Political Commentary by Paul Watson
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Richard Pombo Has Been Sent Packing to the 
Cattle Manure Cesspool He Came From

Early this morning, CNN projected a decisive victory for Jerry McNerney - an independent businessman and avowed conservationist - over Representative Richard Pombo, the chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee. 
 
When I was a Sierra Club Director last year, I urged the Club to put as much pressure on Pombo as possible and to support any candidate opposing him. The Club did so and money for McNerney's campaign came from the Sierra Club, from Defenders of Wildlife, and many other environmental organizations.
 
Pombo was placed square in the sights of the biggest game rifle ever trained on a politician by the environmental movement and his head was bagged. Pombo is history and can now slither back to the cattle ranch that spawned him. I used the big game analogy so that Pombo can understand. He needs to be told he's finished in his own language.
 
Defenders of Wildlife deserves much of the credit for Pombo's defeat. They have had activists on the ground for over a year and they ran national ads attacking his corruption and self-serving agenda.

Pombo was the Oil Company's man - the guy in the back pocket of the ranching industry.
 
He once called environmental turncoat Patrick Moore, the only "real" environmentalist. That is because the former Greenpeace Co-Founder supported everything that Pombo was pushing. Thanks to Pombo's backing Moore was appointed as a lobbyist for the nuclear industry along with Christine Todd Whitman. 

As Defenders of Wildlife put it, "There were many victories for wildlife champions last night, but Pombo's defeat is especially important to our imperiled animals and the wild places they need to survive."

Richard Pombo is the first committee chairman in the last five election cycles to lose a re-election bid.
 
He was stomped and stomped good by McNerney.
 
Richard Pombo made a big mistake when he decided to rape Mother Nature. His actions turned the attention of conservationists across the nation to stop his mad dog anti-nature perversions before they could gut the Endangered Species Act. 
 
Congratulations to Jerry McNerney for sending Pombo packing.
 
Richard Pombo: Good riddance and good bye.
 
This defeat has made my day. Hell it's made my year.

The Democrats taking back the House is a victory for environmentalists.
 
But the one political upheaval that has made my day is the defeat of Republican Richard Pombo of California.  
 
Pombo has been the spearhead of the movement to dismantle the Endangered Species Act. He is pro-whaling, going so far as to travel to Iceland to encourage commercial whaling. He has been pro-predator extermination, pro clear cut logging - you name it, if it was a benefit to conservation and the environment, Pombo was against it. Enemy of the whales, of the wolves, of the Redwoods, of the Spotted Owl, and a serial rapist of Mother Nature.