Andre, in his own words

I thought I’d share the GovLite’s official statement.

In case you can’t be bothered to call it up, here are some lowlights:

In my role as Lieutenant Governor, I am called upon to participate in many events across the state, and I am honored to do so. Unfortunately, this often leads me to over-extend myself, and in my eagerness I have made honest mistakes.

How incredibly absurd. The office of lieutenant governor is superfluous. Its only essential function is to stand by in case something happens to the governor, an eventuality that in this case would truly be tragic for South Carolina. Presiding over the Senate? That could be handled far better by a presiding officer elected from among the Senate’s own ranks; things would run more smoothly because senators would have more respect for one of their own (a fact that is true with every lieutenant governor I have seen). The Office of Aging? There is NO rational reason for that to have been placed under the GovLite; the GOP majority did it solely to give him the fig leaf of appearing to have responsibilities. All lawmakers did was lift the existing department OUT of the agency where it logically belonged and plop it into the lieutenant governor’s office. The folks in that department keep doing the job they would do in any case, and the GovLite gets the credit for "helping" the most reliable voting constituency there is.

What does the lieutenant governor — this one, the one before and the one before that — really DO? He runs for governor, and collects a $46,545 salary for doing so. As far as the people of South Carolina are concerned, Andre Bauer could cancel his entire hectic schedule, and we’d all be better off.

One more quick excerpt:

However, I don’t expect to be treated any differently than other citizens of South Carolina.

Here, I’ll just quote Ferris Bueller’s sister: "Dry that one out and you can fertilize the lawn."

 

12 thoughts on “Andre, in his own words

  1. Capital A

    Anyone ever forsee that someday we’d be longing for those halcyon days of Nicholas Theodore?

  2. Doug

    If Andre is reelected, does it say more about him or about the voters of SC?
    Is Strom still running?

  3. Brad Warthen

    The voters. Not very PC of me, is it?
    This young man should never have been elected to the House, or the Senate, and certainly not to statewide office — even a meaningless statewide office such as GovLite.
    He has an appeal to SC voters that is inexplicable. It is a perverse thing, immune to facts and reason.
    We’ve received a lot of letters criticizing Andre Bauer; a bunch will run in tomorrow’s paper.
    Then, I will brace myself for what has come after every previous such demonstration of callow unfitness that he has offered: A loyal cadre of supporters fiercely defend him, and say all the bad press is just about a Bad Press that’s out to get a good man.
    Watch. I’m certainly watching. The part of me that stubbornly believes in reason and democracy expects that this time, even those folks will have run out of patience with him. But there’s another part that’s braced for their passionate defense of the indefensible.

  4. BLSaiken

    Sometimes, you just don’t know whether to laugh or cry at SC politics. Hot-Rod Andre was unqualified 4 years ago. But to top it all, we’re apparently intent on keeping our privileged spot in the presidential primaries. The latest threatened intruder is Michigan. State politicos can bloviate all they want, but if the national parties decide that Michigan gets first shot, that’s what will happen. Michigan is a state in play in the next presidential election. South Carolina is not.

  5. David

    Andre was elected because people are impressed with someone that looks sharp and shakes their hand.
    Face it, most people in South Carolina don’t keep up with politics enough to know if someone is blowing air up their skirt or not.
    If a pretty face comes up to them, shakes their hand, pretends to listen to them, they will be impressed and might vote for someone just because of that.
    Andre knows that and that is why he held his famous “walking campaign.”
    COme to think of it, I wonder if he held those walking around his district things because his license had been suspended. Something to ponder I guess.

  6. doug

    >He has an appeal to SC voters that is >inexplicable. It is a perverse thing, immune >to facts and reason.
    That’s why I asked if Strom was still running.
    Voters in SC (actually no worse than anywhere else. See: Byrd, Kennedy, Stevens, et al) are typically either apathetic or ignorant. There are more lemmings than owls.
    It’s too bad The State is very selective
    in who it targets. But, then, based on my experience running for school board a few years ago, you could fill ten pages a day just with the personal failings of many of our local politicians. Guess you have to
    go for the big fishies.

  7. Doug

    Yeah, Lee Bandy is an equal opportunity
    analyst.
    I’m going to research the archives to find all the good stuff he’s written about Sanford.
    I know, I know… The State is the only fair and balanced paper in the U.S., totally lacking in any agenda or political philosophy.

  8. Capital A

    Does any of this change the fact that we have a highly appointed public official who is a menace on our roadways? Would you be a little more concerned if this was your local teenager, thumping with hormones and rolling with hot licks?
    Less obfuscation and more concentration, please.

  9. david

    Please take a look at the article regarding ex-governor Riley’s son. It much more interesting with the beer and drugs. But they belog to someone else.Oh, he said he was just speeding. like a couple of years ago when he was pardoning by Clinton. And that’s another SnowWhite to mention. Get off Andre’s case. At least he admitted he has a lead foot. It’s a disability and that can’t be discriminating against.

  10. Capital A

    Ah, david, you skipped my request for concentration. Or maybe you just pay your editors with the beer and drugs you mentioned in the second sentence.
    Care to keep your eye on the ball and swing again?

  11. Brad Warthen

    Dave: “Fair” and “balanced” are not the same thing. In fact, being artificially “balanced” is one of the most unfair things you can do to your readers.
    “Balance,” unfortunately, tends to mean you quote one guy who says the sky is black, and another who says the sky is white, and you never bother telling the reader it’s actually blue.

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