I was stunned and saddened to read that former reporter Doug Woo died suddenly on Monday, apparently of a heart attack. Both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin have obituaries today.

Senate President Colleen Hanabusa has an excellent column in today’s Star-Bulletin reacting to the governor’s vetoes and the administration’s spin on them.

It’s worth quoting Hanabusa:

I can say that in my experience, compromise was never initiated through a letter of the kind we saw in this instance. Informing the media of the letter before delivering it to legislative leaders is not a sincere or productive way to foster open discussions.

This letter was sent only two working days prior to when the governor’s objections were due along with the list of bills that could be returned to the legislature. The other question should be, what were they doing for two months?

What is most troubling is the administration’s depiction of these bills as flawed. The mere fact that the governor disagrees with the Legislature does not make a bill defective; it means that the system of checks and balances is working as the Constitution intends.

She makes a good point. Lingle “talks” communication and compromise but, in cases like this, acts unilaterally while casting blame elsewhere. When you put it that way, it sounds like she’s been studying at the George W. Bush school of politics.

As expected, Rajdatta Patkar entered a guilty plea in federal court yesterday to one charge of sending an e-mail message from Japan threating to expose damaging information about former Hawaii state administrative director Bob Awana. I didn’t attend the hearing, but both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin report that the plea agreement includes Patkar’s cooperation with a continuing investigation.

The Advertiser’s Rick Daysog reported: “Patkar, 46, also agreed to cooperate with a separate, federal public corruption probe into a Saipan waste management company that Awana partially owns.”

The Star-Bulletin reports it differently:

The plea agreement also requires that Patkar testify or cooperate with the government in proceedings involving any possible codefendants or others indicted later in the investigation. Byrne declined to discuss what specific information the government is seeking from her client.

“If you have a cooperation agreement with the government, it means the government is investigating something and if it’s investigating, you can’t really talk about it,” she said.

In the Bulletin’s telling, it isn’t at all clear whether the ongoing investigation concerns Saipan or some aspect of the original blackmail case. So if the investigation continues, this story may still have legs.

Speaking of the Awana story, I’ve heard second-hand reports that there’s been a bit of a behind the scene’s flap over a sentence in a July 5 Star-Bulletin editorial. Looking back, the Bulletin wrote:

On May 29, Patkar’s arrest was reported by the Calcutta Telegraph, naming Awana as the alleged victim and describing him as “the secretary to the governor of Hawaii.” The article was e-mailed anonymously to Greg Mebel, a reporter for the weekly Maui Time, according to Mebel.

Mebel reported that he e-mailed a copy of Patkar’s indictment to Awana on June 8, requesting comment. Awana responded by planting a front-page article in the Honolulu Advertiser about his cooperation in the case, although not describing the nature of the alleged blackmail.

The Advertiser did get Awana on the record but, as far as I can seen, there’s no indication that he “planted” a story, although the Advertiser story seemed more favorable than later reporting because it did not mention the apparent sex angle involved in the case. But it isn’t hard to imagine considerations that might account for such an omission, and the Star-Bulletin doesn’t provide anything to back up its assertion about its daily competitor. The same or similar e-mail tip that reached Maui Time can be presumed to have reached others, including reporters at the Advertiser. Knowing Daysog, he must be steaming. Unless the S-B can back up its allegation, in fairness it should clear the air and apologize for the comment.

The Newspaper Guild reports that a National Labor Relations Board hearing on 13 charges of unfair labor practices lodged against the Hawaii Tribune Herald has been postoned again, this time to late July.

We’ve had a bit of rain over the past 24 hours, enough to give some relief to our wilting plants. Yes, it’s been very dry recently, even here in normally wet Kaaawa. We could use a week of this damp weather, despite the fact that it hampers our early morning walks.