Blame my wife
by Pete Talbot
I’m convinced that the only reason I haven’t been appointed to a cabinet post is my wife’s unseemly past.
Take the case of Tracy Stone-Manning. She’s been nominated by Gov. Bullock to head Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality. Her husband, Dick Manning, wrote a book nearly a decade ago that apparently criticized certain modern agricultural practices.
Forget her qualifications for the job, her husband wrote something that offended some legislators (although I doubt they actually read the book).
I love this new litmus test being a part of the Bullock administration: let’s hold folks accountable for their spouses’ actions. Debbie Barrett (R-Dillon) certainly thinks it’s a good idea.
Maybe the husband/wife has a little problem with booze or pills: boot the nominee. Or maybe said spouse opened their kisser at the wrong time or penned a nasty letter to the editor. That’s certainly grounds for not getting appointed. I think we should do background checks on the spouses of everyone who holds public office.
For a Republican Senator, a resume isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Again, take Pat Williams’ nomination to the board of regents as a case in point. No, it’s all political now. Or in some cases, the politics of a spouse.
It can’t get much more petty than that.
(By the way, my wife has a pretty impeccable background. I, on the other hand … )
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4&20 blackbirds 
April 11, 2013 at 11:18 pm
Always enjoy seeing you write!
April 12, 2013 at 5:23 pm
Pete, let me enlighten you – she will not be confirmed because she is a wacko environmentalist.
April 12, 2013 at 10:28 pm
I was wondering Pete if your wife’s last name was hyphenated?
April 14, 2013 at 7:56 pm
No, it isn’t Swede. At one point, it was Good Sacrifice, from the Blackfeet side of her family. I should have taken that name when we were married. Pete Good Sacrifice has a nice ring to it.
April 15, 2013 at 5:39 am
Hyphenated last names tend to say a lot about a person.
Here’s Melissa Harris-Perry.
“This isn’t about me wanting to take your kids, and this isn’t even about whether children are property. This is about whether we as a society, expressing our collective will through our public institutions, including our government, have a right to impinge on individual freedoms in order to advance a common good. And that is exactly the fight that we have been having for a couple hundred years.”