FRIDAY, MAY 28, 2010
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He’s a cowboy who’ll take no prisoners
peterson from C1
said in a phone interview last week, sounding a lot friendlier than he does in his 71-second campaign spot, now airing on television. “It’s not about me. It’s about the people of Alabama and the people of this country.” He also noted his approach to leader- ship: “run point, and you just back me up.” That sort of storm-the-gunners-nest
jargon in pursuit of what is not exactly a high-profile job is part of what has led to his ad getting more than 1.7million hits on YouTube and becoming the instant darling of conservatives everywhere. Sure, Tim James, the Republican candi- date for governor, has a spot about mak- ing the state’s test for a driver’s license be written in only English that’s gener- ated buzz, but it pales next to Peterson’s. The irony-free ad is so over-the-top — bursting with Peterson’s air of righteous indignation, exasperation and I’m- ready-to-kick-your-tail attitude — that it demands repeat views. An opening shot framing Marine dog tags and a scroll of the U.S. Constitution dissolves into Peterson riding a horse into the frame, wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat. The camera jump-cuts ev- ery few seconds. Theme music, sound- ing like it might be from a new episode of “The Rifleman,” swells. Peterson doesn’t so much address the camera as he barks at it. He says he’s been a Marine, cop, farm- er and businessman, then snaps “So lis- ten up!” He says the agriculture commissioner oversees $5 billion in annual business. “Bet you didn’t know that!” he says, as the camera jolts in for a close-up. “You know why? Thugs and criminals!” If they can keep people in the dark, “they can do whatever they want with all that money — and they don’t give a rip about Alabama!” He says there are “illegals bussed in by the thousands” while his opponents are stealing his yard signs “in the dark of night.” He says one competitor, Dor- man Grace, brags about taking “illegal money” on his Facebook page. “Who on earth would support such a
dummy? And why? We’re Republicans! We should be better than that!” He then whips out his .30-30 Win- chester rifle, saying, “I’m Dale Peterson. I’ll take names and take no prisoners!” And he’s gone, leading his horse away from the camera. Phew! “I don’t know if it’s the best ad ever,” he said, laughing, in the telephone in- terview. “Maybe it’s the most direct.” Fans aren’t nearly so demure. Glenn Beck, introducing Peterson on
his radio show last week: “I don’t know anything about agriculture, I don’t know anything about you, Dale, I just think you have the best TV spot I have ever seen.” Chris Matthews, on MSNBC, called it
Gulf between the White House, Carville grows
by Anne E. Kornblut
In the Gulf Coast oil spill, there is man
vs. nature. Then there is James Carville vs. the White House. The irascible Democratic strategist has been on a rampage over the govern- ment handling of the spill in his native gulf region, accusing President Obama of “political stupidity” and saying the administration has been “lackadaisical.” “It just looks like he’s not involved in
this,” Carville said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Visibly agitat- ed, Carville said: “Man, you got to get down here and take control of this, put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving. We’re about to die down here.” Carville — nicknamed the Ragin’ Ca- jun as far back as his days as an adviser to President Bill Clinton — has grown more outraged with each passing day, culminating with his taking a boat tour of the damaged waterways on CNN ear- lier in the week. Now irritated White House officials are pushing back. “James has always been a very pas-
YOUTUBE.COM
INSTANT ICON: Dale Peterson’s commercial has garnered 1.7 million hits on YouTube.
