The (Republican) Speaker of the House in South Carolina puts governor Mark Sanford in his place:
It makes no sense for the governor to cherry-pick the funds he will accept — such as the $50 million to make buildings more energy-efficient that he requested the other week — and oppose money for teachers and law enforcement officers on so-called “philosophical” grounds. This is inconsistent with any kind of viewpoint and goes against what most people would consider to be common sense.
This philosophical rejection could mean the firing of 2,000 to 5,000 teachers, 700 prison guards being let go, three or four prisons closed and 3,400 convicted felons released onto the streets.
[….]During these difficult times that have sent our unemployment numbers to a record-high 11.4 percent — and consistently among the highest two or three rates in the nation — our state is in need of a true leader. Someone who is prepared to govern with decisive action, not just political rhetoric and ideology.
It’s tempting to say it’s surprising that someone so lucid and practical would be Speaker of the House of a government as dysfunctional as South Carolina’s appears to be. But there are pragmatic people everywhere, thank God. The problem with the Republican party isn’t that all of its elected officials are loons (they’re not), it’s that they’re letting the inmates, er, I mean philosophers, run the asylum.
In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.