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Last month I read an essay by Bruce Babbitt, former
governor of Arizona and now U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
His topic was The Joy of Sledgehammering
-- the
pleasure he found when swinging a hammer to make the first
cracks in dams built with taxpayer subsidies, dams
draped in political pork, dams clouded by dubious if not
deceitful cost/benefit projections.
Babbitt made it clear that he wasn't trying to remove every dam in the United States. Many are necessary and beneficial, he wrote, but others cost more than they're worth, and should be demolished.
My political memory extends back to more than 20 years ago, when the Carter Administration, eager to practice economy in government, announced that there were certain proposed water development projects which should not get federal funds.
The reaction from our down-home politicians was fierce
and immediate. Carter had a hit list
of vital water
developments and was waging a War on the West.
So this time around, with the Democratic Secretary of the Interior uttering heresies that some existing dams, let alone proposed ones, make no economic or environmental sense, I expected to see similar rabid denunciations from my Republican congressman.
It would be a press release I could have drafted in my
sleep, full of cliches about how We must stop this War
on the West,
and Water is the very lifeblood of the
American West,
and how the federal treasury should be
tapped to build more reservoirs and canals to serve a
growing population, and that it was unconscionable that the
Interior Department could even consider tearing down dams
when so many deserving projects, like Animas-La Plata and
Savery-Pothook, should be constructed immediately.
But instead, all I saw from Rep. Scott McInnis was an op-ed piece that appeared in many newspapers of the Third Congressional District, and it had nothing to do with Babbitt's sledgehammer tactics -- it called for the president's resignation, since he could no longer exercise leadership in the wake of credible perjury allegations.
In other words, Babbitt was free to brag on dam-busting because all the GOP attention was focused on Bill and Monica and questions of censure, resignation and impeachment.
Also sneaking around under the current GOP radar is a Forest Service chief, Mike Dombeck, who might be just as much a heretic as Babbitt. Dombeck has proposed that we taxpayers quit subsidizing the timber industry with road-building in the National Forests.
Back in January, he called for an 18-month moratorium on construction of new roads in currently road-free zones, a policy that not only irks the timber industry, but the powerful motorized recreation lobby, too.
He was attacked then. One of the leaders of the charge was Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho). In a normal year, she'd be promoting road construction and calling for Dombeck's removal at every stump speech.
But she's been busy explaining how God has forgiven her for an affair she had some years ago. That previous peccadillo came to light on account of the Lewinsky-Clinton scandal. The result is that the Forest Service, at the moment, is free to protect our forests, rather than devoting its energies to placating some of the obnoxious dingbats we Westerners export to Washington.
That's two benefits so far from this scandal, and if we look beyond the West, our blessings are multiplied.
For instance, in most election years, we'd be assaulted
with acres of shrill warnings about the dangers of the
homosexual agenda,
whatever that is.
But, thanks to all the focus on the juicy details of the special prosecutor's report, I haven't seen so much as one sentence of gay-bashing, let alone the usual barrage.
Other normal election-year concerns have also vanished.
Where, for instance, is the customary GOP denunciation of
revisionist historians
who cast doubt upon the
eternal nobility of the American cause?
It's been at least six months since any Republican has
offered to save me from the threat of uppity women. I
can't even remember the last time a candidate assured us
that restoring prayer to our public schools
would
solve everything from illiteracy to abortion.
Another election-year staple, promising to escalate the War on Drugs, along with consequent construction of more prisons and the employment of more guards -- it's not on the national agenda this year. All they talk about is sex in the oval office.
Granted, it's easy to feel disgusted by Bill Clinton's stupidity and cupidity. But if you look deeper into the results, and realize what we're being spared this year on account of all the attention that the scandal gets, the benefits might well far exceed the costs.
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