Fresh off being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, the Chron's Lisa Falkenberg aims her keyboard at Governor Greg Abbott and his response to Jade Helm 15....
Abbott fans the flames of radical paranoia. Lisa Falkenberg, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
After reading Ms. Pulitzer's piece my thoughts are....."meh". While I'm not on board with Mr. Abbott's 'response' to the issue I do understand while some people (not all of them 'radicals') might take issue with special forces training occurring in Texas given the current administration's negative view toward the State*.
Does this mean that I think Obama is laying secret plans to take over the State after voiding the next election and naming himself President for Life? Nope. However, I don't think monitoring by the State military is going to amount to much either.
A better response would have been to remind everyone that this is Jade Helm 15. Which indicates that Jade Helm 1-14 were conducted without the Feds running over the civil liberties of those being "invaded". From that perspective, I think Abbott got some bad advice and may have overreacted just a bit.
It's disappointing, but it's hardly the end of the world or a sign that the Governor is somehow stirring up the radicals and turning Texas into a dry powder-keg of revolution just looking for a spark. If anything, the TLSPM 'response' to the so-called radical actions by Abbott are just as radical in that they drip with a sense of partisan rage. What Falkenberg, and other members of the TLSPM are doing is something that you would expect to come almost exclusively from the pub-shop of the Texas Democratic Party.
Given that the TDP currently is in a state of disarray, maybe they should count their lucky stars that, on this issue, the TLSPM is basically doing their job pro bono? In Falkenberg's case, she's ALWAYS been prone to overstate and feign incredulousness when trying to make her point. Her sense of outrage is always paired with a disbelief that anyone might, possibly, take a look at the world in a manner different then she does. It's beyond her abilities to grasp that people make decisions on issues taking into account a wide variety of inputs not limited to being a 'sixth-generation Texan' or having 'red hair'.
Texas could have had, deserved actually, a reasoned reaction to these events that didn't involve trying to work everyone into a lather. Sadly, it doesn't feel like there's anyone currently in the TLSPM that's really up to the job.
Just another reason that newspapers would do better refraining, for the most part, from political commentary and focus instead on reporting the facts in a full and transparent manner. Better reporting on Jade Helm 15, and the Governor's response to it, would have been far more productive than sitting down in front of a keyboard and spleen-venting.
Of course, it's the spleen-venting that the bosses feel attract page-views so unfortunately you can expect to see even more of this going forward. In the end it's Texas, not the Governor, who lose out.
*On that note, whenever you see someone in the comments section say that they "used to vote Republican" but are now sick of the party you can pretty much bet that they never voted Republican and have always been sick of the party. Real Republicans, while they might disagree with some of the Tea Party groups, are not bolting the party en masse due to some sense of shame. That's a lie that's being propped up by the Democratic Party in an attempt to over-emphasize the far-right element of Republicans while trying to deny that they themselves moved far-left a long time ago.
