Sundquist Defends Trip
Gov. Don Sundquist reacts to a TV report examining his close ties to businessmen who do business with the state, in this Tennessean apologia on his behalf. Says the governor, Phil Williams is wrong wrong wrong about the free trip he took to the Caribbean during the climactic days of the budget battle at Legislative Plaza.

"It wasn't the Virgin Islands," Sundquist said. "It was the Bahamas."

Oh. Okay.

Should be interesting to see how he responds tomorrow to news last night that his administration has repeatedly given sweetheart multi-million dollar contracts to companies owned by buddies of the governor, without bidding. One company, Workforce Strategies, which provides garden-variety job training services for the unemployed, was deemed to be uniquely experienced for the job, though it had been in business just six days. Soon after an official with Sundquist's Department of Labor helped Workforce Strategies get the contract, she quit and took a job - and an ownership share - in the company.

"Experience," apparently, is just another word for "friendship" in the Sundquist administration.