Maybe Oxendine was hunting for water
The John Oxendine shooting accident had nothing to do with this man.
Aha! Now I’ve figured it out. That “not a Dick Cheney” hunting accident involving John Oxendine, his sons and some guy straight out of an episode of Petticoat Junction wasn’t an accident after all.
It was a reconnaissance mission on behalf of the thirsty people of Georgia.
Think about it: Yesterday, Oxendine announced that, if elected governor, he’ll take up with the U.S. Supreme Court a Georgia request that Tennessee let us pipe water from the Tennessee River to metro Atlanta.
Could it be mere coincidence that someone in Oxendine’s hunting party peppered a northwest Georgia man with buckshot just one week earlier?
Hear me out: The incident occurred on Walker County property owned by a man whom the current insurance commissioner is supposed to be regulating — the same guy, as it happens, who’s implicated in a scandal over more than $120,000 in allegedly illegal contributions to Oxendine’s campaign for governor. A campaign spokesman said one of Oxendine’s sons did the shooting and dismissed the incident as “not a Dick Cheney situation.”
But it did yield this beyond marvelous video interview of buckshot receptacle Russell “Monty” Robertson, who insists that he’d still go hunting with Ox because they’re such good buddies. Robertson explained that he was shot because a low-flying bird went in “the wrong direction” and he “was in the way.”
Oxendine says the whole thing’s being blown out of proportion because “I am the most likely Republican nominee for governor. … It’s unfortunate that if I blow my nose, it’s a story.” Asked why he and his sons didn’t have hunting licenses, the insurance commissioner insists they didn’t need them because they were on private property.
(The state Department of Natural Resources doesn’t interpret hunting regulations that way. DNR insisted yesterday that Oxendine and his sons enroll in hunting safety course.)
Here’s where the reconnaissance part comes in though: Oxendine also announced yesterday that he’ll try to grab that water from the Tennessee River to solve metro Atlanta’s looming water shortfall. Consistent with his Ox-in-a-china-shop reputation, the Republican revealed that plan — and the threat to go to court over it — during an interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press, where people don’t look too kindly on Georgia talk about taking Tennessee River water. (In another interesting spin, it was the husband of Oxendine’s former wife, state Sen. David Shafer, who started the talk about taking Tennessee River water during the 2008 legislative session.)
But think about it. The hunting preserve where the shooting incident took place is in Walker County, not far from the Tennessee line and just a wee bit further from the spot where the Tennessee River dips closest to the Georgia border. Could it be that the shooting “accident” was merely a cover for something selfless that good ol’ Ox was doing for Georgia? Could it be that he actually had traveled to the state line so that he could investigate how Georgians might be able to get to some of that delicious Tennessee River water? Could it be that our “likely Republican nominee for governor” is sacrificing his own reputation as an outdoorsman so that he can help you quench your thirst, keep your grass green and develop your new suburban subdivision?
We’ll never know for sure, I suppose, because Ox would be the last guy to boast about anything.
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