Kempthorne and Bomar touring the country, hawking the Parks

Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne and National Park Service Director Mary Bomar are traveling the country to attend "listening sessions" about how to run and, more importantly, fund the National Parks. These government "listening sessions" are always a little eerie, but this one perhaps more than most as it seems they plan to take comment via computer terminals set up at the hearings. More on that over at Park Remark.

But what makes me the most nervous is all this talk at the hearings of big money -- billions of dollars -- coming from "partnerships" and "philanthropy." Is anybody else just a wee bit suspicious that the free marketeers of the GW Bush administration are setting the Park Service up for the same kind of management that now runs the Postal Service? Which is to say, private and for-profit? Do they really think corporate America is going to fork over that kind of money for no return?

I guess we'll see.

--Zadig