It’s impossible to enumerate all of Connecticut’s 2009 political, public-policy, and media lows in a single column.

But let’s try anyway.

The state’s fiscal implosion was well underway at the end of 2008, and early in the new year, M. Jodi Rell’s rhetoric had many taxpayers hoping that the governor would fiercely advocate for their needs.

She didn’t. After declaring that “the bloat of bureaucracy is no longer affordable” and “government must shrink,” Rell signed a disastrous no-layoff deal with public-employee unions. The much-delayed budget she agreed to let lawmakers enact contained both higher spending and higher taxes.

The General Assembly continued to be a disgrace. The state fined Sen. Joseph Crisco for forging names on his application for “clean elections” subsidies. It also smacked Sen. Thomas Gaffey for using campaign funds for personal expenses. Rep. James O’Rourke dodged an attempt by the Rocky Hill police to arrest him for criminally negligent homicide. Rep. Jason Bartlett was caught driving while using a cell phone. (His license had been suspended for failing to pay a previous ticket for the same offense.) And Rep. Kim Fawcett ran over her daughter in her driveway. Great folks.

As usual, there were countless nominees for the Bureaucrat Behaving Badly award. The winner is Henry Pawlowski. In January, the (now former) lawyer for the state’s Freedom of Information Commission and (now former) member of East Hartford’s Board of Education rammed his vehicle into another twice, leading to a melee with officers that caused Pawlowski to be Tasered, pepper-sprayed, and chomped by a K-9. He also possessed eight bags of marijuana.

Cops themselves were frequently criminals in 2009. Men and women in blue were arrested for and/or convicted of drunk driving, threatening, disorderly conduct, cybercrime, insurance fraud, evidence fabrication, larceny, extortion, disorderly conduct, domestic violence, and manslaughter.

In August, Jared Rohrig, then an Orange officer, captured the title of the most notable policeman probably headed for the pokey. He was arrested for tricking his identical twin’s latest hookup honey. The victim of Rohrig’s sexual assault discovered she was getting frisky with the wrong brother when she noticed the conspicuous lack of a cowboy tattoo on her paramour’s backside. (In October, the ex-cop was pinched for illegally hunting deer.)

Despite massive budget deficits, the state’s economic planners throttled up their expensive and unproductive corporate-welfare machine. Businesses that hopped on the dole included Gartner, Harrington Engineering, Devon Precision Industries, Volvo Aero Connecticut, LM Gill Welding & Manufacturing, The Barden Corporation, General Reinsurance, AcuCut, Connecticut Valley Bindery, Apple Valley Woodworks, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Wusthof-Trident, and UnitedHealth Group.

Redevelopment insanity persevered in Hartford, Fairfield, Torrington, Windham, Derby, Bristol, Bridgeport, and … well, almost everywhere. In New London, Pfizer announced it would abandon the research headquarters it opened in 2001 — delicious revenge for the former residents of the Fort Trumbull section, who lost their neighborhood in the thuggish land grab that produced the Kelo decision. But it won’t bring their homes back.

Connecticut’s newspapers extended their slow, sad, and downright sloppy descent in 2009. The Norwich Bulletin’s Ray Hackett wrote of 2nd Congressional District candidate “Diane” Novak. (It’s Daria.) A headline-writer for The (Danbury) News-Times penned “New Milford’s $90 budget goes to referendum Tuesday.” (Wow — property taxes there must be pretty low!) And The (New London) Day’s editorial page averred that the “average American generates 56 tons of trash a year.” (An online observer calculated that using the Day’s figure, a family of four generates “over 8400 lbs of trash weekly,” requiring “165 garbage cans to hold it all!”)

In addition to typos and slapdash fact-checking, loony-left bias erupted with monotonous consistency. Shilling for moonbats — a time-honored tradition for Connecticut’s press — scaled shameful heights in March, when the New Haven Register’s Mary E. O’Leary produced an execrable puff profile of U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. For breathless “reporting” on the hoax that is manmade climate change, The Day’s Judy Benson deserves special notice. Not to worry, though. Biased reporters are always corrected by their supervisors. As Keith C. Burris, the profoundly incoherent editorial-page editor of the (Manchester) Journal Inquirer, explained in March: “Most newspaper editors are not liberals or conservatives.”

Connecticut’s connoisseurs of liberty can’t be blamed for wanting to delete all memories of 2009. But while it was a thoroughly miserable year, a sizable chunk of the populace, several reporters, and even a few in government spent the last 12 months examining why the state finds itself in such a predicament, and how it might get out. We’ll examine their work in next week’s column.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

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