Glenn Beck Is Right

Or: The People of San Diego County Must Hate America -- They Still Support George Bush

By now most everybody has heard the quote from right-wing radio and TV host Glenn Beck: "I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today." Let's leave aside, for a moment, that only an asinine knucklehead would say something so hurtful and spiteful.

Instead, let's focus on Mr. Beck's ignorance of California's political road map. A vast majority of the homes lost in Southern California this week were in North San Diego County, a reliable bastion of Republicanism in this otherwise solidly blue state. Mr. Beck is, in effect, calling out his own people.

I would contend Beck has committed the grand-daddy of Freudian slips: It is Republicans who must hate America, because they continue to blindly support a president bent on destroying both the very civil liberties we have held sacred for over 200 years and the idea we should have a burgeoning middle class in America.

Moreover, it is the "we hate taxes" mindset of those Republicans that may have turned what should have been a mere disaster into an utter catastrophe. In their desire to keep taxes low, the good people of San Diego have succeeded in choking their government to the point it can't protect them. As Steve Lopez points out in his column today in the Los Angeles Times, the city of San Diego has just 975 firefighters for 330 square miles and 1.3 million residents. Contrast that with "liberal" San Francisco, which boasts 1,600 firefighters for 60 square miles and 850,000 residents.

Most firefighting analysts say these fires could have been mitigated had there simply been more manpower on hand at the outset. The people of San Diego may have done this to themselves. And the worst thing is that it will be folks like Glenn Beck who will shout loudest that, in this catastrophe, "the government has failed us," when in actuality it is the people who have failed their government.

Still, it is a testament to the good people of California that this is no Katrina. At the height of the wildfires over one million people had been evacuated from their homes. The evacuation was, in large part, orderly and calm, and the evacuees have been well taken care of. I'm no big fan of the Governator, but his leadership during this trying time has been exemplary. And my thoughts are with the good people who have lost their homes and businesses.