Coincidence or too convinient?

President Bush had intended to promote his plan for thinning forests to prevent forest fires in Camp Sherman, Oregon, but those plans had to be changed when two fires sprang up and threatened the area.

Can it be pure coincidence, locals are asking, that two wildfires sprang up in view of the spot where President Bush planned to promote his plan to thin forests for wildfire prevention?

And that they both appeared just as his plans emerged?

"I think everyone in the community here is wondering that," said Judy Wattier, who works at the KOA Campground just east of Sisters, where business is in the doldrums because of the blazes that have covered almost 40,000 acres in the nearby Deschutes National Forest. "Everyone I've mentioned it to can talk about it for hours."

Personally, I'm going with coincidence. Hard as it may be at times, I don't want to think that he or his aides would be capable of doing something this foolish and reckless (though the whole situation with Iraq gives me reason to think otherwise...), and I honestly don't think he expects enough of a fight against his proposal that such drastic measures would be considered necessary.

What does give me pause, though, is that enough people do view him in such a poor light that the idea that this isn't a coincidence - that the fires were deliberately set to give the President's plan that little extra bit of oomph - came so easily to people's minds.

Posted by thorswitch at August 30, 2003 07:42 AM | TrackBack