Alas.

The Lansing State Journal tells the governor's dirty little secret this morning - a full 1,000 of those at-risk employees are corrections workers on the front lines of the battle to keep violent criminals behind bars.  

How, you're asking, could the state fire 1,000 of the brave men and women who daily supervise career criminals, rapists and murderers to keep them from wreaking havoc on each other and Michigan families without serious consequences?  And the answer is, they can't.  

The administration isn't without their own creative solution, though.  Yesterday, while everyone in the press was distracted by the budget they took another under-the-radar action whose consequences could be disastrous.

As many as 3,500 to 4,000 prisoners could be paroled by October under an executive order Granholm issued Thursday. The governor ordered the State Parole Board to review the status of 12,000 prisoners who already have served minimum sentences for potential release.

(Mel) Grieshaber (executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization) urged state officials to be cautious about early releases.

"We think there are a lot of bad guys in there who potentially are going to get out," he said.

Bad.  Idea.  And we know that, at least privately, Michigan Democrats admit as much.  Remember, it was less than two years ago that every Dem in the state, from the regressisphere to the Capitol to the local county organizations made the forceful argument that Michigan state government had "cut to the bone."  There was nothing left to cut.  Nothing we could eliminate.  Tax hikes or bust.

Now, suddenly, we can release 4,000 convicted felons early and fire 1,000 law enforcement officials without serious, potentially violent consequences?  C'mon now.

Read on...