| Written by Billy Cox |
| Monday, 04 June 2007 06:00 |
| Time for some straight talk? Recently, on the 10th anniversary of the so-called Phoenix Lights, former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington uncorked a surprise for everyone who he had once ridiculed. Contrary to appearances a decade ago, Symington now admits that he did, indeed, see the same massive UFO that blew the minds of countless fellow Arizonans on the night of March 13, 1997. Back then, the explanation that dispersed the media was that witnesses had simply mistaken military flares for a UFO. (Never mind that sightings of a V-shaped formation of mounted lights cruising south along the I-17 corridor began occurring long before the military exercises.) “It was dramatic,” Symington finally confessed to journalist Leslie Kean, sounding much like the hundreds of eyewitnesses who had contacted a Phoenix City Council member. “And it couldn’t have been flares because it was too symmetrical. It had a geometric outline, a constant shape.” Wow. Too bad Symington didn’t have the stones to come clean when it might’ve counted. Symington’s idea of leadership back then was to mock eyewitnesses by dressing up an aide in an ET costume, steering him to a press conference in handcuffs, and pronouncing the mystery solved. Hysterical, man. Original, too. But wait a minute. Now that one Arizona pol has set the record straight, maybe the next move is up to John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express.” He’s clearly got enough clout to make Air Force authorities testify under oath about those “routine” jet fighter missions on the night of 3/13/97. Better yet, he’d have public opinion solidly behind him. A 2002 Roper Poll indicated 72 percent of Americans believe the government is withholding UFO data. McCain’s still a maverick, right? He can own this story.
Just kidding about ‘Straight Talk’ During his presidential bid in 2003, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark made the mistake of going off-script and saying that he thought humans could someday exceed the speed of light. Between the “General Moonbat” media smirks and late-night comic fodder, Clark’s campaign was pretty much toast after that (David Letterman: “Today, Clark time-traveled to the Democratic convention and found out he wasn’t nominated because of stupid time-traveling remarks.”) And you don’t get a pass long after you’ve left office, either. In February, 83-year-old former Canadian defense minister Paul Hellyer advocated the declassification of American UFO data under the assumption that harnessing alleged alien propulsion technology could end the global economy’s dependence on polluting fossil fuels. “If you think this is kooky, then correct yourself,” retorted Rush Limbaugh p– no stranger himself to contradictory positions — from his radio pulpit in March. “This is emblematic of the entire global warming movement, folks. It’s no more outrageous and it’s just as credible as this whole carbon offsets scam.” Global warming and UFOs – now there’s a radioactive linkage sure to knock environmental fence-straddlers back into their 10 miles-a-gallon Hummers. So until they start making Brooks Brothers suits out of Kevlar, a politician who talks about opening the books on UFOs is either a) committing career suicide, or b) attempting to regain the confidence of more than 70 percent of Americans (see 6/4/07). Hmm. Come to think of it, that’s almost as high a percentage as Americans who think we should be allowed to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada (84 percent, 2002 Harris poll). Congress laughed that off, too. |
Just kidding about goading John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” into investigating the Phoenix Lights. That’s an unfair burden to impose on any public servant torn between constituent obligations and getting elected.
Presidentialufo 