Yes, this morning's "newspaper" gives us yet another editorial (I think it's now a Sunday requirement) telling us what a great governor Bill Cole would be. This time we learn about his "plan to battle the drug abuse epidemic in West Virginia."

In the editorial's third sentence, we learn that Cole "recognizes the very intensity with which Mountain State residents are fighting substance abuse is a challenge." (You know the manure will be spread thick with that beginning. Note -- I'm aware that the drug problem in the state is very serious. I'm not criticizing Cole's acknowledgement of a problem; I'm criticizing the editorial's suggestion that Cole's reaction is special and that his specific plan is different, exceptional, and thus, "long overdue.")

And what Cole offers us is a plan that is essentially a collection of previous proposals. If you go to Cole's website to look at this "well, thought-out" plan you'll see nothing that hasn't been previously suggested or tried: harsher sentences and mandatory sentences for pushers, "education targeted at supporting and expanding our current drug prevention and resistance programs," job retraining for laid off workers, and my personal favorite:

Using existing positions within the Governor’s office, Bill Cole will create the Office of Drug Action to coordinate an intra-agency task force made up of the Secretaries of the Departments of Commerce, Education and the Arts, Health and Human Resources and Military Affairs and Public Safety as well as other appropriate state agencies.

Can you imagine the editorials and Myer columns had a Democrat suggested this? It would be criticized as "another redundant government task force" or "one more layer of government bureaucracy" or simply "a waste of the taxpayer's money." But this is Republican Cole's idea and so this coordination "offers enormous benefits, perhaps more than any other aspect of Cole's plan."

Yeah, the fertilizer is getting mighty deep.