Pander, Part Deux
You gotta hand it to South Carolina lawmakers. They may not be able to run this state worth a damn, but they’re clearly not afraid to apply their “wisdom” to global challenges like immigration reform and “reducing America’s dependency on foreign oil,” which incidentally has surpassed “restoring honor and dignity to the Oval Office” as our least favorite political phrase ever.
Take House Speaker Bobby Harrell, for example, who after leading last year’s panderfest on the immigration debate is now trying to figure out how he can exploit consumer fears over gas prices to his political advantage.
Here’s Harrell’s geopolitical wisdom from this morning’s Charleston Post and Courier:
“We are sending $700 billion a year overseas to people who hate us and giving them the money they need to do bad things,” Harrell said.
Really? We’ve never heard anyone say that before, Bobby. Honestly. Never.
Anyway, in case you were wondering the next smoke-and-mirrors issue our General Assembly was going to use to distract you from their abysmal record here at home, mystery solved.
Now if we could just learn to harness Harrell’s hot air, we’d be in business …
Comments
By SeaFair on September 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Harrell has become a statewide joke- no surprise he’s pontificating about something other than the problems we face as a state. I wish voters would kick every one of these fools out in November. But the problem is that their influence and corruption is so rampant that no one would dare challenge them.
By Gillon on September 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Exactly what part of the speaker’s quote do you disagree with?
By Ron on September 15th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Will,
You’re absolutely correct. They’re looking for any issue to provide political cover for themselves and their inability to provide a constitutionally mandated balanced budget. I thought all of these clowns in Columbia swore an oath “to protect and defend the constitution of SC and the USA so help me God”! Thanks for conveying to these guys that “we the people know exactly what they’re doing. Now what i’d like to know is if you’d consider moving to Charleston to run against Harrell? I don’t think you’d beat the confederate general (someone needs to), but you’d stand a good chance against Harrell, in my view. People are fed up with this guy including many GOP lawmakers in Columbia.
By Connor Peterson on September 15th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Is anyone else sick of how Washington (and especially this administration) has run the word “freedom” into the ground? It has been used and overused and cynically twisted so badly I don’t even know what “freedom” is any longer.
By Carl on September 15th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Lawmakers like Harrell are the very problem that he mentions in his quote. If the lawmakers do not respect tax dollars and the people of the state then they are a smaller version of his quote…terrorist of this state. We are sending our money to the state and people like Harrell, Merrill, Leatherman, Chellis etc are bent on padding their own pockets to fullfill their ego’s.
“We are sending 7 billion dollars a year to Columbia to people that abuse us and giving them the money to they need to self endulge!”
By James on September 15th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Harrell’s just pissed because he ain’t gett’in his share of the $700 Billion.
By Cockfighter on September 16th, 2008 at 6:32 am
HA! It is just a matter of time before he “highly recommends” someone from his camp for a job in that department too.