Posted on 07/30/2006 3:18:15 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Sen. Conrad Burns has issued a written apology for having an "altercation" at a Billings airport last weekend with members of a hot shot firefighting crew about the management of a 92,000-acre blaze in eastern Montana.
Jennifer McKee of the Lee State Bureau broke the story on Thursday, reporting on an account from state firefighting operations that Burns criticized a member of the Augusta Hot Shots from Virginia for doing a "poor job" and not listening to ranchers.
Today, Lee's Chuck Johnson reports on the Burns apology and includes this little nugget of a quote from Burns in the original report from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation: Burns, pointing across the airport at a hot shot is quoted as saying, “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.’’
At www.wildlandfire.com, firefighters across the nation are reacting to the Burns comments.
(Excerpt) Read more at newwest.net ...
To paraphrase the immortal Britney Spears,
"Oops, he did it again!"
Yep. Another case of "foot-in-mouth" disease by Conrad Burns.
Does Conrad Burns campaign as hard he runs his mouth?
I wonder if the NRSC has written off this seat yet?
Maybe he shouldn't have apologized. Considering how the union firefighters act around here sometimes, the virginian might have deserved it.
I remember back in '99 or so - there were some serious forest fires out west. I was unemployed that summer, so I thought maybe I would go volunteer to help out - maybe I'm not fire-fighter certified, but I could at least serve coffee or _something_ right? So, I call up a buddy who lived out West - he explained "Don't bother". There were firefighters from the states affected who weren't called up, while they imported firefighters from all over, it was a big cluster-____ of epic proportion. Bueaurcrats are interested in form, not function. If a subset of any organization actually gets anything done, it is frowned upon because it makes everyone else look bad. So long as the right blocks get checked off, everything is hunky-dory, never mind anything else.
This just about says it all for politicians who get elected on name recognition alone. He is a boob who happened to have a radio program many years ago, and morphed that into a political career littered with dumbassed judgement.
that's nothing compared to what we waste on the asshats in the senate like burns
Burns is the most vulnerable of all the Republican Senate candidates this year -- he has no chance at all, as I see it. Even Santorum will run stronger than Burns.
There are no union public employees in Virginia.
I'll stick with Conrad, he is less apt to be politically correct and he probably did apologize only to stave off the naysaying backstabbers in his own party.
If Rick Santorum loses, it will be because was challenged by an opponent who was too popular for any Republican to defeat. But if Conrad Burns loses, it would because of his own personal gaffes and shortcomings.
Santorum has done his own fair share of shoot himself in the foot stuff.
True, but not on the scale done by Conrad Burns, who is throwing away a race that nearly any other Montana Republican would win.
As a firefighter, I have several reactions to this. First, I hate politicians. It goes beyond Democrat and Republican. Spending my entire career dealing with politicians has made me very cynical.
Second, I don't think that much about negative reactions after a fire. Most people can't tell if a good job was done. I've had a couple of fires where I was thinking, "I cannot believe we are doing this." and people came up patting my back and telling me what a great job I did. Other fires, great job, and people are upset because we took out part of a wall to check for extension. I try to explain to them that we have to search for hidden fire, but they're convinced we just wanted to tear up their house some more. Bottom line is, if someone who I respect as a firefighter tells me I screwed up, I feel bad. It takes a few years to learn how to read a fire. The average person can't do it. That means their opinion is worth about as much as Michael Jackson's opinion on fiscal policy.
Finally, picking a fight with guys that flew across the country to haul your state's butt out of a jam is incredibly stupid, especially for a politician in a fight for his political life. Usually, politicians are so busy kissing our rear ends during political campaigns we have to scrape them off our boots before we go into a fire. They don't start calling us lazy, good for nothings who don't do anything except sit around on our rear ends until they're working on the budget.
LOL. I am going to steal that one, for future use. :)
What's really awful is when some idiot like Terry Barton goes and starts a fire on purpose to get attention and get herself some overtime (what really sucks is that she was sentenced to 12 years and probably won't serve half of it). People start talking, "Those damn firefighters are out starting fires in the summer because they need the work and the overtime pay is good."
"Finally, picking a fight with guys that flew across the country to haul your state's butt out of a jam is incredibly stupid, especially for a politician in a fight for his political life."
Conrad Burns has done things like this for years. He should drop out of the race.
Burns is done. I hate to say it, but I just cannot see him winning this race. His approval ratings are too low and the state has been swinging too D.
Shoulda steped aside for Rheberg.
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