Right after former president Donald Trump was shot through his ear, the TV camera panned to a fairly normal looking young woman giving the “finger” to the camera and mouthing obscene words to viewers. I knew then that this event was going to have a sad effect on Trump supporters and also would not in any way help the political atmosphere in my America. I knew we were to go through some rough times in America as news of this tragic event settled across America.

Ryan Walters soon stepped up to confirm he too still likes to stick his foot in his mouth. Belying any efforts he might have made to promote his Christian faith Walters said: “The left. The liberal media and the radical extremists of Joe Biden’s party tried to assassinate President Donald Trump. They tried to politically assassinate him through the judicial system. It did not work so they have resorted to actual violence.”

In time we, the American people will read all about the shooter, any help he may have had, which gun laws he may have violated as he took his AR-15 and shot at and hit Trump in his ear. One spectator also was hit and died, another wounded. It was startling to me to hear Walters, once again, cause the “Oklahoma Standard” to look lowered and be dragged through the mud.

Walters reminds me of a long-ago politician who, like Walters, could be happily forgotten. I speak of a guy named William Henry David Murray. Murray was able quite often to say and do a lot of foolish things. The problem with William (Alfalfa Bill) Murray was that he had been able to somehow convince enough people to vote for him that he was elected governor of Oklahoma in 1931. Murray virtually wrote the Constitution of Oklahoma (1906) but level heads in congress along with President Theodore Roosevelt rejected the embarrassingly racist document and only after it was cleaned up to comply with existing civil rights laws granted by the US Constitution was Oklahoma finally admitted to the Union.

Murray and some of his cohorts quickly did an end run on Congress and wrote segregation of blacks and whites right back into our constitution. Segregation of the blacks and separate schools was then here to stay for several decades. To be brief, Alfalfa Bill’s racist leadership helped put all Oklahomans in the “back of the bus” so to speak. And there we remained for so many years. Murray’s platforms included his hatred of Business. His slogan was that he was against “Corporations-Carpetbaggers and Coons.”

Alfalfa Bill made Oklahoma the laughingstock of America when he called out the Oklahoma National Guard 47 times to enforce his laws, his ideas and anything that he didn’t like. He didn’t even like how the University of Oklahoma handled their football ticket sales—and yes— he sent the guard to Norman on football days to supervise ticket sales. He nearly got Oklahoma into a shooting war with Texas Rangers over a toll bridge on SH75 across the Red River. What a show that was for “Alfalfa” Bill. Thankfully no one got hurt. Just our Oklahoma pride.

It’s taken years for hardworking Oklahomans to regain traction and get our Sooner State back in the mainstream of economic and political life. Now Joe Biden is off the democrat ticket. It’s for sure not a time to tolerate this same sort of “Alfalfa Bill Murray” type of behavior by our Secretary of Education. These are interesting times we live in.

Have a good week and be sure and attend your church this Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com