The Oklahoma State Capital

They say that history is written by the victors. This is a depressing thought. It suggests that what is right and true is all too often concealed, and that true justice must wait for eternity. But I am more and more coming to the thought that perhaps there is a God-created natural law that somehow always manages to have just enough of the truth emerge—somehow, someway—providing the requisite insight, at least in the minds of the fair and just, to vindicate the innocent.

That theory took a neat leap forward yesterday when Oklahoma Speaker of the House Kyle Hilbert produced a new hypothesis for explaining the Department of Education Great Porn Panic of 2025; it’s a hypothesis that nicely vindicates State Education Superintendent Ryan Walters.

You know the story: After observing inappropriate content playing on a distant Samsung Smart TV, two board members took to the press with their observations, and one subsequently filed a complaint with the state alleging that she had been exposed to “pornography” and suggested a possible “prosecution.”

The ensuing frenzy by media and politicians clearly had its target set on Walters, who appeared in a press conference of his own, in a most sincere and direct manner, describing the impact the accusations were having on him and his family.

It was an honest moment of sincerity, and there were a number of fair-minded individuals who knew how unjust this was to him. His work as State Superintendent had focused intensely on protecting against the sexualization of the public school system, and this attack on his reputation was obviously—and understandably—taking its toll.

So yesterday, as Hilbert’s hypothesis took hold, it became clear: Walters had been vindicated.

Hilbert’s hypothesis: one of the TV’s pre-installed movie channels automatically launched. That channel was later verified to have been showing an R-rated Jackie Chan movie from 1985. It contained scenes of nudity which would have likely never been seen by the Superintendent, whose back was reportedly to the television and who probably never realized or saw what the board members saw.

It’s not clear how that app would have launched. A board official had observed that the TV had been playing Fox News, which it reportedly frequently plays. And until now, the leading hypothesis suggested board members had confused Fox’s Hulk Hogan footage, from that same era, for the nudity. However, bolstering the movie app theory, is the fact that when alerted to the footage, Walters reportedly struggled to find the remote—adding validity to another theory that someone may have been using that remote, and turned off the cable box, thus turning off Fox News and dropping the TV to its default state: the pre-programmed movie channel.

While the Hilbert hypothesis now emerges as the leading explanation, it’s becoming clear what was already obvious to the fair-minded observer: Walters has been vindicated.

Even during the most intense era of the media firestorm, this wasn’t a hard stance to take. Those who understand human nature could easily cast their lot with Walters, simply based on a wise examination of human nature. The frenzied WDS mob has been so wrong, so many times, that it was just a matter of isolating the most likely explanation for Walters’ innocence.

Hilbert’s vindication of Walters was the right thing to do—and notable, considering that it was Hilbert who, just days ago, poured fire on the then-nascent controversy, with his very public call for a high profile investigation, allowing the media to declare that there were now “bipartisan” calls for a public investigation, taking what should have at most should have been an internal HR matter and watching it become a matter for law enforcement.

However, also in his statement, Hilbert seeks to vindicate the board members—and this appears to be an attempt to make the whole matter disappear, hoping that it will be memory-holed, in time to stem the self-induced bleeding of the politicians who clearly jumped out too quickly.

Letting these members off the hook, would be a toxic mistake, especially for Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt.

First and foremost, if this hypothesis does prove correct, the board members showed poor judgment. They should have first attempted to speak with Walters and asked him to clarify the circumstances. This discussion, if conducted on a professional basis—perhaps allowing the members to see the television for themselves—would have probably cleared the matter up.

Had those board members still felt there was a problem, they could have followed the state’s normal protocols for handling an HR matter.

They instead went directly to the media

In the ensuing days, it became clear that the biases of these members were guiding their indiscretion.

As the ensuing meda firestorm erupted, one of the board members, Becky Carson, filed a complaint with the state in which she suggested a potential “prosecution,” and designed the complaint in a manner to suggest that she was a victim. This wasn’t an HR complaint so much as a criminal complaint. To those paying attention, it was right to suspect this was, in fact, an intended kill shot.

And as might be expected—at who knows how much cost to the taxpayer—the men in badges and uniforms were soon on the scene.

What had been a misunderstanding that could have easily been dealt with quickly and privately was now, for all intents and purposes, a criminal investigation and not just any investigation, but one that was under the most intense of political pressures. Even Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna somehow managed to take time away from her busy schedule fighting real crime to shoehorn herself into the story with what appeared to be a superfluous authorization to involve the state investigation bureau.

By the time the board members appeared for the wall-to-wall 4 o’clock news, hour-long interview with News 9—breaking only for weather and commercials—the members were clearly full-on self-indulging in their new status as the morality police who were on the cusp of slaying the hated enemy of the education, media, and political establishment.

The decision to appear in the interview was yet another epic example of bad judgment.

That's because, Walters, on the previous day, had attempted to explain that the state’s IT contractors had vindicated him.

This claim was dismissed by the media establishment—but it was largely true.

Those contractors had attempted to cast content to the TV, and they failed. That’s because the state’s unified cybersecurity stance, with its network access policies, had prevented the television from being able to contact other devices on the network. Meaning, the chances of someone casting pornography to the device—either purposefully or accidentally—would have been extremely difficult.

The handwriting was on the wall: Walters—really was innocent.

But by casually dismissing Walters’ assertion on the technicality that the investigation wasn’t “officially” closed, the anti-Walters establishment continued the controversy for a few more days, giving the Walters Derangement Syndrome (WDS) crowd just a few more days of hope that this time, Wile E. Coyote would truly capture the Road Runner.

