COMMENTARY Game & Fish Poaches The Law

— Your state Game & Fish Commission appears to have lost its mind.

Three members of this commission ordered a draft of their own version of the state Freedom of Information Act.

The draft would allow the commission to close its records, meet in secret and spend the public’s money in the dark.

The commissioners exploring this say Game & Fish is constitutionally independent and, therefore, not liable to obeying the law on open records, open meetings and open accountability for taxpayer money.

“Constitutionally independent” doesn’t mean “above the law.” The commission can’t write its own Freedom of Information Act any more than it can rewrite state statutes so commission members can legally burglarize your house.

Don’t take my word for it. The governor and former attorney general Mike Beebe came down hard on the commission on this, and so did current attorney general Dustin McDaniel.

Of course, all this raises the question of why the commission wants to burglarize your house, so to speak. Then there’s the question of whether it’s right or smart to burglarize somebody’s house even if you could get away with it.

This “special” “Freedom of Information Act” attempts a slap in the face of the citizens who support this commission with their taxes. It’s the new Exhibit A in former commissioner Sheffield Nelson’s allegations that this agency has gone wildly out of control.

Brenda Blagg’s column today presents the meat of this issuebetter than I can. There’s no need for me to go on.

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Speaking of weird stuff, you could have knocked me over with a feather when John Boozman’s lead in the U.S.

Senate race grew four percentage points from September to October in the latest Stephens Media poll.

Highly partisan races “always” tighten near the end.

Not this year.

Argue against polls all you want. If they’re so biased and inaccurate, why do people keep commissioning them - and why does the money follow them?

Boozman - a man who has to be pushed to stick his hand out and take a check - raised more money than incumbent Sen.

Blanche Lincoln in the last three months. More accurately, Lincoln - the chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and a member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee - didn’t raise as much money as the would-be freshman minority member who would replace her.

Triage has begun. Partisans on both sides have started putting their money where they think it will do some good. The Senate race in Arkansas isn’t a place they’re looking at all that hard any more.

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Someday, perhaps on my 60th birthday, I’ll look up the front page on each day I’ve lived.

Why?

To count the number of front pages with a picture of people rioting in France.

We invaded Iraq with less civil strife than the French show for pension plans.

They’re rioting and striking because their government wants to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. And its the students who are rioting. Students, the people who will - presumably - grow up, leave school and foot this bill for these pensions.

If students over here cared enough to riot on this issue, it would be because our government wasn’t raising the retirement age to 70 - and requiring us to carry them on our family plan insurance as long as we’re alive. “Make the Geezers pay!” would be their rallying cry.

“A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things,” wrote Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish historian and intellectual who wrote the still widely read 1837 book, “The French Revolution: A History.” He happened to be an eyewitness to that revolution.

That’s a writer who understood passion, something the French definitely seem to have.

But this? Passion for setting the retirement age?

With all the problems and great issues facing France and the rest of the civilized world, this is the thing people there get up in arms about?

How incredibly sad.

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DOUG THOMPSON IS THE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 10/24/2010

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