OPINION: McCain's Western Water Weaseling

It's a newly discovered species, known as the Western Water Weasel - aka John McCain.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee McCain nudged a hornets' nest last week with comments that suggested he would support renegotiating the 1922 compact that governs the sharing of Colorado River water among seven Western states. Then he weaseled.

Here's what he said, as quoted in The Pueblo Chieftain: "I don't think there's any doubt the major, major issue is water and can be as important as oil. So the compact that is in effect, obviously, needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties. I think that there's a movement amongst the governors to try, if not, quote, renegotiate, certainly adjust to the new realities of high growth, of greater demands on a scarcer resource."

It's one of those bumbling politician attempts to answer a question without saying much. It's not as if he said something really fun, like: "we need a contract that takes water from Colorado and gives it to my growing home state of Arizona."

Colorado officials, especially McCain's political foes, nonetheless, pounced. The pact would be amended "over my dead body," said U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. He's always looking out for us.

McCain responded to the uproar with a letter that said his comments were "mistakenly construed" as a desire to begin new negotiations. In writing, he said: "Let me be clear that I do not advocate renegotiation of the Compact."

So there you have it. A man with a good chance of becoming the next president has put in writing that he's fine with the compact as is, meaning he thinks Colorado's water rights should stand. That's huge for Colorado, as any change to the compact could be disastrous for the state.

But the written statement wasn't good enough for Gov. Bill Ritter, who wants to milk McCain's initial ramblings for all he can in this important swing state. "The word ‘renegotiate' does not have a double meaning," Ritter said. "It has to demonstrate in my mind a bias for the lower basin states."

Once again, Gov. Ritter, McCain told us in writing that he doesn't support changes to the compact.

It would be interesting to get Barack Obama's take on all this. Though there's no reason to believe the Midwestern senator is overly familiar with this important Western water issue, Obama is a redistribution kind of guy. He advocates a tax policy that would take money from the fortunate few (the "rich") and redistribute it to the less fortunate masses (the "middle class" and the "poor"). Downstream cities such as McCain's Phoenix, think Colorado gets an unfair share of H2O. In terms of water, they believe Colorado is rich and downstream states are poor. If Obama were king, would he advocate a redistribution of Colorado's wealth? We're standing by.