What was she thinking? Could she have been thinking at all? One spontaneous, reflexive, thoughtless, flippant five-word remark to the President by our partisan Governor in a Washington crowd of state leadership peers, “We’ll see you in court”, irresponsibly risks loss of $400-million of federal research funding at the state university. It also activates two sets of costly lawyers with better things to do for a purported cause that four of five Americans (in Maine and elsewhere) consider unfair – male participation in women’s athletic events. Our leader’s impetuous conduct has stamped Maine as both a geographical and political outlier. What was traditionally considered a common-sense state is now regarded as nonsensical. The recent undignified dust-up invites strong voter rebellion in next year’s midterm election as the nation is transformed from welfare addiction to workfare productivity. Both Maine and America are better than they have shown recently, and voters seem likely to respond far more favorably to proactive inspirational policy initiatives than passive caretaking and special-interest pandering. Phil Osifer