This week&rsquo;s theme: blood.</p><p>What?</p><p>You&rsquo;ll see.</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull; </p><p>At the end of the Missouri legislative session this year, I wrote that Gov. Jay Nixon had become the first governor of the last three to get through his inaugural session in office without suffering a crippling political blow.</p><p>But whether Nixon makes it through his first year without suffering that crippling blow is now in question.</p><p>The news last week that a top Nixon aide had, in fact, been told early on of dangerously high bacteria levels this spring at Lake of the Ozarks was an ominous sign for the Democratic governor.</p><p>Why? Because Nixon staffers had insisted since July that no one within the walls of the governor&rsquo;s office had known at first about the dangerous levels. In fact, they hadn&rsquo;t known, Nixon&rsquo;s office said, for several weeks after a Department of Natural Resources report was issued.</p><p>The denials from Nixon&rsquo;s office were absolute and unequivocal.</p><p>Now we know differently. </p><p>Last week came the news that Susanne Medley, the DNR&rsquo;s communications director, had told Nixon aide Jeff Mazur about the test results on May 29. The public didn&rsquo;t find out about the results until July 17.</p><p>We also learned that Medley has left her post for unexplained reasons.</p><p>Meanwhile, a Senate probe of all this continues, and who knows what that will unearth.</p><p>The media were on point before. Now they smell blood. </p><p>Skepticism about the administration&rsquo;s story has been high for one key reason: Nixon is said to run a top-down shop, meaning that his office is the focal point of all executive-level activity. Almost anything that goes on in state government seems to run through Nixon&rsquo;s office.</p><p>After last week&rsquo;s developments, insiders already are repeating that age-old truism of American politics: The cover-up is always worse than the crime.</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull; </p><p>Chalk up Steve Rose&rsquo;s abrupt about-face in his race for Congress in Kansas&rsquo; 3rd District to a case of impulsiveness.</p><p>He rushed his decision and didn&rsquo;t talk to enough people, Republicans are saying.</p><p>Just as suddenly, on Friday he was out of the race.</p><p>In the process, we learned a whole lot about the inner workings (literally) of Steve Rose, thanks to an unholy level of detail in his exit-from-the-race news release.</p><p>Rose wrote that he has Crohn&rsquo;s disease. He&rsquo;d suffered a &ldquo;major flareup&rdquo; due to the &ldquo;extraordinary stress&rdquo; of the campaign.</p><p>He mentioned his &ldquo;inflammatory bowel disease&rdquo; and said he had &ldquo;lost a lot of blood and seven pounds&rdquo; since entering the race.</p><p>Ugh.</p><p>&ldquo;The doctor says if I keep it up, I can look forward possibly to surgery.&rdquo;</p><p> Rose may suffer from another syndrome called TMI: too much information.</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull; </p><p>Senate Majority Leader Kevin Engler stopped by last week to talk about the woeful prospects of the next Missouri budget.</p><p>Engler, a Farmington Republican, got to the bottom line quickly:</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be a bloodletting like we haven&rsquo;t seen.&rdquo;</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull; </p><p>Not enough blood on the ground yet in the FBI&rsquo;s public corruption probe in Missouri?</p><p>Well, the good folks at the FBI noted last week after yet another St. Louis area lawmaker ran into trouble that more cases are on the way.</p><p>John Gillies, the FBI special agent in charge of the St. Louis office, said a number of witnesses had stepped forward to complain that they had been taken advantage of by public officials.</p><p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll continue to weed out corruption,&rdquo; Gillies said. &ldquo;Government offices are not for sale.&rdquo;</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull; </p><p>Told you politics was a bloody business.