As someone who spent many happy hours as a kid stomping through the woods in parts of Maine hit hard by the decades-long cratering of the timber industry, I reacted with excitement to President Barack Obama's announcement setting aside 87,500 acres near Baxter State Park as the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.
I was less excited by the ensuing news coverage, much of which focused on the predictably negative reactions from Gov. Paul LePage and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, both Republicans.
While Collins objected to the lack of congressional or voter approval and questioned who would pay for the upkeep, LePage's reply was typical and crude.
"That's one way to get out of paying taxes to the state of Maine," LePage said. "It's also an ego play for Roxanne Quimby and Sen. Angus King. It's sad that rich, out-of-state liberals can team up with President Obama to force a national monument on rural Mainers who do not want it."
Roxanne Quimby moved to Maine in 1975 from Massachusetts, and in 1984 began selling candles made from her husband's beeswax. The company that became Burt's Bees grew, helping to make Quimby wealthy.
Her donation of the land to federal government included a $40 million endowment to fund maintenance.
Though born in Virginia, King, an Independent, has spent most his adult life in Maine, where he served as governor before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012.
Collins once called King "fiscally conservative but very liberal on social issues" and "a good governor."
Though a former Mainiac myself — a designation used for residents not born in the state, as opposed to born-and-raised Mainers — I have to think the more than 70 collective years that King and Quimby have lived in Maine should count for something.
The fine people of Maine duly elected Tea Party favorite LePage not once but twice to the highest office in the state, though in both instances the majority of Mainers voted for other candidates.
LePage has used his pulpit to bully many, but has saved some of his most heated vitriol for Obama, once supposedly saying "Obama Hates White People."
He later denied making the statement.
Just last week LePage said he wished he could shoot a Democratic state legislator in a duel after the man allegedly called the governor a racist — a charge denied by the legislator.
LePage had drawn criticism for saying at a recent town hall that more than 90 percent of drug dealers arrested in Maine are black or Hispanic. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine fired back.
"White people are statistically more likely to sell drugs than black people, yet according to the governor police in Maine are nine times more likely to arrest black people for doing so. We don't know what's behind this disparity, but we look forward to working with the governor to end any unconstitutional racial profiling that may be occurring," the organization said.
The governor eventually apologized "to the people of the state of Maine for having heard the voice mail," but defended his comments and again accused the legislator of calling him a racist. And on Wednesday LePage demanded an apology from the reporter involved in the dust-up and swore he'd never speak to the press again.