Tripp Jennings, out of AbqJournal's Capital Bureau, evidently had to travel to a local animal shelter to get that priceless quote from the Governor, and no the Governor was not getting his annual checkup at the pooch pound, ladies. Rather, according to the AP's Deborah Baker, the Governor was visiting the "state-of-the-art shelter" with "spotless tile and glass and radiant heating" and private rooms for animal guests (Deb, do they sublet?) to promote a legislation aimed at upgrading shelters across New Mexico...except that shelter, which doesn't seem to need any upgrades. Barker serves up a fat one for me right here, writing:
"Richardson--adding another item to an already-packed legislative agenda--said he'll ask lawmakers in January to make another run at a bill creating a regulatory board to oversee shelters."
Among its duties: coming up with standards for shelter buildings and operations, licensing and overseeing euthanasia providers, developing pet sterilization and outreach programs and funneling money from licensing fees to needy shelters. Richardson added that the board would "provide desperately needed oversight and assistance to city and county operated animal shelters."
...umm...I'm sorry, come again-- "provide desperately needed oversight and assistance to city and county operated animal shelters"......hmm.
GOV. RICHARDSON, GOV. RICHARDSON, COME IN PLEASE. THIS IS EARTH CALLING--CALLING GOV. RICHARDSON: STATE POLITICAL SYSTEM IS (F)UBAR (wikipedia). NUMBER OF DEMOCRATS ELECTED TO STATEWIDE OFFICE INDICTED ON CHARGES OF FRAUD AND MONEY LAUNDERING IN NEW MEXICO: 2. NUMBER OF DOGS, CATS, HORSES AND VETERINARIANS INDICTED: 0.
This is New Mexico, right? Since when did we start worrying about the welfare Animals, let alone those in shelters? For the love of God, we're the freaking Capital of Cockfighting. We need upgrades to schools, hospitals (for people) and roads. We need oversight of our elected officials. We need Democrats willing to exercise oversight over their fellow Democrats. Animal Shelters? Talk about barking up the wrong tree; the board would "provide desperately needed oversight of....ANIMAL SHELTERS"? ...No...come on, Governor. Is that a joke? Am I not getting it? You can tell me.
My super cynicism sense (a.k.a New Mexico political intuition) wants to ask:
1) Who's the big donor with the animal fetish?
2) It's the PETA chicks, right? This is to impress the naked PETA girls, right? Because that would be cool, I understand wanting to impress the ladies, or wanting to make them think you're the sensitive kind of guy who cares about the condition of fluffy and Spot's room at the animal shelter. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe, your crack squad of geniuses on the 4th floor thought this would be a good way to counter the image of you grabbing the Lt. Governor's ass that sat on the Drugde Report for 3 days. That was a little traumatizing, I'm not going to lie...Because if you were really outraged, if you really felt animal shelter conditions were a problem, you would've had your press conference at a dumpy animal shelter and not a brand new facility?
3) Is this animal shelter effort part of the whole "year of the child" initiative? The whole chinese proverb-calendar-year of the monkey thing doesn't really work when you change "year of the child" to "year of the child, west side abq high schools, the choo choo, spaceport and political reform." This isn't message discipline, this isn't vision, this is one nightmare of a legislative session.
Governor, here's something your staff should look into: jobs. Because this ship's not even going to leave port with this much dead weight on board.
Seriously, oversight of animal shelters? My god man, slap yourself-- slap someone---slap your chief of staff--Animal shelters!?
You can't expect people to take your presidential ambitions seriously and say Animal shelter oversight is "desperately needed" the same week at least 8 different articles document just how little oversight there is of GOVERNMENT IN NEW MEXICO.
You've brought more attention to New Mexico than any other elected leader in our state's history. Please let this be something we can be proud of and don't embarrass us...anymore.
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