Hawkeye Gets it. Russell, Not So Much

Everybody who has ever seen an episode of M*A*S*H knows about “Triage”. It simply means to prioritize – to treat the patient with internal bleeding before you treat the one with a broken pinky. Of COURSE that’s how you do it.

But in Arizona government, not so much.

You have a Sheriff who lets 40,000 unserved felony warrants collect dust, while he allocates scares public safety resources to raiding amusement parks. Making the community safe should come before making the six o’clock news.

Sheriff, TIVO an episode of M*A*S*H.

Then we have a City Councilman who thinks a dollar spent on keeping a “community room” open is the same as a dollar spent on keeping a fire fighter on the street.

Councilman DiCiccio, meet Corporal Klinger.

And we have a legislature, in a state facing Herculean budget problems, following the peculiarities of Russell “Yes that IS a gun in my pants” Pearce. We require our residents to take a test before we give them a drivers’ license because a car can be dangerous. But Mr. Pearce wants everyone to carry concealed weapons without regard to their ability to shoot straight. Yikes. He thinks that will make us safer. Perhaps we should just issue a gun to every child as they enter first grade. Heck, that should eliminate crime altogether. But it will also increase the need for more triage areas at the local ER. In the meantime, at least do away with testing drivers and requiring licenses – you know, to ensure consistently bad policy and eliminate the obvious hypocrisy.

Geez kids…do we not have more pressing problems that Mr. Pearce could and should be pondering? Or does he just lack the ability to prioritize -- and lack the innovation to solve the huge problems facing our State? Is anyone less relevant in addressing our 21st Century challenges?

You don’t have to be Radar to know those answers.

(Special Programming Note: M*A*S*H can be seen at 10 and 10:30 pm on AZTV)