the most “all-out, All-American, hot dog, apple pie and I love my gun, U.S. of A. political ad ever made!” The Weekly Standard, the British magazine, has a blog that asks: “Why is this man not running for president?” Time’s online NewsFeed column calls it “the best campaign ad ever.” It is listed under the heading, “Things That Are Awesome.” Two campaigns have been set up on
Facebook, urging Peterson to run for president. Another Web site, Dalepe-
tersonfacts.com, makes lists of how tough he is: “Fact #8: Dale Peterson doesn’t ‘speak softly and carry a big stick,’ he carries a big gun and he says whatever the hell he wants.” “Fact #24: Before Chuck Norris goes to sleep, he checks under his bed for Dale Peterson.” John Archibald, metro columnist for the Birmingham News, said the ad was startling, even in Alabama, where politi- cians and guns go together like bourbon and football. “He came out of nowhere,” Archibald said. “I’d never heard of Dale Peterson.” In a column, he said the ad “was sort
of like David Allan Coe’s ‘perfect country & western song,’ though it didn’t say
anything at all about Mama, or trucks, or trains, or prison, or gettin’ drunk.” The ad was shot on a farm in Hunts- ville in about two hours, Peterson said, and was done by Ladd Ehlinger Jr., a filmmaker who hosts a radio talk show there. Peterson is, for the record, a native of
Mobile. He was in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1963 to ’67, says he served in Viet- nam, then graduated from the Univer- sity of Alabama and received a degree in sociology. He was briefly a policeman, then established “the largest industrial laundry facility in the Southeast.” He ran a farm of more than 1,000 acres in Georgia in the 1980s. He and his wife Kathy, have been married for more than 30 years. They live on a small farm in Shelby County. We wondered if, this being the politi- cal season, maybe Peterson was putting on the dog a little bit in that ad, ham- ming it up on-camera while giggling off. (It is, after all, a rather plaintive job that paid $79,026.24 in 2009 and is chiefly concerned with food safety, farm and livestock regulations and helping devel- op the state’s agricultural and industrial trading partners.) One of his opponents,
John McMillan (not the one he calls a “dummy”) says nope. “Having gotten to know Mr. Peterson and listened to his stump speech, I felt the ad was pretty much in line with his personality and philosophy,” McMillan said, calling in from the campaign trail. Another candidate, Dorman Grace
(the “dummy”), has won the endorse- ments of several major newspapers. In an e-mail exchange, Grace politely de- clined to go mano a mano. “I’m not going to engage in negative, personal attacks. I’m running a positive campaign that focuses on cutting spending, reducing regulations, holding the line on taxes and opening new mar- kets for Alabama farm products.” While it’s unclear who Alabama vot- ers will pick, North Carolina’s Jason Bostic saw Peterson’s ad and immedi- ately set up the Web site about his toughness. “I’m a southern boy, that’s the kind of politician we deserve,” said Bostic, who runs his own marketing company. “It was nice to see a fellow southern state who has someone like that. . . . hopeful- ly, the legend will just continue to grow.”
tuckern@washpost.com
sionate person, and this is obviously a very emotional issue for him,” said Da- vid Axelrod, a White House senior ad- viser. “What I haven’t heard is exactly what he thinks we should do that we aren’t doing. We’re just looking for con- structive ideas, and we’re not turning any away.” White House officials said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen called Carville last week to discuss the government re- sponse but Carville had not called him back. “No one doubts James’s motivations here — he is a resident of a great city that is at terrible risk right now,” one senior White House official said. “We just wish he would let us help him get his facts right.” Officials said that Donna Brazile, an- other Louisiana Democrat who had been on television criticizing the clean- up, was recently briefed by the adminis- tration on its efforts. Although a Democratic Party stalwart and a close friend of Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Carville is an outsider to this White House. In a phone inter- view, Carville acknowledged getting a call from Allen but said the two had played phone tag. And he was unapolo- getic about his criticism. He seemed, in fact, to delight in hear- ing he had gotten under the president’s skin, noting that Obama had been de- fensive about criticism of his response during an East Room news conference. “If he had one bullet and James Car- ville and [BP chief executive] Tony Hay- ward were sitting there, who would he shoot? I wouldn’t take my chances,” Car- ville said.
kornbluta@washpost.com
FAMILY ALMANAC
Marguerite Kelly
Learn where to draw line with meddlesome in-laws
CAROLYN HAX
Hi, Carolyn:
Our second baby is due soon. My very caring and loving in-laws are coming to visit, and we enjoy having them around . . . most of the time. From our firstborn, we’ve learned that they have this stance of, “We’ve raised X kids and taken care of Y grandkids, so we know what we’re doing.” Great, I know their kids and grandkids are great. However, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t respect the way we, the new parents, prefer to do things in OUR house with OUR kids. The first time around I was too
chicken, and ignorant, to speak up. This time, I would really like to set some boundaries without hurting anyone’s feelings. How do I go about having the conversation “I’d really prefer you check with me before you decide to give the newborn a bath, or dress the newborn in an outfit of your choice for a special occasion,” etc.?
Baltimore
You, ah, don’t. That’s because a bath and outfit are parental chickenfeed. Unless there’s a bath- or outfit-related health or safety issue, there’s no great consequence to letting the grandparents fuss in this way. In such cases, make no mistake,
letting them fuss is your best move — especially for your in-laws’ sense of involvement and your kids’ bond with their grandparents, but also for your peace of mind. Namely, you’re not going to get any if you put your weight into emotionally charged battles you don’t need to win. The battle you do need to win is to establish your parental authority, and you do that by figuring out important, consequential ways in which you differ from your in-laws on childrearing, and set your boundaries there. Do they believe in letting indulgences, or TV programs, or nutritional labels go unchecked? Do they knowingly trash your household routines, thus leaving days of cranky kids and painful re-teaching in their
NICK GALIFIANAKIS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
wake? Do they smoke around the kids, lob profanities, scoff at car seats? Then, you’d have something to
converse about: “You’re a great help, and you’ve raised great kids. It’s important to us, though, that our kids don’t eat preservatives/watch TV/curse like stevedores” or “do stick to a bedtime routine/hear the word ‘no’/ride only with us in the car.” You will want to be the one who fusses sometimes, yes. But assert that case-by-case, not by fiat: “I’d like to do bath tonight, thanks.” Otherwise, though? Embrace that these grandparents are present, responsible on the important stuff, and offering you little break — if not now, then soon — and overrule your territorial growl.
