Operation Dumb

Yesterday, Governor Strickland appeared with Operation Dumbo Drop star Danny Glover to rally with the factory workers of the Hugo Boss plant in Cleveland.

Yes, you read that right.

Apparently, the union workers are unhappy that Hugo Boss wants to, you guessed it, leave Ohio.

Anyone else sensing a trend?

The key to this entire issue lies in one key sentence that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

In a letter Feb. 3 to Mark Brashear, chairman of Hugo Boss USA, Strickland asked the company to reconsider closing the plant. A week later, in a response to the governor, Stockert left little hope. "We listened to our employee representatives for months and, at their suggestion, met with your administration in December," he wrote. "Through the course of that process, it became apparent that neither your administration nor the union are in a position to change the economic realities in our business."

If there was such a thing as superbolding, I'd do it to the last sentence in that paragraph.

Ohio isn't doing enough. And it has no plans to change the way it does business.

That's why Hugo Boss is leaving.

But what's Strickland's response? A politically transparent move.

Read the sentence in the Hugo Boss letter one more time. Shouting into a bullhorn with the star of Lethal Weapon 3 along with a bunch of union workers does nothing to change the economic realities facing Hugo Boss.

And that's another thing.

Danny Glover? Really?

I wonder how many Ohioans would align themselves with Danny Glover's politics.

• This is the guy who blamed the Haiti earthquake on global warming. Seriously.
• The same guy who called President Bush a racist.
• A man who considers communist dictator Hugo Chavez a close friend.
• And a guy who needed to be arrested by the U.S. Secret Service.

What a psycho.

Now don't get me wrong. The workers, their families, and the entire community have a right to be frustrated at their entire situation. But that anger should be refocused on Ted Strickland and his failure so far to provide an environment that provides an incentive for Hugo Boss to remain in Ohio.

And Danny Glover.