Nip It (Editorial)

If state government were “The Andy Griffith Show,” the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission would be Barney Fife, unelected and trusted with only one bullet, yet somehow able to maintain an inflated idea of its own power and authority.

Gov. Mike Beebe would, of course, be the steady and clear-eyed Sheriff Andy Taylor. Except in the most recent episode, one of Barney’s most famous lines would have been delivered by the sheriff:

“Nip it. Nip it in the bud.”

We’re referring to the Hindenburg of trial balloons floated and then abandoned by the AG&FC: A plan to craft its own version of the state Freedom of Information Act applicable only to its own agency.

The commissioners were not, of course, on a mission to give the taxpaying citizens of this state access to more information than the existing FOIA allows.

Oh, no; the commissioners behind this very bad idea remained firmly in Fife character as they sought to minimize any embarrassment that might result from public airing of their actions and decisions on behalf of the taxpayers of Arkansas.

(As Barney once said, “That badge means something! Don’t disgrace it!”)

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has in recent weeks uncovered the fact that the AG&FC had more vehicles than employees. The statewide daily also devoted many column inches to former commissioner Sheffield Nelson’s theory that three of the seven commissioners – Craig Campbell and Rick Watkins of Little Rock and Emon Mahony of El Dorado – had created a clever committee system that allowed them to control all decisions.

The former seemed like mission creep and the latter seemed like so much professional wrestling trash talk – Campbell said of Nelson, “My mama always instructed me never to speak ill about the dead or mentally unstable.” – until the Democrat-Gazette also blew the whistle on the Full Monty of Arrogance. Then the rest of Campbell’s comment on Nelson’s conspiracy theory started to seem ironically appropriate: “[Y]ou’d be better off to consider the source.”

We’re not sure just what kind of Mayberry the Game & Fish Commission has turned into, but we do know the immortal words of Deputy Fife:

“Now here at the Rock we have two basic rules. Memorize them until you can say them in your sleep. Rule No. 1: Obey all rules.”