Dear Carolyn: I broke off a six-year relationship this
week because I realized that I needed to have someone with whom I was more bonded, more emotionally connected.
ONLINE DISCUSSION Carolyn Hax’s
weekly Web chat is at noon Fridays
at
www.washingtonpost.com/discussions.
Sounds strange, doesn’t it? I’m a guy.
Spring cleaning and resurrection
What’s supposed to sound strange
—that you were in a relationship without intimacy, that you took six years to notice, that you’re a guy and you noticed at all, or that you’re telling all this to an advice columnist? No matter. When people surprise themselves, it’s usually a good thing — even when it’s a bad surprise — because it suggests that a long-neglected side of them finally got their attention. My only advice is to see this as an opportunity, and use it well.
Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or tellme@
washpost.com.
How do we tell our children, 5 and 7,
that we need to euthanize our 9-year-old cat?
Although we have followed the advice
of experts and of books, she has been a biter for a long time, and the problem is getting worse. Recently she bit a relative so severely that it caused a rapidly spreading infection, which required ur- gent care and strong antibiotics. Although we’ve contacted various shel-
ters and even the facility where we adopt- ed our cat, no one wants to take her, and we have safety concerns for our children. But how do we tell our kids that we must euthanize the cat? We want to be truthful, but we’re having trouble coming to terms with this decision and can’t imagine what they will think of us if we lay it all out.
You may not need to euthanize your
cat at all if you take a few other steps first.
Begin by taking her to the vet to rule
out any medical problems that might be causing her to bite people, just as you’d ask your doctor to see if a physical prob- lem could be making you feel depressed before you went to a psychiatrist. A medical condition can create behavioral problems in cats as well as in people. The vet will X-ray her joints to see if
arthritis is making her so crotchety, check her teeth and her ears to see if she has an infection, do blood work to test her thyroid levels, and give her a CT scan to see if she has a brain tumor. These and other physical problems can turn a good cat into a biter — and the right treatment can make her behave. If your cat is healthy, you have to ask yourself if something else might be mak- ing her bite people. Was your relative bothering her that day? Was she afraid of him? Could she have thought that he was an intruder? Or did he interrupt her quiet time or prevent her escape? As you know, a cat doesn’t take orders from anyone. A cat who has been declawed also may turn into a biter and so may a cat who is forced to stay inside, day after day. All
Investigate biting issue before euthanizing family’s pet cat
by Marguerite Kelly
cats are programmed to stalk squirrels, chase birds and pounce on fluttering leaves, not because they like to play these little games, but because they are learning how to kill their prey. If a cat can’t hone these skills, she can get frus- trated and mean and sometimes become a true danger to others. This possibility prompted one veterinarian to say that it was as foolish to keep a bad cat around children as it was to keep a loaded gun in the house. Since your cat has never bitten your children, however — even when they were tail-pulling 2-year-olds — she prob- ably won’t hurt them now, but you clear- ly can’t trust her around adults. To keep your friends and relations safe, put her in a big crate or lock her in another room when they’re around because cat bites can be dangerous. Not only do their teeth go deep but the bacteria in a cat’s mouth can cause swelling, as well as staph infections, strep infections, blood poisoning and, in rare cases, even death.
If you don’t think that you can protect your children and your friends, look for a “no kill” shelter, which will agree to take your cat, even if she bites. Or go on Craigslist to try to find a home for her. If that doesn’t work, you will indeed
have to euthanize her, but tell the chil- dren beforehand. Honesty is the founda- tion of any relationship, and truth is eas- ier to remember than a lie. All of you will feel sad and guilty, too, and your children will probably cry when they say goodbye to her, but they will understand and accept your deci- sion if you keep your explanation brief, simple and compassionate. Children are much more resilient and sensible than you might think. They also will know that as much as you love the cat, you love them even more. Perhaps you can even show your love by letting them adopt a cat that doesn’t bite at all.
style@washpost.com
Marguerite Kelly is a freelance writer. Questions? Send them to advice@
margueritekelly.com or to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.
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