Friday, July 28, 2006
Conrad Burns is a Flaming Jerk
I guess if your last name is Burns, and you made your money shooting off your mouth on radio, that magically gives you the right to tell firefighters how to do their job. I mean after all, how hard can it be to put out a forest fire, right?
Apparently Conrad Burns, a Republican senator from Montana, suffers from the same unwarranted sense of entitlement most senators get after becoming the incumbent. As Joe Lieberman has demonstrated, we really do have a two party system. There is the Incumbent Party and Everyone Else.
If you doubt it, consider Exhibit A from a local Montana newspaper.
Actually, what he really said was this:
What kind of asinine arrogance is needed to chew out firefighters who have traveled thousands of miles to help control a raging inferno in your home state? Oh wait ... this is the SAME guy who said it "was a hell of a challenge" when a rancher asked him "Conrad, how can you live back there [Washington] with all those niggers?" The only firefighting experience this fool has is probably limited to putting out fires in the media from all the crap he spews while hardly working as a Signing Statement Stenographer lackey in the US Senate.
Someone should remind this neanderthal that firefighters run into burning buildings while everyone else is busy running out of them. That's why people revere firefighters like them and revile political hacks like him.
Next time Burns shows up to "work" at Congress, he should take time out from his busy day of pork-barrel politics to apologize to the firefighters from Virginia he dared insult. Instead of spending his days kissing the asses of overpaid lobbyists he should get down on his knees and kiss the boots of men and women who risk their lives to protect his constituent's life and property.
Since the firefighters came thousands of miles to help total strangers, the least he can do is make the three hour trip to Staunton, VA to thank them in person. Of course that would require him to pull his head out of his ass, and we all know that would be "a hell of challenge" for this guy.
Apparently Conrad Burns, a Republican senator from Montana, suffers from the same unwarranted sense of entitlement most senators get after becoming the incumbent. As Joe Lieberman has demonstrated, we really do have a two party system. There is the Incumbent Party and Everyone Else.
If you doubt it, consider Exhibit A from a local Montana newspaper.
"HELENA - Republican Sen. Conrad Burns chastised a group of firefighters over the weekend for doing a "poor job" of squelching a 92,000-acre blaze near Billings, a state report shows.
Burns and the firefighters - members of the Augusta Hotshots from the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in Virginia - were at the Billings Logan International Airport awaiting flights, according to Burns and U.S. Forest Service representatives.
Burns approached the firefighters and told them they had "done a poor job" and "should have listened to the ranchers," according to a report prepared by Paula Rosenthal, a Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation employee who was sent to the airport to speak with the senator.
The 92,000-acre timber, grass and sagebrush fire was contained on July 19 and the 368 people who came to fight it began dispersing a few days later."
Actually, what he really said was this:
“See that guy over there? He hasn’t done a God-damned thing. They sit around. I saw it up on the Wedge fire and in northwestern Montana some years ago. It’s wasteful. You probably paid that guy $10,000 to sit around. It’s gotta change.’’
What kind of asinine arrogance is needed to chew out firefighters who have traveled thousands of miles to help control a raging inferno in your home state? Oh wait ... this is the SAME guy who said it "was a hell of a challenge" when a rancher asked him "Conrad, how can you live back there [Washington] with all those niggers?" The only firefighting experience this fool has is probably limited to putting out fires in the media from all the crap he spews while hardly working as a Signing Statement Stenographer lackey in the US Senate.
Someone should remind this neanderthal that firefighters run into burning buildings while everyone else is busy running out of them. That's why people revere firefighters like them and revile political hacks like him.
Next time Burns shows up to "work" at Congress, he should take time out from his busy day of pork-barrel politics to apologize to the firefighters from Virginia he dared insult. Instead of spending his days kissing the asses of overpaid lobbyists he should get down on his knees and kiss the boots of men and women who risk their lives to protect his constituent's life and property.
Since the firefighters came thousands of miles to help total strangers, the least he can do is make the three hour trip to Staunton, VA to thank them in person. Of course that would require him to pull his head out of his ass, and we all know that would be "a hell of challenge" for this guy.
