Madness Reigns

Okay, let’s get one thing straight from the get-go. I just want everybody to do the best they can and get along with each other. I have no axes to grind and I certainly don’t want to tell anybody what to do or how to run anything. And I don’t consider any particular political party to be morally superior to any other.
That being said, I must offer my observation that our one and only governor apparently has taken a long walk off a short pier, emotionally speaking.
Last Thursday afternoon, I received, by facsimile machine, a press release from the Right Reverend Governor Huckabee that smacks of emotional instability or, at the very least, immaturity. It was so bad, I was surprised that even Rex Nelson and the other yes men with whom the Guv has surrounded himself would let him send it out. And I am assuming that Governor Mike had to have had the assistance of at least one other staff member because this press release did not give one the impression that it was generated by somebody with sufficient technical expertise to operate a fax machine. Frankly, it was the kind of thing I would expect from my three year-old grandson when he was in a snit.
Peaked your curiosity yet?
In this message, which was marked “for immediate release,” our dear governor managed to insult everybody whose cooperation he will need if he has any sincere desire to improve the education Arkansas school children receive, including you, gentle readers. In the process, the Reverend Governor put himself on a plain with John the Baptist as “a voice crying in the wilderness,” and the sole proprietor of right and virtue in the school adequacy and equality controversy.
Referring, obviously, to the report of professional educational consultants Dr. Lawrence Picus and Dr. Allan Odden to the Joint Committee on Educational Adequacy, (see related article in this edition) the governor says (and I quote verbatim) “I’ve been promoting a broad buffet of academics for Arkansas students at an affordable price.” (This is his view of a plan that would close two-thirds of the state’s school districts, and consequently turn most of the rural communities in the state into ghost towns) Continuing to quote, “It appears the recommendation from the consultants is that we instead give them a plate of meat loaf for the price of a ribeye. (Apparently the governor either has not read the report or completely fails to comprehend what it means. Nor does he know the price of a plate of meatloaf in this day and age, nor understand the process the report will have to go through before it reaches a vote by the full legislature.)
“Pouring hundreds of millions of new tax dollars into the current mediocre system doesn’t make sense to me.” (I’m sure the state’s dedicated and grossly underpaid teachers are delighted with the news that they are “mediocre.”) “But if the consultants advise it, the legislators accept it, the superintendents demand it, the attorney general is willing to defend it and the business community and other Arkansas taxpayers are willing to pay for it, it will probably happen. But I won’t support it.”
Gee whiz, Mike, why don’t you just come right out and say something nasty about their mothers? And in the meanwhile, what are you going to do? Take your ball and go home?
“...I feel I’m pretty much a voice crying in the wilderness. But since our state’s business leaders and other taxpayers have said and done very little, they need to get ready to pay 40 percent to 50 percent more to pretty much keep in place the educational system they already have. I still believe real education reform is more important than a king’s ransom in new taxes.”
Oh, for crying out loud Mike!
This press release and its statewide circulation prove two things beyond any shadow of a doubt: First, our governor sincerely believes that anybody who disagrees with him is not only wrong, but also worthy of contempt; Second, the poor boy’s phonograph needle had skipped a groove.