Meh

Fellow SLOB Shane Atwell shared this article from The City Journal:

The Conventional Jerry Brown

California’s governor is a politician, first, foremost, and always

It's a quick breakdown of Brown's second go-around as the governor of California and is somewhat praiseworthy though resigned to the fact that, you know, it just is what it is.

Hey, it's tough enough being a pragmatic, centrist here in the land of fruits and nuts... so can a brother get some slack?

While Brown has protected the children of our great state from the dangers of ski helmets and has made some inroads on the labor front, his larger efforts thus far, just aren't enough to reverse the decline course of the Golden State.


Our heavily-edited, embellished and romanticized email to Shane and the rest of our SLOB journolist cabal as follows:

While we're appreciative that he has rejected the Bloomberg model of nanny-statism, what he has shot down are pretty small bore legislative initiatives where he can sop to conservo-libertarians that he really isn't a petty authoritarian. Thanks for that.

He loses points big time on the large bore issues, though. He ran one of the most convincing political ad spots we had ever seen; the one where he looks right into the camera and says in that somwhat world-weary, gravel-y yet still optimistic voice: (paraphrasing): "Look, I've been at this for too long and I'm too old to give a damn". Dude. Pitch perfect.

Of course, he hasn't nor will he confront the public employee unions and he has been purposefully misleading as to how it is that California is going to make up that $12, 14 billion (or whatever it is) budget gap. Did we say misleading? Poor choice of terminology because I don't believe Brown stated where that money was going to come from so there was nothing from which to mislead.

The article is right: As a Democrat (and being older than dirt) he has a great opportunity to "go to China" but his own high speed rail appears to be going only to Merced.

Ah, well... eff-it. It's not like we are being disappointed by the absolute collapse and moral failing of a formerly reform-minded Republican governor.

By the way, The City Journal is a great publication. Love their stuff.