Berl Falbaum
Veteran Political Journalist/Author
With this column we continue our analysis of the “Views and Insights” of Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate in Georgia for U.S. Senate.
You may recall, earlier in the year, Walker explained why we are suffering from air pollution with the following analysis:
“Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air, so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So, it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we got to clean that back up.”
Then he followed up with a deep penetrating look at evolution by informing us:
“At one time, science said man came from apes, did it not? … If that is true, why are there still apes?”
Now, we are indebted to him for his posture on the environment. At a recent meeting, he defended his opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided some $369 billion to fight climate change. He observed:
“They try to fool you and make you think they are helping you out — they’re not. You know that some of this money is going into trees? We got enough trees — don’t we have enough trees around here?”
The question stumped me. I looked out of my window and saw some trees. I asked my wife, “You think those are enough trees?” Moreover, I don’t know where Walker lives. Maybe he is surrounded by trees.
Being an enterprising reporter, I decided to do some polling, admittedly unscientific polling.
Here are some samples of my results.
“Excuse me, sir, do you think we have enough trees?”
“I do but my dog does not.”
“Would you vote for someone who believes we have enough trees?”
“Mmmmmm, that’s a tough one. Haven’t thought about that. You can answer that either way.”
I moved on.
“Ma’am, are you in favor of more trees?”
“Depends on the type. I like Weeping Willows.”
“Are you a Democrat or Republican?”
“I just told you I like Weeping Willows. That should tell you all you need to know.”
“Yes, but I want to go deeper into the issue.”
“Well, I refuse to answer. This issue is tearing the country apart. More trees, fewer trees, enough trees. Leave me alone.”
Somewhat offended, I left her sitting on a park bench under a tree.
I spotted another subject…
“Ma’am, excuse me…how do you feel about trees?’
“Trees, trees, trees. That’s all people are talking about. Get away from me. before I call the cops.”
And so, it went. I was not making much progress on where we, as a nation, stand on trees.
Maybe trees will uproot themselves and “decide” to move to China. Trees need healthy air to flourish.
I wanted to interview Walker and ask him about a potential solution to the tree crisis.
Specifically, would he support a program under which we move some trees to China in exchange for good air. Of course, I do not know if China believes it already has enough trees. It may not even want to negotiate and lose some good air. Maybe we could offer tulips with the trees, that’s assuming Walker believes we have enough tulips as well.
(We could throw in some diseased Dutch Elms to get even with China for stealing our clean air).
His staff said he would not be available but they would take the proposal to him.
I told Walker’s aides that I understood that there were serious logistical problems with such a plan. For instance, how many trees would we offer in exchange, let’s say, for ten thousand metric cubic feet of clean air?
Moreover, how can we be sure that the good air, once it arrives back in the U.S., “decides” again to return to China. Would China put up another historic wall to block the clean air from crossing its borders?
I also wanted to ask Walker if he considered that the remaining apes need trees.
Walker was scheduled to debate his Democratic opponent, Raphael Warnock, the incumbent, October 14. In discussing this encounter, Walker advised us, “I am not that smart.” (Yes, he really said that).
Political analysts and the talking heads on TV said this was a strategic move to “lower expectations.” Well, he succeeded.
At of this writing, the debate was cancelled because Walker has not agreed to participate. Now. that was very smart.
Walker is surely providing us with unique views on public policies. We can’t wait for his future, somewhat unorthodox, solutions to our pressing problems.
The good news for Walker? A significant percentage of Georgians apparently agree with him on what causes our air pollution problem, that we have enough trees and share his views on apes. They apparently also have no problem with Walker falsely claiming he had a university degree and forgetting to acknowledge a child he fathered.
At this writing the contest between Walker and Warnock is extremely close. So close that China, in an effort to protect its ill-gotten clean air from us, is thinking about meddling in the contest between Walker and Warnock.
(Berl Falbaum is a veteran political journalist and author of 12 books.)
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