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Monday, October 22, 2007
Says Gov. Riley of Alabama: We need that extra water for a nuke plant, not mussels.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley has asked President Bush to deny a request by Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue for a disaster declaration, saying it would put Alabama people and jobs at risk, according to the Birmingham News.
We just got a copy of Riley’s letter ourselves a few minutes ago. Among the highlights:
— “While Alabama understands that it must bear its fair share of the pain from the drought, Alabama does not believe that it should bear more than it’s fair share.”
— “Georgia, in essence, wants you to suspend all releases out of Lake Lanier beyond those needed for Atlanta-area water supply. That would be a radical step that would ignore the vital downstream interests of Alabama.”
— “Georgia has repeatedly framed its request as a contest between people in the Atlanta area and endangered mussels in Florida. Nothing could be further than the truth….Georgia ignores the fact that the Farely Nuclear Plant sits on the banks of the Chattahoochee River and requires cooling water.”
— Riley also takes issue with Georgia’s estimation that it has 80 or so days before toilets run dry. Actually, the Alabama governor said, it’s more like 260 days — and we’re coming up on the rainy season.
Both governors are Republican, and one’s tempted to wonder which one has more clout with Bush — remember that Perdue is chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
But when it comes to water, there is no Republican and there is no Democrat. There’s only thirsty and not-yet thirsty.
Paul Coverdell as an example for those with questions about Rudy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the effort to win the evangelical vote, the late U.S. senator Paul Coverdell of Georgia has become a posthumous stalking horse for Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. Ask Ralph Reed.
We didn’t, but David Kuo did.
Kuo was President Bush’s deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He’s now got a blog on Beliefnet.com.
You can see the entire interview here, but this is the key Q&A:
Kuo: “Do you think an evangelical Christian should have problems voting for Rudy Giuliani given his liberal social policy positions?”
Reed: “Rather than particularize that answer to Rudy Giuliani, let me say as a general proposition that those are prudential judgments based on the individual candidate—-and their opponent.
“In 1992, the pro-family community supported Paul Coverdell, who was pro-choice, for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. Until his untimely death in 2000, Paul voted consistently pro-life, helped defeat the Clinton health care plan, and became one of the most respected conservatives in the U.S. Senate.
“There are circumstances when an 80 percent friend is not a 20 percent enemy. We will have to await the outcome of the dialogue between Mayor Giuliani and the faith community and voting in some early primaries to know the answer with regard to this race.
“Religious conservatives should stand on principle but also recognize that a political party is not a church. If they do so, they will be the most effective voting bloc in the nation.”
‘What Atlanta wants, Atlanta gets, and right now, they want our water.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In metro Atlanta, Gov. Sonny Perdue has successfully cast the debate over water as a case of mollusk versus man.
But downstream, people in other parts of Georgia aren’t sure they like being compared to bivalves. They prefer to think of themselves as a giant Slurpee. Metro Atlanta is the straw — and a greedy one at that.
It’s always a disappointment to find out you’re not as beloved as you thought.
These are the key paragraphs from the Sunday editorial in the Valdosta Times:
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s temper tantrums against the Army Corps of Engineers, the state of Florida and anyone else associated with not giving into his demands continued through the weekend, with meetings at Lake Lanier and declaring northern Georgia a disaster area Saturday to further enforce what everyone else has long known — Atlanta is a greedy, poorly designed behomoth of a city incapable of hearing the word “no” and dealing with it.
The wasteful ways of Atlantans continued through the past decade of severe drought in the state. The water restrictions meant little to them “up there” as they had plenty of water at the time, while rural Georgia and farmers were watching their crops burn in their fields, listening as Atlanta politicians who apparently do think their food originates in a grocery store passed policies designed to prevent them from accessing the water literally beneath their feet.
These same politicians can’t bring themselves to tell their greedy constituents complaining about the low flows in their toilets this week that perhaps if they didn’t have six bathrooms, it might ease the situation a bit. That watering your lawn isn’t as important as watering crops. Or that their greedy overbuilding has taxed their supplies of natural resources beyond their capabilities.
However, all of that requires a degree of common sense and we’ve seen precious little of it from any politician in this state this year. So South Georgia, watch out. What Atlanta wants, Atlanta gets, and right now, they want our water. If our legislative delegation wakes up, perhaps they can have the state agree to at least let us keep what falls from the sky, even while they suck our ground, and our pockets, dry.
Notes from the GOP debate in Florida: On Fred Thompson and John McCain’s applause line.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fred Thompson’s trip to Atlanta last week resonated during last night’s Republican presidential debate in Orlando.
Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript, via the New York Times:
[CARL] CAMERON [of Fox News]: Senator Thompson, earlier this week, you were asked about your lobbying, years ago, for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. And you were quoted as saying, That was private life, as if to dismiss the question.
CAMERON: Can you explain to us what you meant by that and why…
THOMPSON: No, I…
CAMERON: … it would make a difference?
THOMPSON: No, what I said — what I hope I said was that it was my private law practice, as opposed to my public service. I was a member of a firm, of counsel to a large firm. And it was their client. They asked me to do a little work on it. I made a few calls. And that was that.
Frankly, I’d forgotten about it. But they’ve come forward now, because I’m their worst nightmare.
After that happened, I went to the United States Senate and voted consistently against them on every bill that came up. Now they’re trying to defeat me.
Elsewhere in the debate, John McCain again got the largest round of applause. At this point, given his standing in the polls, it’s hard to say whether it matters.
In any case, here’s the AP description:
McCain said Clinton had recently tried to spend $1 million on a Woodstock Museum, commemorating perhaps the most famous counterculture event of the 1960s.
“Now my friends I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,” he said.
“I was tied up at the time,” he deadpanned, and the audience rose to applaud the reference to the five and a half years McCain spent as a prisoner of war during Vietnam.
