RUSHING TO THE BARRICADES

Some 168 years ago, Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, rushed to the dueling line full of righteous indignation. Captain Georges d'Anthes, his opponent, was rumored to have dallied with Pushkin’s wife. For his efforts, Pushkin took a fatal round from the calm experienced duelist d'Anthes.

Speaker Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, suffered a similar fate this week. She called a press conference to denounce with righteous indignation Governor Douglas's "sniping and continuing distortions. We are working in a constructive way and I urge Governor Douglas not to snipe at our work. This disrespect reflects on all Vermonters and I have had it!! I intended to only discuss our hiring of Professor Thorpe to help guide our health commission. But instead I have chosen to push back."

THE SNIPED BECOMES THE SNIPER

The speaker then recalled dismissively, "Well, only 2 percent of Vermonters support his plan." We could hardly recall to what she was referring. Oh yea, some poorly phrased question on a poll, political years ago about an idea the governor had floated about funding. It did not fly. He then dropped it. Not relevant today unless you are stuck in the past, or had your feelings hurt.

IF IT IS NOT ON TELEVISION, IT DID NOT HAPPEN,

...as they say in politics. Unfortunately for the Speaker there were no cameras, television or still. Though her event followed the Governor’s bi-weekly press conference, Associated Press, Vermont News Bureau, the Burlington Free Press, WCAX, WPTZ, and public access television, all of whom were at the Douglas press conference, decided lunch was more palatable than the Speaker. Only Seven Days, DPR, and VPR were present at her table.

Forlornly, she pleaded, "Let's wait for Ross (Sneyd)." But alas, after fifteen minutes no Ross either, so she began her rush to the barricades. Sneyd did file a story. Perhaps once beckoned, he dutifully presented himself and did the Speaker’s bidding.

She had prepared a neat and dramatic visual. She had scotch taped together all thirteen pages of Thorpe's resume, had it neatly folded on the table, and with a flourish, lifted it, standing to her full height, caressing its length in her arms to "push back" against Douglas's "snipe" about the Commission's choosing a consultant from the failed Clinton health care package twelve years ago. Douglas added at his press conference, "Senator Clinton concluded that her health care effort failed because it was not created in a bipartisan atmosphere."

POLITICS AIN’T BEANBAG

Her indignation is compatible with a well brought up child of the upper class in Tuxedo, New York and the Madeira School for Girls. Recall where indignation landed Madeira Head Mistress Jean Harris fifteen years to life for the murder of her lover Doctor Herman Tarnower. The lesson seems to have been lost on her student Gaye.

Indignation did not work for Pushkin, Harris, or Symington. It does not work well in the scrum known as politics. Douglas has to run every two years. He must stay on his political game. He has scored point after point against the Speaker’s Health Care Commission.

7-0-Douglas scores a touchdown by saying that the outcome of the commission is predetermined as the Speaker only appointed people who were committed to a government run health care program.

14-0-Douglas scores a touchdown by saying that the Speaker is not allowing the administration’s representatives on the commission a vote.

21-0-Douglas scores a touchdown by saying that the gold plated $800,000 appropriated for the commission would be better spent on heating assistance for Vermont’s poorest. The Burlington Free Press and the Caledonian-Record concur.

28-0-Douglas scores a touchdown by commenting on the Commission’s inability to hire a director. Each of the top two applicants turned down the job when offered. One cited personal issues, the other family issues. When asked if the commission during its "transparent and public" interview process had asked applicants, "If the job is offered, are you able to accept it," the Speaker was speechless. Maybe folks liked an all expense paid trip to Vermont. Maybe not.

35-0-Douglas scores a touchdown by questioning why the Commission would hire a partisan who both participated in the Clinton Health Care package development as well as advised the Kerry-Edwards Campaign on health issues.

