Free Republic

<p>A new governor's first legislative session is supposed to be a crowning moment, in which an election mandate is transformed into progress. In Ernie Fletcher's case, it was a flop.</p> <p>There are plenty of excuses, including the fact that his party hasn't run the executive branch in more than three decades, thus doesn't have much current experience on which to draw. Also, unprecedented ill-will paralyzed the legislative branch, with Senate bullies and House incompetents jockeying for political advantage.</p>

<p>FRANKFORT, Ky. - The state capital said goodbye to Louie B. Nunn yesterday, remembering the former governor as a tenacious and courageous politician, as a demanding and inspiring boss, and as a tender and tough father.</p> <p>"Our father, to me, was the John Wayne of Kentucky politics - always doing what he thought was right, never afraid to take a stand," Nunn's son, state Rep. Steve Nunn, said at a Capitol rotunda service for his father, who died Thursday.</p>