"I wish people would be more concerned about people than animals," he said. "I think if people don't want to go and see it, they won't go and see it. Very frankly, I haven't given it much thought and I'm not going to interfere."
A lesser politician would have gone on to say something appeasing to the animal advocates in the misguided belief that he could still make them love him despite having just told them to pee up a rope.
But not our governor. Cayetano speculated that rodeos would be the next target of animal rights activists.
"The next thing, you know, you won't be able to jump a bull or rope a cow or ride horses," Cayetano said. "Pretty soon, you won't be able to eat a tomato because someone once said tomatoes have feelings and they scream."
I'll take the governor's word for it that the jumping of bulls is a good thing because it's refreshing to see a politician refusing to toady to these silly causes out of fear of losing a few votes.
"How can you say it's silly?" some might ask. "You're always writing about your dog Bingo. What if he was the animal being abused?"
It's true. I love my dog and would probably react violently if somebody cruelly harmed him. Frankly, though, I can think of worse fates than traveling the country wrestling morons for the entertainment of idiots. It's good enough for Hulk Hogan.
In Washington, President Clinton was similarly disdainful when told the gay lobby might drop its support for him because he planned to sign a bill outlawing same-sex marriage.
He pointed out that he has stood up for gay rights more than any other president. Like any fair-minded person, he supported the Supreme Court decision barring discrimination against gays. But same-sex marriage is not about discrimination. It's about redefining marriage in a way that makes no sense to most Americans.
Clinton all but invited his critics to throw their support to Bob Dole, that great friend of gay Americans. He finally dismissed the matter by noting that "it's not exactly a problem that's sweeping the country."
Like Cayetano on the animal act, he wasn't going to let a side issue of little consequence distract him from the serious problems he faces. It showed he has learned something since he almost let the issue of gays in the military snuff out his presidency before it got started.
Single-issue politics is the biggest reason for the cynicism and mistrust in American public life today. We'll angrily abandon a politician we agree with on 90 percent of the issues if he or she disagrees with us - even partly - on one pet issue.
OF course, we'll never find anybody who agrees with us 100 percent of the time. By applying that impossible standard, we'll always find ourselves voting for the lesser of two evils - if we bother to vote at all. Politicians, being a generally gutless lot, fuel the cynicism by persisting in the hopeless task of trying to please everyone.
We could restore sanity to the political process by rewarding politicians who stand up to the single interests and tell them this simple fact of life: They can't have everything they want whenever they want it.
If the animal lovers think they can turn Cayetano out of office for being insufficiently sensitive to alligators, let them go for it.
