Here is the note Rep. Les Gara would love to dash off to Exxon Mobil, if he had the guts: "Dear Exxon, You lie. A lot. I hate you. Your pal, Alaska Rep. Les Gara." He'd have it delivered stuffed in the craw of an oily, dead fish.
Gara makes no bones about his visceral loathing of the oil giant. He bleats about it at every turn -- usually, sad to say, without checking the facts. His attacks must, however, suffice as good politics in quarters where thinking comes extraordinarily dear.
One can only imagine what this guy sees in his mind's eye when he starts fulminating about Exxon Mobil or the other North Slope producers -- the same folks who pay for 90 percent of the state government Gara would love to expand.
There he is -- cue the music -- braced against a northern gale, squinting against sheets of rain, resolute, lightning bolts exploding around him. Amid the fury, Gara is rocklike before a Goliath oil company -- Exxon Mobil, I think -- bent on destroying everything good, holy and decent about Alaska.
I wonder why he bothers. After all, as Don Quixote put it, "Facts are the enemy of truth." Every time Gara charges out with his mindless "truth" to joust with Exxon or anybody else, he gets slapped around by the facts, embarrassing himself and the rest of us. Every time. On taxes, on Point Thomson, on the natural gas pipeline, on the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act and its $500 million kiss to TransCanada. He opens his yap; he's wrong. He has accused the oil industry of stealing from Alaskans, of wanting to kill competition, of being bad for Alaska. Wrong, wrong and wrong.
Gara shares his latest pipe dream in his newsletter. This time, he saves us from Exxon Mobil and others after, in his words, the "U.S. Supreme Court's most radical five justices issued a ruling that threatened to ruin our political system." Good grief. "Radical" nowadays must mean "has read the Constitution."
The justices thankfully sided with free speech and ruled corporate, union and issue group campaign contributions to independent ads are to be allowed. Liberals, it turns out, are chagrined by the notion of free speech for everybody -- just look at their effort to equate criticism of President Barack Hussein Obama with sedition.
"We'll have to wait for a better Supreme Court to reverse this ruling," Gara laments in the newsletter.
Meanwhile, Gara reports he and other lawmakers saved us from corporate nasties by settling on a way to tell us who is paying for what in the electoral process. Who can possibly quarrel with that? It is a good thing, a very good thing. But Gara just cannot help himself.
"Exxon can still put millions into trying to deceive you, but you have a right to know about it," he wrote -- without offering a shred of evidence about company deceit. "We decided that an ad should not just have the name of the fake group the corporations and wealthy donors put together to promote the ad. ..."
Sadly, Gara is not alone in his irrational hatred of Exxon Mobil, and the energy industry, and anybody successful, and Republicans and business in general. Gara and company are anvils sinking Alaska as it faces a worrisome future. Oil production is dropping, reducing throughput in the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Investments are down. Jobs are drying up. Our economy is teetering on the brink. A gas line, if there ever is to be one, is at least a decade away. What do Gara and his pals -- responsible for at least some of the problems -- have to offer? "We hate Exxon." Gee, thanks.
You have to wonder whether Gara and company believe their own claptrap, or are they trading in negative, backbiting politics the left finds so irresistibly appealing? How about offering positive, constructive ideas? How about something other than the "I hate Exxon" mantra? Alaska likely has six years before the bottom drops out and we need Gara et al. to show us their best stuff.
Show us something, anyway.
Paul Jenkins is editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.
PAUL JENKINS
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