the C-J published this?

Wow...

The editor of the editorial page reprinted an editorial from The Paducah Sun, taking the C-J editorialists to task for their treatment of Jim Bunning-- past and present.

I don't know what to think about that decision.

Brutal honesty about that which divides them from others?
Blindness at their hypocrisy?
Thumbing their nose at a sister newspaper?

We're happy to see Jim Bunning cured of his Alzheimer's.

Back in 2004, when the junior senator from Kentucky was locked in a tight race against then-state Sen. Dan Mongiardo, the commonwealth's largest newspaper, apparently hoping to close the gap in the polls, published an editorial less the three weeks before the election questioning Bunning's mental health.

In the editorial, entitled "Bunning's fitness," The Courier-Journal asked: "Is he, as he ages, just becoming a more concentrated version of himself: more arrogant, more prickly?"

Then The C-J asked, ominously: "Or is his increasing belligerence an indication of something worse? Has Sen. Bunning drifted into territory that indicates a serious health concern?"

The clinical psychiatrists on the editorial page staff said the mere fact that they had raised the question obligated the senator to prove them wrong. The editorial challenged the senator to demonstrate his sanity by conducting a series of press conferences throughout Kentucky, to "stand before the public and say, 'here I am. Ask me questions. You'll see how fit I am.'"

Now there's a winning campaign strategy. Wonder why the senator didn't take The C-J's advice.

Other leftist publications picked up on the fabrication. The online magazine Salon.com referred to "rumors in Kentucky that Bunning, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, is suffering from some sort of dementia, perhaps Alzheimer's."

Rumors started by a major newspaper with an editorial page that coincidentally tilts in the opposite direction of Sen. Bunning's voting record.

Bunning won, barely, but thanks to what Sen. Mitch McConnell characterized as McCarthyism on the part of the newspaper, Bunning also proved vulnerable....

The C-J tried to paint a picture of Bunning as so near the edge that two weeks after his election he might fall over the precipice and spend the rest of his days in a nursing home. Instead he has been fully engaged in the battles on Capitol Hill, unyieldingly defending the conservative principles that got him elected.

And that, not his quirky behavior, is what propels the left to question his mental stability. Someone who is so wrong about so many things, they reason, cannot be all there....

Admittedly, Bunning has some odd mannerisms, particularly his tendency to immediately say what he thinks, not bothering with social niceties like tact and diplomacy.

But he is also a walking encyclopedia of facts and figures, which he rattles off in rapid succession. He jumps from economic statistics to the game stats of his three dozen active grandchildren without missing a beat. Unlike most politicians, Bunning is not rehearsed. His preparation is knowing the facts and standing firm on the principles.

His take-no-prisoners style unnerves moderates in the GOP who think the party's resurrection depends on moderating its positions.

For example, Bunning made other GOP leaders uneasy with his constant criticism of the policies of then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The senator, who earned a degree in economics from Xavier University and worked as a stockbroker between his careers in baseball and politics, brings his iconoclastic views to three powerful Senate committees: Finance, Banking and Budget....

[Potential 2010 opponents] Conway and Mongiardo are two polished politicians, with never a hair, or a word, out of place. But Kentucky has a long history of sending unvarnished, plain-spoken, principled politicians -- like Sen. Bunning -- to Washington.