Courts, Coups and Clinton Too: Priceless

No. 6: It prevents our elected leaders from working to solve the state budget crisis and other important issues by forcing them to campaign to defend the results of a fair election.

Is this a joke someone heard in Pyongyang? If someone had more effectively kept “our leaders” from working over the last few years, the entire state might be in better shape! “Our leaders” have helped create and further aggravate this economic catastrophe. The “budget crisis” was already resolved by them in a transparently fraudulent way, mostly by carrying over the red ink until next year.

No. 7: The cost to the economy is too great: A successful recall would cause enormous economic instability and loss of confidence.

Under the stewardship of “our leaders,” California has already sagged to junk-bond ratings. If Davis supporters are correct in arguing that the state’s economic crisis is due to external factors and not to state management, then why would a change in state management “cause enormous economic instability”?

No. 8: This won’t stop in California: 18 states have recall provisions. Unless the California recall is decisively rejected, sore losers in other states will continue to use this tactic.

What a terrifying thought! Imagine millions of unwashed, dimwit citizens across America recalling all those cleanly elected, selfless politicians. This should only be the case. MoveOn reveals its real interest to be defending incumbent Democrats rather than enriching small-ddemocracy. We have a broken, corrupt, money-dominated political system that rather appropriately evokes mostly citizen apathy and cynicism. If voters in 18 states actually got motivated and enraged enough to build successful recall elections, we would be witnessing a much-needed civic revolution.

No. 9: The recall threatens California’s environment. Governor Davis has made important improvements to environmental law. Polluters see the recall as a chance for rollback.

Gray Davis has a mixed environmental record. He hesitated for months before supporting the global-warming bill. The timber companies see him as a reliable ally and lavish donations on him. Any attempted Republican “rollback” would meet head-on with the liberal Democratic majorities in the state Legislature. Schwarzenegger, incidentally, also supports the global-warming legislation.

No. 10: Gray Davis has made important gains in education, health care, the environment and public safety. The recall is an attempt to reverse those advances.

Repeating: Any attempted Republican “rollback” would meet head-on with the liberal Democratic majorities in the state Legislature. On education, Davis has imposed the straitjacket of increased standardized testing, which raises scores but lowers real performance and degrades teaching. Davis has spent $18 million fighting the class-action lawsuit alleging that he abandoned and neglected poorer schools. Why not settle the suit, instead of paying elite law firms (and campaign contributors) $500 an hour to intimidate 12-year-old witnesses, badgering them to confess that their education is not interrupted by rats in the classroom?

No state election in recent memory has elicited such high levels of voter interest and involvement. There’s nothing to celebrate in the court-ordered postponement.