38-0-Douglas kicks a field goal by saying that he would have a health care reform package ready this December to share with the press, the public, and the legislature. "I envision a blended system, public and private. I do not want to cut programs. But if the legislature puts off reform another year because their four-year study has not produced a reform proposal by this January, the health care system will be unsustainable and we will have no other choice."

Hey, stop running up the score. The governor, who has the bigger megaphone, particularly when the legislature is not in session, is always going to win. He has a paid, experienced, full time political team working for him, the speaker does not.

A PAS DE DEUX?

After the Speaker’s rant, we asked if she had called up the governor and said, "Why don't you call off your attack dogs and let’s get together?" She had not seemed to have thought of that.

SPEAKER SHUNED

Douglas said at his press conference that he had invited the legislative commission to his health summit in October and he hoped that they would come. The Speaker said that she was not invited. Must have been an oversight.

CONTENT

A discussion with the Speaker on her views on health care was striking. When asked why she could not allow parts of the health care reform package of the past session to move forward, "There was a strong feeling among many legislators that we should not allow the administration to pick some of the parts. Particularly ones which we do not necessarily like without accepting our whole package."

While she expressed a willingness to consider the healthy lifestyle insurance discount as part of a package, she said, "We are committed to community rating." When asked if she supported community rating for car insurance, she said no. While she accepted that risky driving behaviors could lead to higher car insurance, she refused to accept that risky health behaviors could lead to higher health costs and therefore insurance premiums.

In the Speaker’s view drinking a bottle of vodka daily and driving should lead to higher car insurance, drinking a bottle of vodka daily should not lead higher health insurance.

Excessive speed should increase your car insurance, but using speed should not increase your health insurance. Nor should smoking two packs of Lucky’s daily, unprotected sex, zero exercise, a daily dose of a soda and chips, or high cholesterol diets. "We need to take care of everybody," the Speaker said.

THE TRUTH WILL OUT

The Speaker clearly expects a congenial, collegial conversation as if in an academic situation which will produce a wonderful health care program. "We can have equal access for all, we can have healthier outcomes with early and preventive care, and all at a lower cost. (Long pause.) I am not going to promise a 'lower cost'."

AT ODDS

The governor says that he opposes a single payer system, part of his belief system. The speaker says she believes in the single payer system, part of her belief system. So when the governor says that the Commission’s outcome is not in doubt, neither is his health care listening tour. Hypocrisy all around.

The governor was quoted as saying during the Springfield road show that one new idea he learned about was buying health insurance out of state. Not a new idea, legislation has been in Congress permitting this for some time which the President said he would sign if passed.

BOURBON AND BRANCH WATER

Though the above is interesting and amusing to the political junkie, it is not serving the greater public interest. The speaker might as well forget about "pushing back." The governor has a bigger megaphone. Each is assured reelection. In days of yore, the political powers often described the legislative process as being completed behind closed doors, the skids greased with bourbon and branch water.

As some wag said, like sausage, you do not want to watch how legislation is made. Yet the Speaker is hung up on trust, "There is no trust out there." So? This is politics. As Harry Truman once said, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." In politics, you do not have friends, you have interests.

OVERPRESCRIBED

Doctor Paul Jarvis, Commissioner of Public Health, said this week that 52 percent of Vermonters, that is all Vermonters from children to pensioners, are taking pharmaceutical drugs. In the age bracket 45-64, 68% are on drugs, over 65 the percentage rises to 84 percent. And that does not include some of the favorite drugs such as beer, wine, spirits, coffee, or that pungent weed mary jane.

So many pharmaceuticals are part of the health crisis. Watching the Vioxx trials could lead one to believe that drugs are hard on your spleen, liver, pancreas, and digestive track, and that they can kill you. Congress was bought and paid for and totally out of its mind when it allowed drug companies to advertise a decade ago. Same with attorney’s ability to advertise decades before, a gift to the trial lawyers. Each gift drives up health care costs significantly.

