Fresh Loaf

When Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry earlier this month insinuated Texas might attempt to secede from the United States, it was the most extreme expression so far of the Republican Party’s juvenile sore loserdom. They’ve been so thoroughly rejected by voters in two straight elections, the GOP is basically saying “Nevermind, we quit.”

Honestly, my first thought upon seeing the words “Texas” and “secede” in a headline this month was “good riddance.”

I don’t want the U.S. to break up, but it makes me smile to imagine a new USA, liberated from the millions of staunch Republicans who think the solutions to all society’s ills can be found in Leviticus.

The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg had a similar thought, only he’s smarter and a superior writer.

In his latest column, he imagines the win-win resulting from Texas and the rest of the Republican south splitting from the rest of the U.S.

The leftover United States, he says, would ”briskly enact sensible gun control, universal health insurance, and ample support for the arts, the humanities, and the sciences.”

And the new Confederacy?

“[It] could get on with the business of protecting the sanctity of marriage, mandating organized prayer sessions and the teaching of creationism in schools, and giving the theory that eliminating taxes increases government revenues a fair test. Although Texas and the other likely [secessionist] states already conduct some eighty-six per cent of executions, their death rows remain clogged with thousands of prisoners kept alive by meddling judges. These would be rapidly cleared out, providing more prison space for abortion providers.”

Next time a Republican “leader” hints at secession, don’t mock him. Encourage him.

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SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA: "The Beltline? Destroy it!"

How bad are the nation’s public schools?

Republicans are so bent-out-of-shape about their two straight national election blowouts that leaders in Republican strongholds Georgia and Texas recently threatened to secede.

Didn’t any of them have history teachers who explained how that secession thingy worked out for everybody last time?

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It’s amazing the things a governor will take the time to do and the things he’ll choose to ignore.

For example, Gov. Sonny Perdue recently wrote a letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry about some “salty” words uttered by Mayor Bill White of Houston toward two female Georgia Forestry Commission employees helping out with Hurricane Ike clean up.

So reporteth the Houston Chronicle:

After receiving a complaint Friday from Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, Gov. Rick Perry yesterday asked his staff to investigate comments White made to two Georgia Forestry Commission employees who came to Houston to help manage the distribution of federal and state supplies to area residents hit hard by Hurricane Ike. Perdue said in a letter to Perry that White had “verbally and profanely abused” the women.

A witness said White told the women, “You need to be getting these (expletive) trucks out of here.”

The mayor then began arguing with a Harris County sheriff’s deputy over whether trucks full of Federal Emergency Management Agency supplies had been delivered to a distribution site, the witness said. White told the deputy he had just been to the site and about 3,000 people were waiting for supplies.

White went on to say that if nothing was delivered soon, they were ”about to be in a (expletive) riot,” the witness said.

I’m all for the proper treatment for state employees. And these two workers deserve nothing less than the utmost respect. But it was also a stressful environment.

Let’s put all those arguments aside for a moment and just sit back and bask in the wisdom of crowds — aka the comments section on the Chronicle’s article — to get the final word on ExpletiveGate 2008.

(Photo by CowboyPoetry)

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