Save the Ronald Reagan spotted owl

Hunter at Daily Kos has a brilliant idea for getting conservatives to care about the environment:

Currently, [no conservative] gives two twigs over the fate of the endangered northern spotted owl. It has the unfortunate habit of nesting in some prime timberlands (of which there is increasingly little, these days); that is enough to declare it an excess species, one of those nagging, irrelevant categories of animals that nobody would really miss, at least not as long as they were getting Pacific coast lumber at the lowest possible clearcut price. But would it be so easy, if it were named the Ronald Reagan spotted owl? Somehow, I think finding one of those dead in the chimney would cause a conservative far more sorrow, and the notion of wiping the Ronald Reagan owl from the face of the earth — now, that would require much more thought.

Similarly, gray wolves reintroduced around Yellowstone (where they had been extinct for a half century) are having a difficult time, at the moment. Few ranchers or farmers like the thought of wolves strolling across their property, possibly laying primal-but-illegal claim to wayward animals. But what if they were not gray wolves, but Freedom wolves? Would it be so easy to shoot a Freedom wolf in the face, or poison a Freedom wolf with tainted bait? I think not. It would be practically unpatriotic: it would be something al Qaeda would do to our wolves, not a fine, upstanding conservative. [...]

Kudzu, an invasive vine, has changed the very landscape of the southern United States. It has seemed undefeatable for decades, and is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in losses each year. I propose we change the balance of power by renaming it Aztlan, and sending the Minutemen after it.

My own county, in northern California, is well and truly overwhelmed by invasive starthistle. It has sharp spines and spreads like wildfire: if we rename it Muslimweed, we may be able to enlist federal support in battling it. Hitlerbeetles; the Woolly Ahmadinejad; partialbirthabortovine... with a little inventiveness, the list could go on and on.