Wouldn’t we save a lot of aggravation that way?
Which gets me thinking about a statement issued on Friday, January 2nd by a useless organization called the Western Governors’ Association. Apparently they couldn’t get into the same country club as Arnold Schwarzenegger, so in hopes of reminding people just how “special” they are, they formed their own little group - like in school when the loser kids pretended they were speaking Klingon.
The Western Governors’ Association is comprised of the governors of Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and Colorado. Mostly the organization tries to deal with jackalope overpopulation and those cheesy bets governors make when one state’s football team is playing against another’s. But that’s not sufficient reason for the Western Governors’ Association to exist, because even governors with cowboy boots have egos - giant egos. And giant egos will always make you do dumb things.
Which gets us back to Friday, January 2nd. On January 2nd (the day after New Years for those of you in Rio Linda*) (*shamelessly stolen saying from Rush Limbaugh) the various egomaniacs of the Western Governors’ Association issued a statement on the Middle East. Specifically, the current chair of the association, Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., decided the world needed to know what he felt about the fighting going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Huntsman Jr., who prefers to be called “Jesus”, had such a bad case of “I want to be president someday” that he had to issue a press release. It’s the day after New Year’s, it’s the deadest spot in the news calendar, absolutely nobody cares, and yet he fires off a press release.
In other words, on the day everyone else in his state was fired up about the University of Utah playing in the Sugar Bowl, the governor was pretending he was Jimmy Carter!
Oh, and by the way, yes, I’m a resident of the Great State of Utah. No, I didn’t vote for Governor Huntsman Jr.
Here’s what this bright bulb had to say –
“The recent increase in hostilities between Israel and Hamas is evidence that lasting peace in the region is an elusive goal. The deaths of innocent civilians on both sides of the border as a result of the hostilities are proof that we must continue to work toward peace, rather than resolving our disputes through aggression.
”We support the right of Israel to defend itself from aggressors and to ensure the peace and prosperity of its citizens.
”We, therefore, are calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas and the establishment of a lasting and meaningful cease-fire. For this process to begin, Hamas must end its series of rocket attacks into Israeli sovereign land. The two sides must then work together in good faith to work toward peace in the region.”
For those who have lives, what’s happening over there is this: The Palestinians elected some terrorists named Hamas – the Arab word for “Democrats” – to run their country.
To Palestinians, that means “kill more Jews.” So, while they figured all the world would be busy on Christmas break, the Palestinians started firing missiles into Israel. Part of the calculation was that with the United States between administrations there’d be nobody to tell them to cut it out.
But there was a problem. The Israelis know about the new president, too, and they apparently figured that it might be easier to defend themselves before he takes office. So they fought back.
Let me repeat for the governors: One nation attacked another. The attacked nation fought back and the attacking nation has had its lunch handed to it.
This got all the world’s marching liberals ticked off. That’s because of their anti-jewish-itice (yes, it's a word... deal with it.). For liberals it is a simple equation: Israelis can do no right, Palestinians can do no wrong.
And this concerns very serious people on the evening news. And that concerns governors with too much time on their hands, which is how Friday’s statement came to be made. And all of that happened because the governors had their heads in a dark and unsanitary place, namely, they were sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.
Let’s review. Governors are elected to run states, even small states that pretty much run themselves. A governor of Utah, for example, would be in charge of Utah – if the Legislature is feeling generous. When something happens in Utah, that’s something the Utah governor would look into.
Now let’s review geography. The Middle East, though it is kind of dry and barren, is not in Utah. Actually, it’s not even close to Utah. In fact, it’s in an entirely different country, across an ocean, on another continent.
In other words, it’s none of Utah’s damn business. Same goes for Idaho, Colorado, Oregon and Wyoming.
No disrespect intended, but this is like a pre-schooler giving daddy driving advice. These governors are way out of their league. They have moved far beyond their responsibilities. They have presumed for themselves a relevance which they simply do not have.
Nobody gives a flying fig about what the governor of any American state thinks about some foreign war. All we have here is a display of comical self-importance.
Governors whose states have budget deficits, whose roads need paving and whose highway patrolmen need paying, who are facing increased gang violence and welfare dependency, those governors have decided to weigh in on the Arab-Israeli conflict. They ignore problems at home to opine on problems abroad.
Which honestly makes me wonder if they are necessary. If these states can get by with part-time legislatures – and all of them do – maybe they’d be better off if they also had part-time governors.