JEFFORDS’S LEGACY

The curtain is coming down on Senator Jim Jeffords’s five decade political career. Using his minority leadership position on his senate committee, he has inundated Vermont with highway money. So much so, that Governor Douglas is not sure if Vermont can provide the match to take advantage of this largess. "We have found the money in the current fiscal year to match the federal grant, but in subsequent years I just do not know," said Douglas.

Amazing. Used to be that you did not look a gift horse in the mouth; you would not want to be rude. Today you do not even take the gift horse. With so much being spent on education and health care, almost free money is too expensive. Who needs roads and bridges any way? Gas costs too much to drive. Back to horse and buggy. Who is going to work the road apple sweeper? To market to market to buy a fat pig, afoot.

THE MOUTH THAT ROARED IS SPEECHLESS

The gospel according to the Democrats, the New York Times, announced that it had laid off 500 people. Missing was Sanders’s demagoguery about the big evil corporations.

TARRANT AWOL

Vermont Public Radio has been added to the long list of Vermonters and Vermont institutions which cannot get phone calls through to or returned from United States Senate hopeful Rich Tarrant.

A story. A score and two ago, your editor was a young punk working for Senator Gary Hart’s presidential campaign. Your editor had heard that the mover, shaker, mega pooh bah, former Chair of the Democrat National Committee, and a member of President Carter’s cabinet Ambassador Robert Strauss always returned each of his phone calls before he left the office.

Tasked with raising some money for Senator Hart, your editor made a blind call to Mr. Strauss, almost as a lark. Still at his desk at 545 PM that day, the phone rang. "This is Bob Strauss returning your call." That's the way the successful ones work.

OH YUCK

Mark Johnson’s guest last week was the new Fox Bureau Chief in Baghdad, Gordon Robison. Mark undiplomatically asked, "What about the concern, lots of people have concern, lots of concern, about Fox." Deadpanning, Robison answered, "I do not know what you mean?" Silence. Robison continues, "Today, Fox News is the leading cable news channel. Most folks do not share your concern."

"Oh, really," Mark responds sarcastically. "Is it fair and balanced?" He goes on scornfully. Only in Vermont, amazing, rude and unbalanced.

A FRESH LOOK

In early September, two letter writers wrote to the Times Argus. The first, Georgia Herod, wrote that she had been in Vermont for only six months but it seemed to her that the Times Argus presented only one point of view, the quite liberal one. So? We know that.

A week later Gerald Slaney wrote in to explain to Ms. Herod the facts of life in Vermont. "I am amazed that the Times Argus with its relatively tiny circulation can be as balanced and objective as it is. It amazes me that anyone would expect the Times Argus to waste valuable space by including other (opinion.) I suspect that the outcry to such an unpatriotic act of cowardice would mark the beginning of the end of our wonderful local newspaper." Wow.

Lou Bello, another newcomer, wrote, "In the year that I have lived here, I have come to expect a narrow-minded and parochial view from Darren Allen and once again in his column he achieved that expectation with distinction. I just wish that Allen would be more balanced (there is that word again) in his approach, then perhaps his columns would be taken for serious journalism and not the partisan sniveling that they clearly are." So there. There is life in Vermont.

THE BUSH ESTATE

For four years, George Bush went off to his ranch in August to cut brush and avoid work. This year according to both National Public Radio and the New Yorker, Bush went to his "estate." Checking, Bush has the same property down in Crawford, Texas this year as last.

Going on our powerful Yahoo search engine, we found 9,940,000 references to "Bush ranch," and 621,000 references to "Bush ranch, Crawford, Texas." We found zero references to Bush estate Crawford, Texas.

"WE HATE GEORGE BUSH"

Almost every media maven, newspaper, and magazine should print a disclaimer in their opening remarks, "We hate George Bush, everything he stands for, agree that he would never have become president without a corrupt court combined with Secretaries of State Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell, and by the by we are a whole lot smarter than he is."

