Ray LaHood tells Mike Mahoney to pipe the hell down

A yelly cabinet official jousted briefly with a yelly member of Kansas City’s electronic press corps on Wednesday.

The event: The presentation of a novelty check. The location: The lovely Public School Retirement System building at 4600 Paseo Boulevard. The combatants: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and KMBC’s Mike Mahoney.

LaHood was in town to deliver a $50 million Department of Transportation grant. The money will be used for projects inside the Green Impact Zone in Kansas City and to improve transit along State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas, and Metcalf Avenue and Shawnee Mission Parkway in Johnson County.

The room was packed with press. Mahoney, as he often does, got in the first question. He asked LaHood to explain the high rate of unemployment that has persisted in a time of massive federal spending.