Sen. Gordon Smith said Tuesday that he has no regrets about the diversion of water from the Klamath River that was intended to protect fish but instead went to farmers.
The 2002 water diversion - and subsequent die-off of 77,000 salmon and eventual suspension of coastal fishing - was the subject of hearings that began last week in a U.S. House committee.
In 2002, Smith's lobbying for increased irrigation in the Southern Oregon region was a topic he raised during that year's campaign. In a TV ad, farmers praised the Republican lawmaker's efforts on their behalf.
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But with next year's Senate campaign approaching, the issue is more double-edged for Smith. The Democratic Party of Oregon highlighted last week's congressional hearing by calling on Smith to apologize and answer for his role.
In a meeting with The Register-Guard editorial board, the Oregon senator offered his most expansive explanation to date since since the issue's revival in recent weeks. Smith defended his and Cheney's efforts to help Klamath basin farmers salvage their crops during drought.
"I am not here to make any apologies," said Smith, who faces re-election next year. "I am proud to fight for the farmers or any group of Americans whom the federal government says has no standing, no water. I just find that offensive."
Smith downplayed his connection to Cheney in that chapter. He said he did not recall speaking with the vice president, but did lobby President Bush during a flight on Air Force One to allow some of the basin's water dedicated for imperiled sucker fish to be diverted to withering croplands and pastures.
"I was not familiar with all the things the vice president was doing," Smith said, referring to the Washington Post's account.
Yeah, maybe not ALL of them, like when he went to the john on October 3, 2001 or whether he went for an after dinner walk at 5 or 6pm on Tuesday, April 17th, 2002--but he knew the important stuff about what they were going to do in the Klamath situation. Playboy centerfold photos don't get the kind of close airbushing attention that statement must have received, in order to avoid the real issue.
But there's a far more pernicious avoidance of the truth and deceitful defensiveness with which Smith addresses the questions...
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First of all, let's quickly make sure everyone's up to speed on what we know: in 2001, Gordon Smith asked for and received help from the White House (specifically Dick Cheney and Karl Rove) to find an executive end-around on the Endangered Species ruling that protected water flows on the Klamath River for salmon habitat. When the water was turned back on in 2002, Smith stood with Gale Norton of Interior to turn the irrigator valve. He ran ads taking credit for it--right up until the judiciary ruled that the executive had illegally overstepped its bounds in doing what they did.
So now here it is 2007, and the editors of the R-G are giving Smith a chance to explain what the heck happened there, with him backing a plan that was eventually linked to the largest adult salmon kill-off of the west. What does he say? "I have a responsibility for humankind." (More on that false framing in a minute.) He stamps his feet and declares he just won't desert the farmers over a fish he says died because of "gill disease." And then he just opened his mouth and turned truth on its head:
Smith also defended Cheney's actions.
"He is an authorized authority of the executive branch of government and he was trying to do what I was trying to do: get some minimal relief to the farm community of Klamath Falls," Smith said. "He had every legal right to do it, and if mistakes were made, those are to be regretted.
Had every legal right? Come again? What part of executive overreach escaped you when the plan was overturned? Politics and faulty reasoning over scientific merit, remember? I'm actually kind of disappointed that the editorial board didn't call Smith on it when he tried to claim what happened was legal, for heaven's sake.
Even under the frame Smith wants you to have--fish vs people--he appears remarkably untroubled and non-considerate of the people who make a living off of fish, or the people who come to catch them, as if dead fish are unimportant to Oregon, and the only people involved in the decision were farmers.
If you are in the commercial fishing industry in California or Oregon, this attitude from Smith should bother the living shit out of you. Blames the die off on a disease (where's that icthyology degree from again, Gordon?) and then says it's "to be regretted" if their mistake was a kick to the groin of the fishing and fish tourism industries? But he's on the side of humans, so you're SOL. I don't care how you feel about gay marriage and taxes, this man just said fuck your way of life, I had potato farmers I needed to win over for re-election. How's that hit ya?
A very deep tip of the cap to the editors and David Steves of the Register-Guard for putting the discussion over Klamath into the mainstream consciousness. This will not go away--certainly not with a defensive sneer that he had humans to protect.
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