Say Anything Blog

Fairy Tales are still being written. I ran across one today that deserves proper attention, especially for North Dakota readers, as it is so well crafted by one of our own--none other than Senator Kent Conrad. It’s a masterpiece which should be read in its entirety--from the “Once upon a time” to the very end where all “live happily ever after”. You will find it in the Monday Fargo Forum (Feb. 25, 2008) Opinion and Letters Page under the fanciful title, “President leaves nation in deep debt”. Senator Conrad’s says, “That is why I have been warning about the threat of debt for years. In fact, addressing this issue has been one of the central tenets of my Senate career”.

It appears that Conrad has been addressing this issue in a very ineffectual way since he has been in the Senate for nearly 22 years. The President causes the debt? Where has he been? It is the Senate and the House that controls the U.S. National budget and not the President. This is classic fairy tale stuff where mythical and magical powers are put upon some other person, in that way our hero cannot be blamed for his failure to do his duty. Our hero in this case is Mr. Budget Hawk also known to ND’ers as “Bring home the Bacon Conrad”-- Bacon as in Pork or Earmarks.

Interesting isn’t it how Sen. Conrad will pinch the budget on TV and in his monthly fairy tales to the forum, while the front pages of the ND newspapers will picture and extol his latest multi-million dollar gift to our state. Every one of those earmarks adds to our national debt. Of course, everybody does it. The solution according to Conrad is, “We need a president who won’t be afraid to make the tough choices that lay ahead”. Therefore, Conrad puts his faith in the fairy tale hero Barack Obama to spread the magic potion that brings our land to that heartwarming finale, “And they lived happily ever after”.