Montana governor lacks a way with words

By Todd Wilkinson
regional columnist and author

Real life is more entertaining than fiction. A case in point: The Montana Wood Products Association recently honored Montana Gov. Judy Martz as its "Communicator of the Year."

In accepting the award, Martz acknowledged that her challenged use of the English language sometimes gets her into trouble. "So be it," she
answered defiantly, squinting to exhibit her seriousness. "I say what I mean and I mean what I say."

Except, of course, when her elocution is lacking, which is often.

Not long after Martz was sworn into office, and within weeks of her muttering the first of what has become a chronic string of gaffes, the editors of the Missoulian newspaper shared this observation: "The well-spoken have it so easy in this world. They at least sound intelligent. Anyone who mixes metaphors, spews malapropisms, garbles syntax or otherwise struggles with words risks being presumed stupid - or worse.

"Gov. Judy Martz certainly gets the treatment. ... Her grasp of complicated issues is legitimate fodder for debate."

A few weeks after Martz's now infamous utterance — that, as governor, she proudly would be a "lapdog to industry" — she was asked at a women's
conference, with several witnesses present, if she ever had been physically abused by her husband.

"No," she replied, "but I've never given him any reason to [hit me] either."

Later, Martz couldn't remember making the comment and if she did, it isn't what she meant. Moreover, she insisted, the lapdog reference was taken
out of context.

Bad luck for the governor, her explanation doesn't match the version offered by the very person who was assigned to manage Martz's rhetorical
damage control, Mary Jo Fox.

"Governor Judy Martz has a cheerful way of redefining denial and inaction as leadership," Fox wrote in a guest essay this year, after she was fired.
"It was a recurring theme in the first year of the Martz administration. One would think that after unsuccessfully trying to redefine the term 'lap dog,' she would have given up trying to redefine words, let alone reality, to suit her, ... Again and again, the 'deer-in-the-headlights' approach seems to be Gov. Martz's modus operandi. ..."

Now, after winning her communicator award from the timber industry, Martz is telling us that loggers are "the physicians of the forest" who, if only
allowed to cut trees without bothersome environmental regulations, will make our forests healthy, stop all wildfires and deliver the West to a prosperous economy.

Logging forests in order to rescue them sounds similar to Martz's apparent belief that we in Montana will have a fine public school system if only we
invest less in our kids' future.

Insulting the intelligence of public school parents, teachers and administrators, Martz suggested that private school pupils, particularly those in parochial settings, enjoy a superior moral education by learning values that aren't taught in public schools.

Moreover, in spite of the fact that Montana rates near the bottom of the barrel nationally for spending on teacher salaries and in providing amenities to students, Martz, who has no college degree, praised home school parents who educate their kids on $300 a year.

"It shouldn't take $5,000 to $7,000 to educate a child," Martz said, "and it surely doesn't take a village to raise one."

As governors go, Martz's wordsmithing ability may be exceeded only by the great poet Jesse Ventura of Minnesota.

"Anyone who followed Martz's campaign for office knows she courts disaster whenever she strays from a prepared text. She has a way with words,
but it's not a good one," the editors of the Missoulian concluded 18 months ago.

Today, Governor Martz's problem isn't her party affiliation; it's the dry well of her ideas; it's her inability to craft a cohesive message which all citizens can honestly believe in; and it's the fact that so often, when ever she opens her mouth, she sounds and acts more like the sanctimonious
Church Lady on Saturday Night Live.

Unfortunately, for us, her stint in the governor's mansion isn't a skit. She's supposed to be leading Montana into the future. When she trips on her own words, we in the land of the Big Sky all fall down with her.