Drunk Legislating

It is an astonishing act to shoot oneself in the foot. It is another thing entirely to shoot oneself in the foot while standing in a rowboat. That has been the net effect thus far of Arizona's infamous Senate Bill 1o7o, which was signed into law by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, and has been the talk of the nation ever since.

It has been commonly referred to as the "Papers, Please" law, drawing overblown comparisons to Nazi Germany. Some have likened it to apartheid. Others label it ethnic cleansing. Whatever the analogy, this is not the stuff that travel agents' dreams are made of.

Indeed, the hole blown in our economy has been considerable. Hotels and convention centers are bracing for the worst. Los Angeles and San Francisco have both slapped boycotts on the state, costing Arizona tens of millions of dollars.

Even the GOP has decided to hold the Republican National Convention elsewhere; the event is believed to have the same regional impact as the Super Bowl. They must be worried about the Hispanic vote, and they should be: Statewide, 67 percent of Hispanics oppose the law.

Here in the 'Zona, the people and the press are suffering from denial. They consider criticism, boycotts and relocations to be meddlesome. They wish the money good riddance. Perhaps we could annex Blythe from California and change the spelling - not that many of us would notice.

So who comes riding in to save the day for Governor Brewer? Who else but Sarah Palin and her goodies-grubbing entourage. What advice could she possibly have given to our beleaguered Governor? Quit?

Whatever else she said, Palin expressed the need for Americans to say, "We are all Arizonans now." She also called the Grand Canyon State "ground zero" on the illegal immigration issue. Might as well be... We're already ranked at zero in that danged education category. We're dead last in annual personal-income growth.

Moreover, it would indeed be a shock for all Americans to suddenly be turned into Arizonans. First of all, we'd all have to carry concealed weapons. We'd have to ride motorcycles without helmets. We'd have to be able to tolerate (and function in) 120 degree heat.

We would all have to be able to "hold it" for long distances, as our rest areas on the highways have been closed. We'd all have to be content to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the real estate market. And we'd all have to vote for Sarah Palin with the expectation that she might actually be able to win.

On top of all that, we'd also have to excommunicate ourselves from California. Not only are we on bad relations (which can only get worse with the Suns-Lakers series on the horizon), it is also understood that the California Highway Patrol will be pulling over all vehicles bearing Arizona license plates in order to conduct mandatory sobriety tests.

It's not profiling. It's called "reasonable suspicion".

pH 5.16.1o