I usually disagreed with him on the issues, and wasn’t fond of his methods. But he was anything but stupid, and last month, suggested something that could be a big benefit to Michigan’s perennially poor Upper Peninsula.
President Obama has vowed to close the prison camp at Guantanamo. Okay, fine. Bring the prisoners to the Alger Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Munising. Charge the federal government a billion dollars a year for use of it.
This would create much-needed jobs and revenue. After a time, Congressman Bart Stupak, a Democrat and native Yooper, got into the act. He basically agreed with Governor Engler, but he said he would prefer renovating another prison for the purpose, the now-closed Camp Manistique in Schoolcraft County.
Cautiously, other politicians started to express interest. “Given the economy, if there were going to be a good number of jobs coming out of this, I think it would be worth talking about,” State Rep. Steve Lindberg said. Unemployment is in double digits throughout the UP.
But you had to know that political grandstanding would rear its ugly head. Enter Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who wants the Republican nomination for governor next year, and is trying to get somebody to notice. Pete, who doesn’t live anywhere near the UP, went bananas. Why, how could anyone think of bringing what he called “240 of the most dangerous people in the world,” to Michigan.
They would be, he charged, “a magnet for home-grown terrorism.” Local newspapers then began to fill with comments from frightened Yoopers, some of whom actually seemed to fear running into Osama Bin Laden while refilling their propane tanks.
Bart Stupak, who I suspect was trying to hide his disgust, said he wasn’t about to pursue the matter further without support from his fellow politicians. This is one more classic example of Michigan losing an opportunity by shooting itself in the foot. Think about it.
First of all, some of these people may not be that dangerous. We don’t really know; they’ve never had a trial. Even if they are -- they aren’t going to be wandering around the streets of Manistee or Munising. They would be housed in the equivalent of a federal SuperMax facility. Nobody has ever escaped from one of those.
And suppose one of them did. So - you have a non-English speaking person of a clearly different ethnic group wandering around in an orange jumpsuit. I’m sure he would blend right in. There are not a lot of al-Qaeda cells in Ishpeming.
As Stupak said, “the only terrorists that would be created would be mosquitoes.” There probably isn’t a better place in the country for these prisoners, or a state more in need of the revenue. Governor Granholm should use her clout and ask President Obama to send them here. And maybe, when unemployment gets down to four percent, we’ll let our politicians get back to silly squabbling again.
Jack, I love it! "Al-Qaeda in Ishpeming"! Sounds like the next Jeff Daniels Play. Would also make for a great comedy movie like "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming". Let's write a screen play.
Posted by: George | June 05, 2009 at 02:31 PM
I think the funniest line in the script for "Al-Qaeda in Ishpeming" is this one:
"Governor Granholm should use her clout and ask President Obama to send them here."
John Conyers doesn't live anywhere near the U.P., either. He might never have been to the U.P.; I don't know.
How does Conyers feel about a new Gitmo in Michigan?
Is he doing any "political grandstanding" these days?
Who gets the role of Conyers in the cast of "Al Qaeda in Ishpeming"?
I at least understand the points made respectively by former Gov. Engler and Pete Hoekstra. Engler says, "We Republicans are going to take Obama at his word, about closing Gitmo. And we'll see how his '08 campaign rhetoric stands up to reality."
Pete Hoekstra says, "Sure, we can build a super-max that nobody will ever escape from. That's not the problem. The problem is if some terrorist organization decides to blow up the Mackinac Bridge, to send a message about the facility. Then, who takes responsibility?"
Either one of those guys is infinitely preferable to the dangerously incompetent and idiotic Conyers, who is much closer to actually letting some of the Gitmo detainees wander the streets of Manistique (Jack, it is "Manistique;" "Manistee" is south of Traverse City) or Munising (you got one out of two on your Michigan geography quiz).
So, good people of Michigan; if you really want a frightening scenario, forget about Engler and Hoekstra and instead consider the spectacle of John and Monica Conyers, and about two dozen ACLU lawyers, in a U.S. District Court in Detroit, deciding the fate of Gitmo detainees. And to make it even scarier, let's make Ann Diggs Taylor the presding trial judge.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 05, 2009 at 03:33 PM
Anonymous-
What's to stop a terrorist from blowing up Mackinaw to "send a message" ANYWAY?!
Do you think they would want to get THAT specific about the message, they would be trying to send, or make the message "geography specific" or "geographically relevant", for better effect?!. Do you think they REALLY dislike Upr's? Do you think they prefer their prisoners being "put up" in the luxurious Gitmo, rather than moved to a cooler climate? Is that what you call logical thinking?
If they could have done anything by now, don't you think they would have?! Do you think it's because they were afraid of getting tortured if they were caught, or maybe just getting caught in the U.P. when they could have gone to Las Vegas? They don't need any NEW reasons to try. Heck, I bet half of our "well-educated" Americans don't even know where the U.P. is! - you expect terrorists to know where it is! They'd probably get lost in Ontonagon (I don't even know where that is!). Now THAT would be funny stuff to put in this comedy! You don't seem to have much of a sense of humor, I guess, do you - Anonymous? Maybe that's why you're Anonymous, eh? But seriously, why don't you just stock up that underground shelter of yours, if you're that concerned? In fact, selling shelters and supplies for them, might be ANOTHER great business opportunity for the U.P.!
Posted by: George | June 05, 2009 at 05:49 PM
I think Ontonagon is just the place for you.
But more than anything, I'm curious as to how you know which side of the apparent disagreement between Engler and Hoekstra I come down on?
Because I don't know myself.
All that I suggested was that there was sound reasoning, and/or political calculation, on both their sides. It's hard, I know, for Jack Lessenberry to know which side to take if two Republicans disagree. That's such a target-rich environment for Jack. He'd like both of them to lose, naturally.
For me it is just the opposite. If somebody wants to make dumb jokes about terrorists on the streets of America, you really do need to talk to John Conyers and the rest of his friends on the far-left wackadoodle Kucinich-Miller-McKinney wing of the Democrat Party. That's where you will actually find serious discussions about assigning Harvard and Yale lawyers to the detainees, and fighting their cases in U.S. District Courts.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 05, 2009 at 06:19 PM
Seems to me it is very American to assign defense counsel to the accused, and let them have their day in court.
Posted by: Jack Lessenberry | June 06, 2009 at 07:38 AM
Sure, Jack, that works out just fine for people that get picked up by the police or the FBI in the U.S. We get to use niceties like investigators, witness interviews, subpoenaes, surveillance, grand juries; you know all those things we think of as "law enforcement."
Hard to do that in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, where the 82nd Airborne is rightly concerned about where the next rocket-propelled granade is coming from, and not about reading Miranda warnings to suspects.
Oh, and those military commissions? The ones that were enacted into law by a bipartisan Congress, and ridiculed by Candidate Obama? The same ones that President Obama has substantially re-constituted? They provided for counsel for the detainees.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 06, 2009 at 06:44 PM