So that when they proclaim that Bush caused the Hurricane Katrina, you will then understand. "And Bush proclaimed, let there be rain, and there was. Angered by an unrelenting press, he blew up, blowing so hard that his wind pushed water over the levees. Had he only signed the Kyoto Accord, the oceans would be cool and there would have been no hurricane. Hating all black people, but especially poor black people, he left them to rot, without transportation, water, sewer, or electricity, condemning them to certain death, a horrible wrenching death of starvation."

That Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin is a few sticks short of a cord is not relevant. That only Nagin, on the scene when the levees broke at 1130 PM, knew where the transport and school buses were, could call out the police and firemen, knew where the hospitals and nursing homes were. That is irrelevant.

That Demcrat Governor Kathleen Blanco is not the sharpest tool in the shed is not relevant. That she was missing in action and only her husband was coherent according to a report in the New York Times does not matter. That she too was supposedly on the scene and could order out the National Guard, their planes and helicopters was of no consequence.

PILING ON

Within 24 hours of this unprecedented natural disaster, President Bush was the subject of a torrent of criticism from Washington Democrats and the media. Within a week the media was taking credit for shaming the federal government into doing what they were going to do anyway. We are surprised that his approval rating after weeks of non-stop barrage is not in single digits.

MEMORY LANE

"To date, two US soldiers are believed to have succumbed to the heat in Iraq, whereas over 10,000 people have succumbed to it in France. That would make Bush's brutal Iraqi summer about one five-thousandth as lethal as the brutal Gallic summer, which has killed more people than the brutal Afghan winter (now 23 months behind schedule), the brutal Iraqi summer and the searing heat of the Guantanamo torture camps combined and multiplied by a thousand.

"And where are the Red Cross and Oxfam and Human Rights Watch and all the other noisy humanitarians? If 10,000 Iraqis had died of dysentery on George W. Bush's watch, you would never hear the end of it. A few weeks back, with three fatal cases of cholera, the Humanitarian Lobby was already shrieking that we stood on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe." --Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, August 23, 2003

SURPRISE

ABC News correspondent Dean Reynolds talked to folks in the Astrodome in search we assume of more anti-Bush rhetoric. Oh for live television

Reynolds: You heard the president say repeatedly that you are not alone, that the country stands beside you. Do you believe him?

London: Yeah, I believe him, because here in Texas, they have truly been good to us. I mean--

Reynolds: Did you get a sense of hope that you could return to your home one day in New Orleans?

London: Yes, I did. I did.

Reynolds: Did you harbor any anger toward the President because of the slow federal response?

London: No, none whatsoever, because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in. They should have been on their jobs.

Reynolds: And they weren't?

London: No, no, no, no. Lord, they weren't. I mean, they had RTA buses, Greyhound buses, school buses, that were just sitting there going under water when they could have been evacuating people. --Best of the Web Today, September 16, 2005

HELLO? IS ANYONE EXCITED ABOUT THE SENATE RACE?

»» Sharon Toborg, Washington County Republican Committee Woman: How unfortunately typical that Republican Party officials declined comment when the sitting Republican Lieutenant Governor announces an exploratory committee for US Senate. How hard would it have been to form the words - "Brian Dubie has been a great Lieutenant Governor and would be a strong candidate for US Senate"? To say nothing just looks stupid -- or worse yet, like the Democrats are right!

I have e-mailed Brian Dubie at Brian@briandubie.com to offer my encouragement.

I'M EXCITED ABOUT THE SENATE RACE!

»» Senator Mark Shepard, R-Bennington: I will not stay in the United States senate race if Brian Dubie enters. Our going head to head insures that Bernie wins. What if Martha Rainville decides not to run? By staying in this race, I am in good shape to go to that one. Alternatively, Brian might very well decide to go to that race and then I would stay in the United States Senate race.

I am having a lot of fun! I have a super core group and the energy around my run for Senate is quite incredible. There are many issues that I think are very important to Vermonters that I hear little to nothing from anyone else about considering a statewide race.

