13 November 2007

Feinstein Frees Fresno from Toyota Torture

by Thomas Gangale
California Progress Report
13 November 2007

I have come to love Fresno. Some of my best friends are in Fresno, and they have shown me unbounded hospitality and generosity. But, I have to say, in whining about a recent Toyota Prius advertisement on TV, Fresno and Senator Dianne Feinstein have only succeeded in making themselves more ridiculous. A lot of people, including myself, wouldn't have even known about the ad had Fresno stoically accepted it as a rite of passage.

Way to go, Fresno. After all these years, some finally made a joke about you to the rest of the nation. You finally caught up with Lodi. But, I don't recall that back in 1969, when John Fogerty wrote and recorded his lament over being stuck in Lodi, the city's residents rioted in front of Fantasy Records and burned Creedence Clearwater Revival albums.

One cannot choose but wonder that Toyota's little dig at Fresno rose straight to the top of Senator Feinstein's priorities, even though there's a war on, it's not going particularly well, et cetera. Funny thing, when I spoke about pandering politicians during a panel discussion in Fresno just as this story was breaking, I had Senator Feinstein very much in mind. I was speaking on another issue, and I hadn't heard yet that she had weighed in on the Prius controversy and had sent Toyota a nastygram. In so doing, she has given this already ridiculous flap an extended life. One day she votes to confirm a US attorney general who isn't clear on whether waterboarding is torture, and the next day the Senator is very clear on the question of Toyota torturing Fresno. How sensitive of her. Of course, like me, she's one of those touchy-feely San Franciscans, and that's lucky for me, otherwise she might have her new attorney general waterboard me for the things I write about her.

FULL STORY

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