Gone Fishin’

By
Glenn W. Smith
– April 27, 2010Posted in: Culture, Politics

Gone Fishing Image 2.preview 300x195 Gone FishinWhen ESPN did the empty-net story that Barack Obama planned to ban fishing, America reached a new level of ignorant media bloviating (pardon the redundancy).

Not even Matthew Continetti, author of the ridiculous book, The Persecution of Sarah Palin, can match the fish story pound for pound on the preposterous scale. Palin, like Wanda in A Fish Called Wanda, has double and triple-crossed her way to all the diamonds. As Dwight Eisenhower’s granddaughter Susan said to Continetti Friday on Bill Maher’s Realtime, Palin’s “persecuted all the way to the bank.”

Anyway, here’s how ESPN’s outdoor writer Robert Montgomery put the newest Obama’s-gonna-get-you-if-you-don’t-watch-out conspiracy theory:

The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

Sure ‘nough, a google search of “obama fishing ban” is already producing a quarter of a million hits. America should replace “e pluribus unum” with “hook, line and sinker.”

If I have it straight from the teacups, Obama’s going to take away our guns and our fishing poles, appoint death panels, turn America into an African Socialist Paradise, condemn all white people to second-class citizenry in a reverse apartheid, destroy Christianity in a secular humanist fit and, probably, cut in line at the movies.

Meanwhile, our ever-vigilant media keep legitimizing the nuttiness. By today’s media standards, Charles Manson was a respectable spiritual leader with a few bad-apple followers. Hey, they report, we deride.

Arizona has banned brown people. Minnesota wants to pass a constitutional amendment saying their state is exempt from federal laws unless ratified by three-quarters of the state Legislature. Oklahoma wants a militia to go to war with the feds. Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s on the cover of Newsweek. Perry, in the grand tradition of George Wallace and Lester Maddox, has been carrying the segregationist banner, talking up secession and states’ rights.

Why, I want to ask, should we stop with state secession? I mean, if I said I wanted to secede personally, I’d be branded a traitor, added to no-fly lists, and written about in short stories like “The Man Without a Country” that would become mandatory curricula in all public schools. What if my town wants to secede from state control? Not a bad idea for Austin, by the way. I know, I know, the tenth amendment and all, but I’m talking logic here, not law. Can a book club secede? A Moose Lodge?

It’s all fish tales all the time, and everyone knows it. But it’s not about the one that got away, it’s about a yesterday that never was. And all these frightened folk – most of them well off economically – are worried the government will take their fishing poles?

There was this game warden on the Trinity River in East Texas. Call him Wes. Wes noticed this guy coming back to the docks at Riverside everyday with a boatload of fish. Suspiciously, he didn’t have a rod or reel. Wes figured he was dynamiting fish, an illegal practice that involves lighting a stick, dropping it the water, then netting all the stunned fish that floated to the surface.

So Wes put on some overalls and an old hat early one morning and asked the angler if he could go with him. They got out on the river, morning mist still rising off the water, and the guy pulled a stick of dynamite from under his seat and lit it. “You’re under arrest,” said Wes. Without blinking, the guy handed the lit stick to Wes. “You gonna talk or fish?” he asked.

That’s what I want to say to the media. Are you going to talk or fish? The nation’s about to explode before your eyes and you keep reporting on Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account. Before you quit, though, let me know if ‘yahoo’ refers to her email or her cerebral cortex.

You know where to find me. Gone fishin’.

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About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”