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So can anything be done about this? I think so. The problem, in my humble opinion, is Washington State’s main campus, Pullman. Have you ever been there? Regardless of your answer, you know what I mean. It ain’t Seattle. And one cannot live by Cougar Gold alone.
Now if Washington State’s main campus was moved to (dramatic pause required here) Vancouver — where it already has a thriving campus — well, problem solved. In addition to everything Vancouver has to offer, it’s only minutes away from Portland. And all of that would be an amazing drawing card. Not only would football recruiting improve but academia would soar.
And where do we go from here? I know this wouldn’t be easy, but if those in charge want to see upward movement, say, 50 years from now, the transition discussion would have to begin now. And where we go from here — as noted earlier — is Vancouver.
By the way, the Cougars are playing an equally inept Stanford today. We should come out on top by 11 points.
Political blame
The other idea I had for a column today had to do with — you guessed it — politics. If you didn’t think politics couldn’t get any wackier after the former Chief Chooch Donald Trump was elected president, you haven’t been paying attention. Even though he lost two years ago, like most canker sores, Trump always finds his way back. And he just keeps telling lies.
As Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels supposedly said, if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth.
Now look, most all politicians lie. That’s simply a given. But voters need to be able to distinguish between a small lie and a big lie. In other words there’s an element of stain attached to politicians’ DNA, but there’s a difference between being dusted with it and covered in it.
Trump is covered in it and by extension so are most of his devotees. I’ve often wondered why political hopefuls haven’t kicked Trump to the curb but the answer is really pretty simple: his campaign tactics work.
Joe Kent, a chooch worshipper who is running for the 3rd Congressional District, knows this. Kent is no dummy. But he knows Goebbels’ tactic — as adopted by Trump — works.
But here’s the thing, I’m drifting away from blaming the Kents of the world. Why? Well, politicians will be politicians. I rarely expect high standards from them.
So what’s the answer? And where do we go from here?
Voters still are our only hope. The longer-term solution is for us to appreciate we’ve done a pretty miserable job of electing good people. Me included. We simply often get it wrong and worse, after we get it wrong, we keep making the mistake over and over again.
So to protect ourselves from ourselves we need to get serious about term limits. And please stop with the “We have term limits already and it’s called elections,” garbage. Yes, term limits will result in us throwing some good people out of office. But clearly it’s been proven we’re better off throwing good people out then retaining bad people.
The shorter-term solution is simply to reject the big liars. Think of it this way, whomever you vote for make sure you’d want to have them over for dinner table talking with you and your relatives.
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OK, I’m exhausted. What channel is that football game on? Go Cougs!
