Davis' dereliction
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
California Governor Jacques Clouseau – also known by his stage name Gray Davis – added to an already impressive legacy of incompetence last week when he declared that a credible threat against one or more of four specific bridges in the Golden State had been received from three different agencies. A rush-hour attack had been predicted for sometime between Nov. 2 and Nov. 9. But, the ungovernor added, he wouldn't presume to tell drivers whether or not to use the bridges.
It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry with this guy. The president graciously declined to second guess Davis, but everyone else not on the state payroll did. The New York Times wrote that "the Federal Bureau of Investigation has expressed surprise and annoyance that Mr. Davis had passed on an 'uncorroborated' threat, one that the agency had never intended to become public." None of the other Western governors had gone public with the alert, and despite the specificity of the Davis warning, no particular bridges had been named. In short, he lied. Worse, Davis either panicked or he decided to exploit the situation to bolster his rapidly deteriorating political position. As the Democratic president of the California state Senate put it, why would you issue such a warning and still allow the bridges to stay open? "We have word that terrorists are going to blow up the bridge," said Burton, "but people should keep crossing it?"
"There is no playbook," Davis asserted in his own defense. Actually, there is a playbook. There is just no quarterback.
The Los Angeles Times reliably leapt to the governor's defense with a sub-headline stating that "President, public appear to be on his side." This howler constructs the president's restraint as an endorsement, and reports as hard news that "[O]n Friday, calls to the governor's office ran 10-to-1 in favor of the decision to make the warnings public, said Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio." My radio program airs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego. The torrent of abuse from callers was nearly uniform. Maviglio must have failed to report that the governor's wife had called frequently that day.
This is a governor who single-handedly turned a small energy issue into a crisis complete with rolling blackouts, and who was rejected repeatedly by his own party on every attempt to cover his incompetence. Davis has recently pulled off a staggering feat, having taken a $10 billion state surplus and with very little effort turned it into a $10 billion deficit. In an attempt to rally confidence in the state, he held a "summit" the day after the bridges fiasco, and he featured John Bryson, the CEO of Southern California Edison and quite likely the least-respected business figure in the state. Davis asking Bryson for advice on the California economy is like Yosemite Sam asking Elmer Fudd for tips on rabbit hunting. Davis sat next to Michael Eisner, who must have thought that his Park had a better grip on reality than Davis.
Do you suppose all those Texans that Davis slandered last spring are in a hurry to help out the Golden State? And how about those tourists? Think they are in a rush to gaze out on the Golden Gate Bridge anytime soon?
It has taken a steady series of almost unbelievable missteps to convince this left-of-center state that the guy in charge is an empty suit, but Thursday's press conference appears to have clinched the image. Davis rose in state politics by being bland and relishing anonymity. But we had all assumed this was a plan on his part, not the product of a total absence of ideas and imagination. "Non-entity" overestimates Davis – and even reliable Dems like Burton have woken up to the fact that a state in the middle of many crises needs leadership.
The good news is that there's an election in less than a year. How much more damage can the fellow do?
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