George Dale is a Coward

by Ana Maria

What else do you call a man who refuses to show his face in a part of Mississippi that knows best his handiwork as a failed insurance commissioner in the aftermath of Katrina? I call him a coward, a chicken. That’s right. Chicken George.

How do I know that Chicken George Dale refuses to show his face around here? That Big Chicken bought over $275,000 worth of campaign radio and television ads for the last two weeks of this election season which ends on August 7th.

As of last week, Dale’s advertising buys to reach Mississippi voters included Jackson ($117,000), Columbus/Tupelo ($63,000), Laurel/Hattiesburg ($43,000), Greenwood/Greenville ($19,000), and Meridian ($31,000), Miss., as well as Memphis, Tenn., ($5,000). He didn’t schedule one radio or television ad to run here on the coast of Mississippi. Not one dime for an advertisement along the Gulf Coast. Not a single, ity bitty penny. Not ONE.

If Chicken George is so damned proud of his performance during the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in our history, wouldn’t you think that he’d be clucking about it all over the place? Clucking at meetings. Clucking on the radio. Clucking on television.

But nooooooooo. Chicken George is deliberately keeping his beak shut and off the airwaves all across the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It being an off-season election, he may be hoping that his detractors here on the Gulf Coast will be too busy trying to figure out how to put their lives back together to notice that casting a ballot for his Democratic opponent could send Dale packing.

I heard a good joke that Dale worried everyone along the coast hated him. Someone kindly informed him, “Not at all, George. Only those with insurance.”

Here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is where Chicken George Dale helped his buddies in the insurance industry have their way with plenty of families and businesses.

Rather than protecting Mississippi’s consumers—the families and businesses that have to have insurance for their financial security, Chicken George served them up as if chicken on a grill in the middle of summer.

Well, Chicken George, life under your rules and policies has been anything but a picnic.

Yes, you sure do know how to give a good speech . . . long out of ear range for those families and businesses who. you’ve helped be denied the money their insurance companies owed them. You forced the hands of your constituents. They turned to the courts to protect themselves when they should have been able to count on you to protect them. After Katrina, you turned your back on your constituents, and now you have nothing to say for it. You cannot defend yourself, so you remain silent. Your silence is deafening, George Dale. You are a coward. A chicken.

The Chicken Opens His Beak to Speak
When Chicken George opened his beak to speak before the Lion’s Club in Clarksdale, Miss., he said Katrina was “the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies.” Imagine that? What a thing for him to say as the man elected to protect commercial and residential consumers from insurance companies that want to collect premiums but not pay on legitimate claims.

Interestingly, Dale has already been thinking of a career change, into that of grand master of city planning. The Clarksdale Press Register reported Chicken George saying

The enormous impact from Hurricane Katrina should leave Mississippians wondering if they should live "in harm's way. . . "

Harm’s way? Living near the water is being in harm’s way.

Chicken George apparently can’t read or research. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, 55% of us in the country live within 50 miles of the nation’s coastline. It’s on the agency’s website, Chicken George. Just click on this hyperlink, and it will take you there.

So, George, if you are suggesting that over half of the U.S. population move inland, to where do you intend for us to move? 150 miles inland? 200 miles? How would you recommend accomplishing that, Chicken George? If it isn’t hurricane country, it’s tornado country or blizzard country or earthquake country. Where is this elusive place you wish for everyone to live?

Of course, I have a better idea, Chicken George.

How’s about we all stay put and have the insurance companies pay what they owe on wind policies and pay back with interest and penalties—and maybe some good old fashioned jail time—the money these companies deliberately bilked from the National Flood Insurance Program.

Chicken George, you should have focused on doing the job to which you were elected rather than pretending to be the grand master of city planning. It really is not a good fit for ya, George. Perhaps you might consider culinary school. I bet you’d make a fine chicken stew.


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