It’s little wonder Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration resisted making the e-mail correspondence of its top officials a matter of public record.

The documents, finally released, reveal an office consumed by politics and disdainful of its obligations under the Missouri Sunshine law.

Blunt released 60,000 pages of e-mail records last week as part of a settlement in a lawsuit that was initiated by two attorneys acting on behalf of the state attorney general’s office and joined by several media organizations, including The Star.

The documents reveal that top staffers of the governor engaged in a campaign to frame a judicial candidate as “out of the mainstream.”

A former chief of staff behaved like a campaign operative, contacting outside groups to drum up opposition to judicial nominees and the state’s system for selecting judges.

Attempts to undercut Attorney General Jay Nixon, a Democrat who was considered Blunt’s main political rival, were met with approval.

As disturbing as what the released documents reveal is what they are largely missing — e-mails initiated by the governor.

Blunt circumvented the state’s Sunshine Law by conducting state business using a campaign e-mail address, according to testimony in court depositions. His messages were not captured on the state’s computer servers.

And Blunt’s administration withheld about 1,400 e-mails when it responded to media requests for disclosure, saying the emails were exempt from the Sunshine Law.

Some of those withheld e-mails may shed light on a question hanging over Blunt’s single term in office: Did he, or his top lieutenants, fire legal counsel Scott Eckersley because Eckersley was bucking what, at the time, was office policy — that e-mail documents weren’t a matter of public record?

Eckersley says they did. He has sued Blunt and others for wrongful termination and defamation of character.

Though none of the released documents state that Eckersley was fired for advising colleagues not to delete e-mails, he fell out of favor with former chief of staff Ed Martin and others during the period in which that discussion was taking place.

The documents also show Eckersley was often late for work and used a state computer to monitor a family business — reasons Blunt’s office has given for the firing.

A court eventually may decide why Eckersley lost his job. But the documents released are evidence enough of a rot within the office of the Missouri governor.

For too long, Blunt surrounded himself with people more concerned with politics than with good government. The latest revelations demonstrate that the governor’s best decision was the one in which he decided not to run for re-election.