Gov. Butch Otter’s office said today that Otter didn’t mean comments he made about sage grouse in a speech earlier this week to be taken seriously, and he is not taking the position that it’d be better for the sage grouse to be listed as an endangered species. He's been critical of new federal rules that accompanied the decision not to list, and is challenging those rules in court. “It was tongue-in-cheek,” Otter’s spokesman, Jon Hanian, said today. “What he was expressing was his frustration, because in his view he feels the feds pulled a sleight of hand by imposing extremely restrictive management provisions in lieu of a listing, but in actual practice on the ground, (it) amounts to the same thing”/Betsy Russell, Eye on Boise. More here.

Question: Is it OK for the governor to kid about such things?