Gaw-aw-aw-lee Andy, look at all ’em tall buildin’s may have been what the governor of Tennessee really murmured as he visited Shanghai

“Shanghai by night. Wow! We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. You couldn’t possibly believe this unless you saw it with your own eyes. I didn’t know a place like this existed in the world.”

This is what the official record reports Governor Bredesen said as he led a delegation down the river.

He didn’t know a place like this existed in the world.

Read that again.

Forget the fact that the governor of TENNESSEE said he wasn’t in KANSAS.

The governor of a state in the mid-south hasn’t ever seen National Geographic or the Travel Channel or Forbes or USA Today. I’ll bet there have been hundreds of stories written about how Shanghai is the hub of commerce in that area.

I know a person who went to China on a church mission, and he told me about Shanghai.

“Shanghai is to commerce as Las Vegas is to gambling.”

You Governor Gomer are to worldliness as Larry the Cable Guy is to rocket science.

I hope the bloggers in Nashville have a field day with his shock and awe.

What a doofus.

UPDATE: He moved from doofus to just plain stupid (emphasis mine:)

I have now spent a day in Beijing. The scale, the energy, the focus of this place is astonishing. I’ve thought of China as a giant, poor third world country (remember those Chinese coolies who built the railroads?) now charging onto the industrial stage for the first time.

Yeah, just like the wetbacks who are working here now, stifle yourself Governor Bunker (as in Archie)?