‘The Innocents’
Jan 14, 2014, 12:00 PM | Updated: 12:00 pm
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has had it all.
She’s been the torchbearer for the legislative right, and then they turned on her for her Medicaid stance. She has been the object of criticism and satire by the national media, like “Saturday Night Live and Jon Stewart [of “The Daily Show”]. She’s lost her place debating on local television, and her finger, pointed in President Obama’s face, became the worldwide “digital” story for some time.
And today, I applaud her for her dramatic dissolution of Child Protective Services, as announced in Monday’s State of the State address.
Now, I admit that what you hear may be the sound of only one hand clapping, because so much needs to be done and the state is starting at the beginning by creating a brand new cabinet-level agency headed by Arizona Juvenile Department of Corrections Director Charles Flanagan.
It almost had to be this way.
CPS has been the focus of criticism for its inability to protect the children of Arizona for as long as I can remember. For all of our children, the loved and unloved, we must fervently hope that this is the change that is needed.
If it is, I’ll applaud with both hands, and it will be a standing ovation.
I’m Pat McMahon.