And the board members did their part—by appearing in the interview, obviously relishing their new celebrity status and keeping the embers of that fire burning.

And that bad judgment suggests that these are not persons who should continue in this role.

And thus, the silver lining.

For you see, over the past two weeks, as this WDS crowd frenzied, one very notable person appears to have mostly gone silent.

That person is Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt who appointed the board members and initially appeared to stand behind them, but maybe, just maybe, had his eyes opened and realized his great error.

Could this incident save the second term of Oklahoma's 28th governor?

Stitt’s decision to engage Walters in battle has proven to be an epic miscalculation: for Stitt.

There’s a rule in politics—you don’t attack your base—and there’s probably not a more heartfelt issue amongst Stitt's political base than protecting children from the sexualization barbarism of the woke, the issue Walters is most known for. And frankly, the public probably only realizes a fraction of the good work Walters has done in this regard, especially as it applies to sexual predators who are taking advantage of the school system to get proximity to children. In politics, claims of good versus evil are usually just hyperbole—but in this case, they aren’t.

When Stitt flipped Walters’ board, the grassroots took note. Had those board members been persons of good judgment—who realized that allowing their WDS to show would hurt both their own credibility and that of the governor who appointed them—perhaps this damage would have been kept to a minimum. But now, there’s just no hiding it. Those board members, in the most epic way possible, just fed Stitt to the wolves.

His grassroots base now likely alienated, Stitt is facing perhaps a new liability—and one that’s potentially even more important to him: the tall building crowd.

Those who have mistaken Walters’ comments for off-the-cuff, ad hominem attacks on Stitt are making an error. Those who have paid attention will realize that Walters isn’t just exposing Stitt to the grassroots—he’s also exposing him to the powerful school choice advocates who have a significant footprint in national politics, something that might very much matter to any future federal appointment aspirations held by Stitt—and the local tall building crowd who care about the issue of school choice.

And this attack is credible, as it’s becoming clear from the board meetings that Stitt’s appointees might be a powerful barrier to the ongoing effort to promote Stitt's stated vision of a vibrant school choice ecosystem—an issue that has defined Stitt, at least until now.

And I would suggest that it is the latter that may have forced Stitt into silence. As Walters has accused Stitt of being involved in the porn controversy, Stitt has seemingly gone silent. He's very wisely, not taking the bait.

As someone who has a deep appreciation for numerous aspects of the Stitt governorship—from his protection of our economy and way of life during COVID, to his refusal to become a tool of the state’s most powerful special interest group, the tribes, to his attempt to eliminate the state income tax, and much more—it’s my deepest hope that this is his wake-up call.

He must learn from history.

It’s safe to say that not a single Republican governor, in the history of the state, has had a successful second term at the Governor's mansion. Bellmon’s was an epic disaster, giving way to the liberal Democrat Walters. Likewise, Keating followed up his strong first term with a lackluster second term that disappointed many who had believed in his ability to transform the state—yielding to Democrat Brad Henry and an era that transformed Oklahoma from the Bedford Falls of days past into the Pottersville of today. And Fallin—with a strong first term, the first to have the luxury of a Republican legislature—made tremendous progress on issues of modernization and streamlining (notably, far more than Stitt), yet oversaw a values-betraying second term that, while it didn’t give way to a Democrat, had the indignity of yielding to a fellow Republican who was most known for his plan to “turn the state around.”

Only Dewey Bartlett escapes this critique. By virtue of his narrow, narrow loss to Democrat David Hall in the re-election of 1970, we don't have a second term to analyze.

But back to Stitt. He’s on the clock. At this pace, his ill-advised losses of focus, and his pursuit of corporate welfare—government-subsidized green energy, the issue that’s believed to have led him into the conflict with Walters—and the ensuing fight with Walters over control of the Board of Education, has drained vital time, resources, and much credibility.

He needs to realize that pencils have erasers for a reason. Fix his mistake. Put this whole matter behind him.

Those board of education members must be replaced—and they gave him the reason to do it. By not using good judgment, they embarrassed the state over what is clearly simply an embarrassing misunderstanding—taking a molehill and making it into a mountain. Stitt must put fair-minded people, who are WDS-free and who aren’t afraid to take strong stands when they need to, on the Board of Education, and then, having fixed this matter, hone in on two key issues that will—if completed—break the second-term curse that haunts all Republican governors:

1. Reviving his focus on Oklahoma DOGE. For a few weeks in early 2025, Stitt was very DOGE-y. He should have been this way from day one of his administration, but better late than never. Problematically, Stitt is the personality type to hyperactively engage in an issue, but then lose interest and get involved in something else. He must discipline himself to return to this issue and stay focused. Through OMES, he has all of the tools he needs to deliver real and meaningful savings. And for his legacy, he must do this. That’s because there’s plenty of evidence that the state’s purchasing system very much lost its way during COVID, and a culture of sole-sourcing may have taken over. The bad news is, this happened under Stitt’s watch. The good news is, there’s likely much waste to be found—and there is still time to fix it and use that savings to fund item 2 on this list.

2. Stitt’s greatest legacy will be—if he can do it—the elimination of the state income tax. His roadmap is now in law, but unless he makes this part of the culture of the state, there’s little doubt that future legislators will easily put that roadmap on the shelf—or at the very least, stretch it out so far that by the time it occurs, no one will remember that the owner of this important legacy is Kevin Stitt. Stitt must find a way to both accelerate this plan and fund it with DOGE savings.

If Stitt can accomplish these two items—without getting distracted by pointless time-wastes such as the National Governors Association—if he can just maintain his focus, he still has the opportunity to establish a reputation as one of the greatest governors of the state. But the clock is ticking.