In the spring of 2005 the erstwhile  Attorney General and governor “wanna be”, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, apparently decided that in order to enhance his stature for a political run, he needed to show the people that he was a fighter for truth, right, and justice. He tackled the Ford Motor Company; a highly visible enemy corporation that everyone knows is out to flim-flam any and all about the quality of its automobile products.   This time the target was the cars sold to police agencies, including the Arkansas State Police.

Beebe had garnered information that other states were questioning the claims that the cars Ford sold were heavy duty, i.e., parts beefed up for the severe service police use  and strain puts on a car. No better way to get public attention than by drumming up a problem to solve when there isn’t a problem to solve. It is said that perception is everything and Beebe used perception, or maybe that is deception. Anyway he found a problem that didn’t exist and then set about solving it.

Beebe claimed that the suspension and brake parts on the police vehicles were no different than the parts on ordinary passenger cars. Instead of doing something sensible, such as checking part numbers of the parts he thought weren’t heavy duty, he did what politicians are famous for doing, he called in an expert. An expert on what was never clearly determined, except that he was to look at the parts on the respective cars and determine ordinary or heavy, which he did. He said they looked like they were the same size.

You need not be a rocket scientist to understand that parts are interchangeable and that some parts don’t need to be heavy duty. And those that are heavy duty only need to be a few thousandths of an inch thicker to meet the criteria. If the expert has eyes sharp enough that he can see the difference in thousandths of an inch with his naked eye and without benefit of a micrometer of other such measuring device, he needs to hire himself out for megabucks per year. Well, maybe he did; he was contacted by Beebe.

All the while Beebe and the expert were debating heavy versus ordinary, police cars that had been ordered were sitting at rail heads or at dealerships waiting on the political scene to play out. Police officers whose lives are dependent on driving good cars were patrolling in heaps that were ready for retirement from service.

But that didn’t seem to affect the coiffed crusader who blundered on with demands of warranty, liabilities, and whatever else he could dream up to throw at Ford. (Can anyone say Don Quixote?) No sir re-bob, a varlet was in his sights and its name was Ford. How dare they use ordinary parts on police cars when they said they were heavy duty, ignoring the fact stated above that not all parts need to be heavy duty in nature on a heavy duty car.

It would be nice for a change if there would be a politician come forth with one heavy duty part, a brain that works before the mouth starts bleating to gain public attention, but Beebe failed in that requirement. He is just another ordinary phony liberal Democrat who claims to an expert but isn’t any more of one than those who claim to be experts.

Remember an expert can be anyone with a briefcase who is 50 miles from home. When one briefcase “toter” meets a politician you can be assured that you have two experts on baloney. Mr. Beebe would you like a napkin to wipe the mustard off your face? Or do you need an expert to tell you about the specifications of heavy duty napkins before using it?

© 06-29-2005 DEC