Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Jerry and the California budget

Calbuzz really needs to retire their cutesy nickname for Jerry Brown, "Krusty", as in Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons. Their tag for Meg Whitman did catch on during the campaign, though: "eMeg". Despite "Krusty", though, and maybe a bit of overload on the snark in general, Calbuzz does some of the best reporting on California state politics. (They may be in transition; they also use "Gandalf" in the article linked here. They give a blunt assessment of Jerry's budget challenges in Mega Thanks from the Turkeys at Calbuzz 11/24/2010:

Tom Meyer’s mandatory Thanksgiving turkey cartoon, featuring a big bird ogre whose cranium is festooned with hatchets, not only sheds a frightening bright light on the cartooning Calbuzzer’s just-below-the-surface sociopathic tendencies (which some day will likely result in us being quoted as telling some know-it-all, whippersnapper reporter that Meyer "was always a quiet loner") but also offers a scary glimpse at the terrifying political threat that California’s not-so-jolly giant budget deficit represents to Jerry Brown, who will have to slay the awful monster if history is to judge as a success his gubernatorial second act.
The cartoon in question is this one:

They continue:

Not since the Fifth Labor of Hercules, when another son of a famous political family was assigned to muck out the dung produced by a herd of immortal cows chewing their cuds in the Augean Stables, has a public figure faced such a daunting task as Brown. Even in a state familiar with chronic deficits — and with chronic, gimmick-laden "solutions" to them  -  the latest red ink estimate of $25.4 billion sent chills through denizens of the Capitol.
Tags: ,

No comments: