There is an article today featured on both The Smirking Chimp and Buzzflash that deals with an interview with our new (and happily only temporary) Governor. This was written by Oliver Burkemann of The Guardian. I have some comments:
"Hurricane Katrina - they heaped that on George Bush!" said Mr.Risch (our new Governor). I don't understand who "they" are. My impression was that most everyone was dismayed by the utter failure to protect the city and its citizens, and presumably the buck still stops at the top (except it never does in the case of George W., who never makes mistakes). But consider the following:
"Here in Idaho, we couldn't understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something. We had a dam break in 1976, but we didn't whine about it. We got out our backhoes and we rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields and got on with our lives. That's the culture here. Not waiting for the federal government to bring you drinking water. In Idaho there would have been entrepreneurs selling the drinking water."
If the complete idiocy of this doesn't come to you immediately, allow me to translate: Here in Idaho (where we don't have much in the way of natural disasters), we couldn't understand...(understandable as we don't seem to understand anything else). We had a damn break in 1976 (the Teton Dam near Idaho Falls where a very few were killed and some others injured - there was virtually no serious damage to Idaho Falls), but we (hardworking white people) didn't whine about it. We got out our backhoes (you mean those poor people in urban New Orleans don't have their own backhoes?) and we rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields and got on with our (ignorant and complacent) lives (the dam, to this day, has never been rebuilt).
Risch goes on, "President Bush is one of our greatest Presidents, and he's one of our bravest (???) presidents," the governor said, "People know what's in his heart." I am a people and I don't know what's in his heart (or his head, either). In fact, I doubt he has a heart in the sense Risch is implying.
This article is entitled "Journey to the heart of Bushlandia." It goes on to report that "Sexual relations with livestock are still commonplace" (in Idaho), a columnist for the Nation magazine claimed recently (I think this columnist had us mixed up with some nutcase in Western Washington).
The article goes on to say that if you oppose gay marriage and support the war in Iraq you will find "many friends in Idaho." (true, true). Jim Risch goes on to insist that even in spite of Bush's falling support..."a core of affection for Mr. Bush would always remain."
The concluding paragraph is a real puzzler (at least for me): "I'll give you the best example I can think of," the governor said. "We had a fellow by the name of Bill Clinton. You might remember him (if you are not a complete idiot)- he was the president of the United States. He sexually harrassed an employee in his office (the eager and aggressive Monica Lewinsky ???). The women's groups around American should have been ready to crucify him...But what did they do? They came to his support in spades. Why? Because they knew his heart. They knew his heart."
"The divide between Bushlandia (Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming) and the rest of America - or, more generally, between the president's core supporters and everyone else - is not a question of mere policy arguments. It is a clash of two incompatible versions of reality, where the same facts take on completely different meanings..."
AMEN! HALLELUJAH! etc!
Now that things are going so well in Iraq and Afghanistan Bush has decided to focus on the real problem confronting Americans - Gay Marriages! Do you think this has anything to do with the pressure his loonie "base" is putting on? Do you think his base is going to believe him this time? You think they are truly stupid enough to believe he is going to seriously try to get an amendment to the constitution? But they got him to do it. How desperate can one president get? Base is actually a good word for his supporters, you can't get much baser.
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I have been just doing some research on the Teton Damn break. I used to live in Rexburg and have heard of some of the stories. I find it amazing that those people could get it together so quickly and save so many lives and recoup so quickly. However, one thing that you have to remember is that most of those people were mormons. Mormons don't get help from the government, they get pushed further west. Then the government comes to them and asks for help. They have learned to be self reliant. They are not babied and pitied. They are not liked by many so they just learn to do for themselves. Maybe if the rest of the country could learn to just buckup and get over any mishap that has happened to yourself or family a century ago you would learn to be more tough and just get over it. Nobody likes the way things happened in New Orleans, and many of us pity the poor and weak who could not help themselves. However, not everyone in that town was helpless, maybe their was more they could have done to help their neighbors long before this ever happened.
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