Wow.

By: Chris Guy
Published On: 9/2/2007 7:03:01 PM

h/t TPM
Here's Lt. Gov. Jim Risch (R-ID), a leading candidate to succeed Larry Craig in the U.S. Senate, on Katrina victims:
"Hurricane Katrina - they heaped that on George Bush!" said Mr Risch, in his shirt-sleeves in the blasting dry heat of an afternoon in Boise, the state capital.

"Here in Idaho, we couldn't understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something. We had a dam break in 1976, but we didn't whine about it. We got out our backhoes and we rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields and got on with our lives. That's the culture here. Not waiting for the federal government to bring you drinking water. In Idaho there would have been entrepreneurs selling the drinking water."

Outrage #1: The statement itself. Just like people who blamed the victims for their deaths at Virginia Tech earlier this year, the message is clear: This type of thing would never had happened to a macho Republican, just sniveling, wimpy little libruls.

Outrage #2: The federal government did indeed come to the aid of Idaho back in 1976, in extremely timely fashion.

Outrage #3: If Risch is appointed Senator by Gov. "Butch" Otter (R-ID), he's still the odds-on favorite to hold the seat in 2008. That's just how red Idaho is. Presumptive Democratic nominee Larry LaRocco lost the Lt. Gov. race to Risch last year by 19%.

Comments



Want to burst Risch's dam of hypocrisy? Look at this. (Catzmaw - 9/2/2007 10:24:23 PM)
In his column in the Guardian Unlimited Mark Schmitt destroys Risch's smug, self-congratulatory, and utterly inaccurate comparison of the sufferings of a few thousand Idahoans with those of Katrina's victims.  The highlights? 
Taken on its own terms, this is a cruel and unsympathetic statement, assuming that the deeply impoverished people of a city that had washed away could and should have just taken care of themselves. But if you look at what Risch was talking about, it's truly astonishing.

The dam that broke in 1976 was the Teton dam, built on the Snake River just a few months earlier, at a cost of $100m. (That's worth almost $500m today.) Built not by entrepreneurs, but by the federal government's bureau of reclamation. It was built at the political insistence of a few millionaire ranchers and potato-growers, whose political allies had persuaded the government to build a series of dams that transformed a desert into some of the richest and wettest agricultural land in the country. And it was built despite predictions that it would fail.

And when it did fail, it was not the self-sufficient entrepreneurs of Idaho who "rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields." It was, once again, the federal government. According to the government's official history of the incident, federal agencies quickly rebuilt all the irrigation systems, and paid more than $850 million in claims to about 15,000 people who had lost property in the flood.


Enough said.  Somebody tell me not all Idahoans are this delusional, self-satisfied, and willing to smear and denigrate their fellow Americans in an effort to make themselves look better.  Risch is vile.


My only contact with (mkfox - 9/2/2007 11:43:50 PM)
an Idahoan was some gun nut who accused me of being a "bigot" because of my stance on gun control. Maybe this says it all:
http://www.theonion....


I once ate a potato (Chris Guy - 9/3/2007 1:31:19 AM)


though this may seem like shameless advertizing for political site (presidentialman - 9/3/2007 2:41:36 AM)
As I'm reading this,I'm eating Utz kettle classics.  Try Utz, and take good comfort they're from the more to their senses state of Pennsylvania, where we Democrats kicked ass in the 2006 election. Its also home to the real place that declared the nations Independence-the liberal city of Philadelphia.

Not a shameless promotion, just a thought. 



Grandma Utz... (Tom Joad (Kevin) - 9/4/2007 11:41:12 AM)
makes my mouth water...ok I just realized how gross that sounds.


Why is an honest republican so rare these days? (mosquitopest - 9/3/2007 8:27:14 AM)
It's gotten so one needs to put in earplugs whenever a Republican speaks so one doesn't need to deal with the absurdities.....

buzz...buzz...



Because if they were honest... (Lowell - 9/3/2007 8:30:59 AM)
...they'd have to admit that conservatism has utterly failed Virginia, America, and the world.  They've got nothing positive to report -- and I mean NOTHING -- so they resort to the last refuge of scoundrels, dividing people and stirring up animosities.


they NEVER let you down (pvogel - 9/4/2007 10:38:23 AM)
2008 is shaping up to be a VERY sweet year, though  a lot of work remains to be done.

We must get rid of the "Viral " party, and innouculate  against the return of R@R( racist republicans)