If it will make Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Roy Moulton feel better, not all his critics are guilty of the "brazen hypocrisy" he says they are. Many of them, this page included, contend Julia (Butterfly) Hill is every bit as unfit for public office as Moulton is.
Hill -- or is that Butterfly? -- is the woman who moved into the heights of a California redwood tree in late 1997 to keep it from being cut down. In doing that, she tried to take the law into her own hands, because she wasn't satisfied with the way it was working under normal procedures.
She not only broke the law; she defied it. And yes, to this page that disqualifies her from holding an important position in government.
If anyone disagrees with that, you would think Moulton, of Driggs, would. It was he, after all, who joined other eastern Idaho snowmobilers in deliberately riding their machines into the Jedediah Smith Wilderness in Wyoming. After the former Teton County prosecuting attorney was cited for breaking the law that forbids vehicles in federal wilderness, he defended the act, comparing it to marches for civil rights marches and against the Vietnam War.
"Legislative change comes in a representative democracy largely because of civil protest," he said at the time.
Moulton says now that environmentalists who opposed his confirmation to the Fish and Game post to which Gov. Dirk Kempthorne appointed him are hypocrites because they look on Butterfly as a hero.
"They don't say she's unfit for public service," he charged in a report in Saturday's Lewiston Tribune.
He's probably wrong on that. Most environmentalists would be no more comfortable with an Earth First! member who blocks logging operations serving in public office than they are with Moulton. That's because they believe in working within the system to effect the change they seek.
The question is what does Moulton believe. He and Butterfly no doubt have different goals, but they have demonstrated a willingness to use similar tactics.
If Butterfly is a hero to anyone, it might be to Moulton. To this page and many environmentalists, she is not.
And neither is he. -- J.F.
Correction
This page was overly generous in a Friday editorial giving the recently adjourned session of the Idaho Legislature a failing grade. The $10 million loan fund legislators established for school districts to repair unsafe schools is not interest-free. It ties interest to the average rate "available to the state treasurer," which is usually higher than tax-free municipal rates normally available to schools. -- J.F.
