Bysiewicz: Broadwater - Broad Power

It has deeply fascinated me that throughout the episode of Broadwater, the proposed floating liquefied natural gas terminal intended to be moored in the middle of Long Island Sound, our Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz has pretended to a level of involvement that may be... well... misleading.

Charmed as we are by the delicate Fran Drescher cadence of her voice, she must feel we never get enough. She has attempted to behave as our second attorney general, an office she desperately aspires to. And while she has played virtually no role whatsoever in actually combatting the proposed terminal which has really fallen to Governor Rell and our actual Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

So how has she managed to shove her face strategically into every news story, every camera angle... every crevace of significance? How has she done this without being called into question by reporters who are covering this issue?

New York's Secretary of State Lorriane A. Cortes-Vasquez has in fact been deeply involved in this process. That is because there are fundamental and significant material differences between what the Secretary of State's office is in New York, and what it is in Connecticut.

While both Secretaries deal with a number of identical issues, New York's "Department of State" additionally oversees something called the Division of Coastal Resources. This Division is responsible for the protection and promotion of New York's waterfront resources. The Broadwater proposal therefore clearly falls within the concerns of her office.

Secretary Bysiewicz, on the other hand, has no authority in any aspect of the Broadwater proposal, other than being a higher profile residents who doesn't like the proposal. She has managed to get press coverage by communicating directly with her "counterpart" Secretary Cortes-Vasquez and then telling the press what they discussed, desperately trying to make herself relevant to the story.

The mainstream media have played into her hands. They have failed to examine the legitimacy of her role, and have allowed her the stage upon which she grandstands with insolent swagger.