For a while there I thought this Mt. St. Helens thing was just good, clean, innocent geological fun. But now my eyes are open to the Bush Administration's swing-state skullduggery.
First they raise the "threat level" from 2 to 3, the highest level, triggering public fears of an "imminent eruption".
Then they fly in Bushie Interior Secretary Gale Norton and trot her out with Oregon Republican congressman Greg Walden to assure us that Washington and Oregon will be safe from volcanism under Bush's watch.
I gotta admit, it's been effective. The Bush USGS has done well so far: they called the first eruption, and they showed great prudence in evacuating Johnston Ridge today after observing "harmonic tremor." It's been a hell of an intelligence coup. Would a Kerry USGS do as well? As far as I know, Kerry doesn't even have a position on volcanism. Good luck pinning down where he stands on harmonic tremor.
UPDATE: I got to thinking about it, and realized St. Helens has been in the Republicans' corner all along. It blew its top early on May 18, 1980, catching the Carter USGS with its pants half down and killing 57 people. Yet another election year straw on the Camel of Carter's Effectiveness. We now know Reagan made a deal with the Iranian terrorists to release their hostages after he was elected; is it possible he cut a deal with Mt. St. Helens, too?
(And a Harry Truman died in the eruption -- a ready symbol for Reagan's New Deal rollback? This thing runs deep, folks!)
Posted by FLOG at October 2, 2004 6:17 PMCompelling. Perhaps not persuasive, but compelling all right.
Posted by: WWB at October 3, 2004 4:21 PMNot persuasive? OPEN YOUR EYES!
Posted by: FLOG™ at October 3, 2004 5:16 PMEven the mountain is on our side, MUAHAHAHAHA!
Posted by: Timothy at October 4, 2004 12:41 AMYeah, but the Democrats have hurricanes.
http://www.users.qwest.net/~bazerko/GODvsBUSH.gif
Woooo! The mountain's going to cough up a wee bit of ash and ravage a few square miles of trees! Yippie!
The hurricanes? A million billion dollars worth of destroyed real estate in Florida. That'll learn 'em to completely remove their chads.
Posted by: at October 4, 2004 10:50 AMThis whole thing about Florida being "punished" -- I don't really get it. Surely you "Bush-Stole-the-Election" types don't want the thousands upon thousands of uncounted Gore voters to suffer? Haven't they suffered enough? If every hurricane made a beeline for Jeb Bush's mansion and Katherine Harris' powder room, it might make sense. Likewise if tornadoes chased Ralph Nader around 24 hours a day. As it stands, it's just dumb.
Indeed, I think WWB is right about the political effect of the hurricanes: if anything, they help Bush, by (1) allowing him to step in with a pile of federal pork, and (2) keeping Kerry away from there because he doesn't want to appear insensitive and opportunistic (er, for once).
Posted by: FLOG™ at October 4, 2004 1:41 PMI second everything FLOG™ says, especially the parts where he seconds me. Relatedly, the Hotline's Scoreboard shows Bush ahead by about as much as he was before the hurricanes rolled through -- up by between 3 to 9 points, depending on the poll. (Scoreboard excludes the robo tracking polls, thankfully.) Make of that what you will.
Posted by: WWB at October 4, 2004 6:15 PMHey, I never said it didn't backfire on them.
Posted by: at October 4, 2004 6:46 PMBOR-ING! What this blog needs is 33 CCs of new posts, stat!
Posted by: Blog at October 11, 2004 10:22 AMWhy am I reading a blog that hasn't changed for more than a week instead of writing my lit review? Grad school is actually a lot like undergrad -- except now all my classes (I'm sorry, all of my "seminars") are in the afternoon so I have even more time to procrastinate.
Posted by: phooeyhoo at October 11, 2004 10:05 PM