These issues are those that relate to hunting, fishing, etc. Protecting public access to public lands is very important to our economy, way of life, and our environment. The lands should be managed such that the quality of our wildlife habitat is improved. This requires that we have a responsible timber program, which in turn positively impacts the incomes of many Vermonters and makes wise use of a home grown renewable resource.

Secondly, I am very concerned about the high pressure to push a single-payer health care system on Vermont. Our system has room for great improvement, but from my study and my understanding of human nature single-payer would bring disaster to our state. I want to be another voice helping to articulate why we should not go down the road of single-payer. My thinking on reforms are those that would revive the market forces -- so that we as patients have a means of affecting the service we receive. Thirdly, I certainly will make a case for policies that strengthen families and protect the vulnerable, such as the elderly.

I feel these issues are important enough that I have given up much of my summer and am prepared to campaign on these and other issues until next November. My campaign will be a team effort and I welcome anyone who wants to be a part of a fun, energized campaign aimed at improving the lives of Vermonters.

MORE ON THAT SENATE RACE

»» Senator Bill Doyle, R-Washington, Minority Leader: The senate campaign is better organized than I have seen it since we were in power. We are receiving lots of help from people like Sara Gear. We meet with the Governor every two weeks and he is being a big help.

ERRATUM

»» Suzanne Butterfield: Here I am reading your DPR immediately upon receipt. It's Senator DIANE Snelling (not Barbara, though that fine Lady's been there as 'both'!). Gee -- you forgot to mention Sen Matt Dunne who's also supposed to be interested in a run for Lieutenant Governor (since his the real spot he cherished to run for has been taken by Sen. Peter Welch).

Editor's Note Oops, we are either stupid, slipping, or just out of practice. Our apologies.

OH CANADA

"From Democrats and the American Left -- the United State's equivalent to the people who run Canada -- we are still hearing that the disaster in New Orleans showed that a heartless, white Republican America had abandoned its underclass.

"This is garbage. The great majority of those not evacuated lived in assisted housing, receive food stamps and prescription medicine and government support through many other programs. Many have, all their lives, expected someone to lift them to safety, sans input from themselves. And the demagogic (and Democrat) mayor they elected left, quite literally, hundreds of transit and school buses parked in rows to be lost in the flood that could have driven them out of town." --David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, September 11, 2005

Full commentary: http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?artID=510

NEED MORE MONEY? SHOW ME RESULTS

"Among adults age 25 to 34, the United States is ninth among industrialized nations in the share of its population that has at least a high school degree. In the same age group, the United States ranks seventh, with Belgium, in the share of people who hold a college degree.

"'By both measures, the United States was first in the world as recently as 20 years ago', said Barry McGaw, director of education for the Paris-based Organization for Cooperation and Development." --Ben Feller, Associated Press, September 13, 2005

SWEET IRONY

"The United Food and Commercial Workers union is outsourcing its picketing to non-union workers, at a sub-standard pay rate with no benefits, in unsafe conditions, with no transportation or means to leave the premises, in order to protest the poor jobs inside Wal-Mart, where workers make twice as much." --Las Vegas Weekly, September 8, 2005

BUSH MADE THEM DO IT!

"I am out looking for gas, fifty bucks in my pocket. The New Orleans Police pull me over at gunpoint, siphon half my gas, take the fifty bucks and a fifth of Crown Royal." --Kenny Dobbs, The New Yorker, September 19, 2005

GO TELL THAT TO THE DEMOCRAT LEGISLATURE

"I have to tell the people, to convince them, that there is a relation between earning money and spending money, that all other values, solidarity, justice, the social network, are safe only if our economy does better and that there is growth." --Angela Merke, German candidate for chancellor, The New Yorker, September 19, 2005

IS SAN FRANCISCO READY FOR THE BIG ONE?

"I am certainly not waiting for Air Force One." --Mayor Gavin Newsom, Time, September 19, 2005

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