Those Crazy Alaskans

The Alaska legislature has rejected the nomination of Wayne Anthony Ross, Governor Palin's pick for attorney general. Apparently, according to this article in The Anchorage Daily News, this is the first time the legislature has rejected a choice for a leader of a state agency. Given the nature of quotes from Ross that have been circulating on the internet over the last few days, I'm pleased to see him rejected. One quote attributed to him (which he claims is not accurate) is “If a guy can’t rape his wife, who’s he gonna rape?” Whether the quote is accurate or not (and I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, without further evidence), this ding-a-ling has left a looong paper trail of written screeds he'd have a harder time denying. According to the same article, "his nomination was thrown into grave peril when his opponents presented evidence that he called homosexuals “degenerates,” leveled invective against an African-American student offended by a statue of a Klansman, vowed to undermine the sovereignty of Native American tribes, and allegedly defended men who rape their wives."

Now the fact is, we as a culture have become jaded and apathetic regarding extremist righty rhetoric; just a few years ago, MoveOn.org faced a major PR crisis when one of hundreds of video submissions for an advertising campaign made allusions to the fascist tendencies of the Bush Administration. The right was convulsing, and even the left was awfully sheepish about the event- though I felt at the time, and still do, that the clip in question was thought-provoking, timely, and contained a firm nucleus of truth. Now, the manic media madman Glenn Beck gets paid millions to spend hours each week describing fatuous parallels between "socialist" "fascist" "communist" "happy face" Obama policies and those of Hitler, in between bouts of tears and loving his country. And the right nods sagely to itself as it contemplates the rapture and teabags. And the left rolls its eyes and grits its teeth and tries to stay polite.

The point is, I'm not really surprised or shocked or outraged to hear attributions of such comments to Wayne Anthony Ross, or W.A.R., as his vanity plates proudly proclaim.

But when a nominee for attorney general is quoted as saying, "it seems to me the most important thing that can be done by the Senate is not argue with legal or illegal but to appoint somebody to represent Juneau," by the reporter to whom he made the comment, I have to say I'm really, really glad to hear he was rejected. Isn't it nice that a person whose proposed job is to enforce the law didn't get that job after saying that he wasn't really worried about whether things were legal or illegal? Baby steps, people, baby steps.