by his own appointee.  Voila!  Problem solved.  No messy investigations or accountability. 

Comically, the letter's author sanctifies the federal process for selection of an Attorney General.  This is precious.  We should emulate the federal model on this front because there's never been any suggestion that "partisan politics" drives the U.S. Attorney General and the Department of Justice, right?  Oh, except for that whole U.S. Attorney scandal [2] where the Attorney General was firing federal prosecutors because they weren't performing their duties in a partisan enough fashion. 

Call me cynical, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the letter's author will probably have lost his appetite for the little constitutional amendment that would make Attorney General an appointed post at about the same time Jay Nixon gets elected Governor in November.