Let’s get this out of the way upfront. With respect to Tsar Donaldo Vladimirovitch’s first supreme court appointee, I will not ask if the fruit can fall far from the tree.
“If you want to attack Anne Gorsuch Burford, the first woman appointed as the head of the EPA, now deceased, and impute her alleged sins to her son, a distinguished jurist of impeccable reputation, then you are free to do so. But if you do, there are those who might be tempted to ask you ‘Sir, at long last, have you no sense of decency?’”
One of my correspondents last week employed the classic gimlet which attorney Joseph Welch used as a scalpel to torpedo the credibility of Sen. Pat McCarran’s best bud, Sen. Joe “Commies Under Every Bed” McCarthy.
Anybody who wants to accuse me of holding the son responsible for the sins of his mother, be advised that it’s already been done both online and via the airwaves.
Such kneejerk response misses my point: With the nomination of Poison Annie’s progeny, Judge Neil Gorsuch, Tsar Vladimirovitch and Rasputin Breitbartsky have deftly engineered an inside triple play, a three-layered insult to environmentalism, a joke which all moonhowlers will understand.
In 1981, King Ronnie the Vague appointed Anne Gorsuch Burford to head the Environmental Protection Agency, an institution she reviled. The Tsar’s current nominee, likewise assigned to destroy, is oil patch politician Scott Pruitt, cut from the same ideological cloth.
Poison Annie did her best to dismantle the EPA and gloried in the destruction even as she walked out the door in disgrace. She was the first cabinet minister ever cited for contempt of Congress and resigned after Reagan threw her under the bus.
Her defense was the ancient war crime cop-out: I was just following orders. The Reaganauts ordered her not to comply with congressional subpoenas about more than $1 billion of Toxic Waste Superfund mismanagement. When the White House abandoned its executive privilege claims, she walked after just 22 months on the job. Her chief aide, Rita Lavelle, went to jail for perjury.
The nomination of Poison Annie’s kid is a multi-layered insult to tree huggers without explicitly stating it, thus eliminating the risk of righteous (but nonetheless off the mark) reactions such as stated by my learned legal correspondent.
Rasputin is truly an evil genius.
WHERE CREDIT IS DUE DEPT. I stole the appellation “Poison Annie” from the late, great Tribune columnist and talk radio legend Travus T. Hipp, whom I assume would approve such Gorsuch usage were he still available to grant it.
END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless predictions for 2017 by subscribing to Barbwire Confidential News. Last year’s dark foreshadowings unfortunately became reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/
THE GOOD DON. Nominations are afoot for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame. Time to ramp up for world-famous Tribune photographer Don Dondero. Details at the Barbwire.US web edition.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 48-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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