“When he said that, it was just a figure of speech. He is very concerned about the infrastructure, the environment and all the other impacts Guam will face with the buildup,” Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo told the Rotary Club of Northern Guam on Monday.
If anything, Bordallo said, Johnson’s comment brought more attention to Guam, and “that’s a good thing.”
She noted that Johnson was part of a congressional delegation that came to Guam last year.
“I do get teased a great deal on the attention given to Guam and they all understand how important we are to this region,” Bordallo added.
‘Metaphor’
The two-term Democratic congressman from Georgia expressed his concern during a recent House Armed Services hearing on the 2011 National Defense Authorization Budget requests from the U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Forces Korea.
He noted that Guam is a very small island and with the anticipated population increase of 80,000 for the military buildup, his “fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”
While he was making his statement, Johnson made hand gestures suggesting a ship tipping over into the sea.
Johnson later said his statement was a metaphor.
“I wasn’t suggesting that the island of Guam would literally tip over,” he said.
Johnson said he was “using a metaphor” to describe how adding more military personnel to the tiny island “could be a tipping point which could adversely affect the island’s fragile ecosystem and could overburden its stressed infrastructure.”
Further, Johnson said, “the subtle humor of this obviously metaphorical reference to a ship capsizing illustrated my concern about the impact of the planned military buildup on this small tropical island.”
Since the exchange last Friday, the congressman’s comment has become the most viewed viral video over the past 24 hours. Since it was posted online late on Wednesday, the video gathered over 800,000 hits on YouTube.
Real issue
Republican Sen. Ray Tenorio, who attended the Rotary luncheon, said the attention gained by Johnson’s comments “provides an opportunity to highlight Guam’s infrastructure needs and that our island deserves a greater share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.”
Democratic Sen. Judi Guthertz, chairwoman of the military buildup committee, wrote to Johnson, saying that whether or not his comment was a subtle joke or an unfortunate choice of words, he was still on the right track.
“Your attention is on the real issue, that of how many is too many when it comes to relocating our Marines from Okinawa to Guam,” Guthertz wrote.
She thanked the congressman for raising public consciousness about Guam and the buildup.
“Thanks to CNN and CBS, millions are now aware of Guam and know that a multitude of Marines are headed this way which could conceivably overwhelm our island.”
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