(How can I not promote this? Here we have a candidate for office talking straight, talking forcefully, and speaking the truth on a subject that has become sine qua non at LO. Can't you just hear this kind of non-parsed language from the floor of the US Senate? Take it to Gordo, Steve! - promoted by torridjoe)
Gordon Smith's recent remarks on the Klamath fish kill underscore a persistent theme. Gordon Smith doesn't take facts seriously. He doesn't take science seriously. And ultimately, he doesn't take his job seriously.
Smith said that the fish kill occurred 18 months after the water diversion - when it was actually only six months later. He said there was no evidence that the water diversion caused the fish kill - ignoring the study by the California Department of Fish and Game. |
| But this is nothing new for Gordon Smith. This is the same fellow who was writing in late 2003 that scientists are evenly divided on whether burning fossil fuels causes global warming. This is the same fellow who said that under George W. Bush, real wages have risen for "the first time since Ronald Reagan" -- somehow overlooking several years of the Clinton Administration. This is the same fellow who said that his own, special, massive tax cut for multinational corporations would create hundreds of thousands of jobs -- and has since failed to own up to the fact that in reality, the drug companies, such as Pfizer, who were major beneficiaries of his bill, have laid off thousands of people.
If Gordon Smith simply said, "In a contest between farmers and fish, I want farmers to win," you could almost respect the guy. But he won't say that. Instead, he will ignore science, reinvent history, believe whatever he has to believe to escape the implications of his policies.
That's not acceptable. Oregonians might re-elect an intellectually honest, well-informed, genuine conservative. But I don't think we'll re-elect someone who doesn't bother to learn simple facts that a United States Senator worthy of the title really ought to know. I don't think we'll re-elect someone who makes false pronouncements on issues of fact without, apparently, having made any effort to check the facts first. I don't think that that we'll re-elect a Senator who, like George W. Bush himself, consistently puts ideology and politics before science and responsible government. |
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