The Dam Hugger Circus Review
Congressman Dan Newhouse R-WA. panders to his conservative base at Ice Harbor Dam while colleagues Mike Collins R-GA., Cliff Bentz R-OR. and Cathy McMorris-Rodgers R-WA. round out the circus.
The circus was in Richland, Washington yesterday. Congressional Representatives Dan Newhouse, (R-WA) Cathy McMorris Rodgers, (R-WA) Cliff Bentz (R-OR) and their special guest, Georgia Congressman and Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel impersonator Mike Collins (R-GA) conducted a highly choreographed performance meant to rile a few hundred dam huggers into a frenzy.
Mission accomplished. The show, billed as “The Northwest at risk: the environmentalists’ effort to destroy navigation, transportation and access to reliable power,” did what it set out to do: mark a step backward in the honest work of decent politicians, farmers, fisherman, Pacific Northwest Tribes and conservationists to find a way to get rid of four deadbeat dams on the Snake River in eastern Washington State, while ensuring everyone comes through the dam removal process as good or better than before.
This Gang of Four trotted out the usual assortment of professional fibbers to cast doubt on a well-established set of facts that has compelled the Biden Administration as well as Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID) to take a serious look at dam removal as a way of fulfilling the federal mandate to recover salmon in the Columbia Basin.
Fuck the fibbers that were flapping their feathers in Richland yesterday. Their talking points don’t really merit any further amplification here. What some conservationists don’t understand is that these kinds of dog and pony shows aren’t about facts. They’re about riling up a rabid and radically conservative base, by any means necessary. If a progressive swoons over the offenses uttered, the message, however dishonest, can be deemed a success. And if the lies and vitriol aren’t enough, there’s always race-baiting.
The most disgusting moment in Monday’s shit-show was when Rep. Mike Collins introduced NOAA Regional Administrator Jennifer Quan. After trotting out his Georgia hick impression, Collins appeared to purposely stumble over Quan’s Asian surname. “Quinn?..Uh…guess I can’t pur-nounce yer last name,” said Collins with a sneering guffaw.
Collins isn’t as stupid as he pretends to be when he feels the need to pander to a crowd. Pretending not to be able to pronounce a last name that doesn’t fit into Collins’ white southern Baptist conception of the world is an effective means of marginalizing Quan’s accomplishments, as well as her role in determining what will happen to those Snake River Dams.
This brand of middle-school bullying might still be a thing in the circles Collins runs in in Georgia. But it’s not okay here. Representatives Bentz, McMorris Rogers, and Newhouse should apologize to Quan and the rest of their constituents in the Pacific Northwest for their colleagues inexcusable racist fuck-up. And Collins should be relegated to the Georgia snake pit from which he emerged.
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