Burns on the Hot Seat!

A couple of weeks ago, in a moment of obvious pure insanity, Senator Conrad Burns lashed out at a group of firefighters who had flown in from Virginia to help put out a 92,000 acre fire in Montana. The altercation came following a meeting Burns had with area ranchers who were affected by the fire. During his tirade, Burns told the $8.00-an-hour firefighters that they had done a “poor job,” were "lazy," and not doing "a God-damned thing."

I gave a call to Burns’ D.C. office to try to get an understanding of Burns’ specific complaint about the handling of the fires. According to his staffer, the Senator’s problem wasn’t with the way the firefighters carried out their task but in how the orders to the firefighters were handed down. Ah, well it makes sense that if you don’t like how orders are handed down, you’d bully the people receiving the orders rather than the people who gave the orders, right?

Here’s an excerpt from the conversation:

Me: Instead of going after the people he now says he was frustrated by, he went after the $8-10 an hour fireman on the ground. It seems very elitist to me. The ranchers speak up, they’re wealthy, they contribute to his campaign, so who does he [Burns] lash out at, he doesn’t lash out at anybody that can really lash back at him; he lashes out at the $8.00 an hour guy on the ground.

Burns aide: Sir, I’m actually from Montana and I’m actually from a rancher’s family and I can tell you that we aren’t wealthy.

Me: So those ranchers he met with aren’t people who contribute to his campaign?

Burns aide: Well, they probably contribute to his campaign but I’m sure they aren’t contributing millions of dollars to the campaign or anything like that.

Me: Well I didn’t say millions of dollars but I bet you that the guy making $8.00 an hour isn’t contributing to anybody’s campaign ‘cause he’s barely getting by. Would you disagree with that?

Burns aide: I’m not sure because I’ve never actually been in that situation, but if I really cared about the campaign and about the person I’m sure I would find a way to budget the money.

Me: At $8.00 an hour? Do you know what $8.00 an hour comes to?

Burns aide: Actually sir, I’ve worked for less than that before, so yes I do.

Me: That $320 a week. If you worked every week all year, you’re making $16, 640. Now I don’t know how far you can stretch a dollar where you’re from but $16,000 doesn’t go too far in most places in this country….

Burns aide: Our ranch in Montana… we might net $16,000.

It goes on and she says their ranch is medium sized and there are probably ranches a lot smaller in Montana. I don’t profess to know if that’s true or not, but if I was making significantly less than $16,000 at my profession, I’d be looking for a different line of work.

Listen to the entire conversation here!