I promise, this is my last post about trailers for this week. Well... hopefully.
In case you haven't heard, Mary Fallin announced yesterday that she will be removing Hipster Boo Boo's trailer (that for some reason still has dealer tags on it) from the grounds of the Governor's Mansion. There's no word on what they're going to do with the cactuses.
We know this thanks to an incredibly awkward chat Governor Fallin had yesterday with KFOR's Linda Cavanaugh. You can watch the thing here. Here's a transcript of Mary's stream of consciousness ramblings:
First of all, Wade and I are mothers... we're a mother and a father... and we love our children. We are very pro-family and I'm proud of that. It's our values – my Oklahoma values is to help your family, take care of your family...
That's nice. Call me an optimist, but I would make the argument that most people, even ones who have been divorced a couple of times, are pro-family. I'd also say most people like to take care of their family. For example, my parents still let me live and work out of the basement, and in return, I fold clothes and clean the litter boxes. That's love right there.
My daughter, a couple of months ago, came to me and said she was in-between living arrangements. She has, does have, a very nice trailer that she bought, and but her place wasn't ready yet to put it somewhere, and so, I told her "You can park it in the back of this lot, not seen to the public eye, and uh store it there" and, uh, she travels a lot, so she's not home a lot, but that's where she had it.
Funny, this Facebook commenter claims Christina is renting the RV. Second, what place wasn't ready? Is it really that hard to find a place for a trailer? We're in Oklahoma. From Dibble to Idabel to our Governor's Mansion, trailers are everywhere.
And your station brought up the story yesterday, and I wanted come today just to clarify something with you and also to say that I appreciate your viewers asking the question about can she do it, can she not do, is it city code, is it not..."
Hey, wait a second. We're actually the ones who asked whether the trailer violates code. KFOR "investigated" the matter and got it wrong. They claimed the trailer didn't violate code because it was parked on "state property." If anything, they got everything wrong.
But please continue...
It's not against city code, but I did ask my staff last night after your story aired about her to look and see if there were any state codes or state rules or anything that, that might be involved in this and we did find, and, and, we did find, so I wanted to show it to you today, Capitol Medical Center Improvement Zoning Commission, this big piece of paper...
At this point, two things happen:
1. Mary Fallin proceeds to show Linda Cavanaugh a big thick stack of zoning papers. They both seemed impressed.
2. I think I caught someone telling a little white lie. Yesterday afternoon, before we published our story about the Capital Medical Center Improvement Zone, I had the following G-Chat conversation with Fallin's Communications Director Alex Weintz:
So, Mary Fallin told Linda Cavanaugh that her staff uncovered the CMZ codes, yet when I asked her office if they knew of any violations, they directed me to KFOR's "Hey, everything is fine!" explanation. First of all, sending someone to KFOR for research purposes would be like a professor directing a student to Wikipedia for reference material. Second, somebody in the Governor's office is lying. Did they know about the codes the night before, as Mary Fallin expressed to Linda, or did they learn about them through us?
This may clarify things:
For some reason, Alex Weintz never got back me with me. I don't blame him. He was probably too busy sweating, sounding the alarms, and yelling over the Governor's Mansion PA:
"DEFCON 2!!! DEFCON 2!!! The blogger has the CMZ codes! Repeat! The blogger has the CMZ codes!"
After my chat with Alex, I published our post. It picked up steam over Facebook and Social Media, and before you could name the three branches of government, we had another absurd Hipster Boo Boo controversy on our hands: Trailergate!
So, let's get back to this interview. Remember, Mary Fallin had just impressed Linda Cavanaugh with several pieces of paper:
"So we went through it to look and see if there was anything that might say anything about a trailer being on capitol grounds or mansion grounds and basically this talks about a medical corridor between 10th and 36th street on Lincoln Boulevard and it does say that you can't have trailer on a state property. Never dawned on me that a mansion, a Governor's mansion, may be on a capitol medical zone. So, we're going to remove the trailer by this Sunday and she's going to make other living arrangements."
Hey, people who care about our state's image and grow tired of national stereotypes that portray all Oklahomans as a bunch of dim-witted redneck hillbillies living in trailers, thanks to our investigation there is no longer a trailer representing our state at the Governor's Mansion. You're welcome.
Anyway, here are a few final thoughts on Trailergate...
1. Unless I'm forgetting something, this is the third PR crisis (excluding divorces) Hipster Boo Boo has caused for her mom.
The first was the weird photoshoot at the mansion. The second was the Native American headdress photo. Some people out there think it's unfair to give Christina Fallin coverage (and criticism) for all of this stuff. I disagree. She's the Governor's daughter, she's eccentric, and she loves attention. As I've said in the past, Christina Fallin is like the Paris Hilton of Oklahoma. The only thing she hasn’t done yet is release a sex tape, reality show or perfume. Expect one of the three to happen soon.
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2. Someone set up what I assume to be a fake Craigslist ad for the trailer...
At least I hope it's fake. With Hipster Boo Boo, you never know.
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3. The Oklahoman also refused to give us any credit, and as a result, also got the story wrong..
In all fairness, Alex Weintz probably told them to check out the KFOR response, too. I bet the people at "The State's Most Trusted News" were dumb enough to do it.
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4. Is there something else going on here?
Does anyone else think it's strange that the Governor's team moved so fast to nip this story in the bud? It makes me wonder if there's something bigger at play here – perhaps a controversy they don't want to the media to uncover? I'm not saying... I'm just saying.
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5. Alex Weintz still wants me to grab stuff from KFOR...
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6. Is Governor Fallin okay?
Seriously, go watch the KFOR interview. Just like the three branches gaffe, she doesn't appear to be totally there. It's like she's lost or something. Then again, she's the same person who announced she would "offend" the constitution when she took the oath of office. I guess it's just Mary being Mary.
