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Goldy

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Will broadcast for food

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Mr. Mark Ginther
Executive News Director
KING 5 Television
333 Dexter Ave. N
Seattle, WA 98109

Dear Mr. Ginther,

As I’m sure you agree, Robert Mak leaving KING5 News is a great loss to both the station and its audience, but every crisis presents an opportunity, and in this case it is an opportunity for KING5 to continue its proud tradition of public-affairs programming, while producing a show that you and others might actually “get.” Specifically, I humbly propose that you replace Mr. Mak… with me.

Think about it. As a freeloader on the public airwaves, you have a moral obligation (if not a legally enforceable one anymore) to serve the interests of the local community, and yet you also have a fiduciary obligation to maximize profits for your Texas-based corporate overlords. So what better way to meet both these responsibilities than by putting your 24 minutes a week of public-affairs programming in the hands of our region’s most outrageous and influential blogger?

Imagine angry shouting matches over arcane details of Washington state’s tax structure, or Democratic consultant Cathy Allen spewing an endless stream of profanity as former state GOP chair Chris Vance assaults her with a folding chair. And trust me; they’ll do it. They’re both self-promoters trolling for clients, and they’ll do just about anything to get themselves on TV.

With a nod to Mak’s legacy and a wink toward my own, I call my show Up Yours with David Goldstein, signaling KING5’s ongoing commitment to thoughtful political coverage and analysis while adopting the snarky and somewhat irreverent attitude of the Daily Show, the blogosphere and the other new media outlets that have been steadily stealing audience (and advertisers) away from traditional news organizations such as your own.

But perhaps best of all, Up Yours would provide KING5 with an affordable and stable means of fulfilling its public service requirement. Having been out of a job since losing my talk show at 710-KIRO back in January, I’m willing to work for cheap. And, you can rest assured that with me behind the desk nobody, but nobody, is going to offer $160,000 a year to lure away your host. I even have an idea for my first segment that I bet you’re going to love: a tantalizing expose on wasteful government spending. For example, did you know that Seattle bizarrely pays the mayor’s communications director a higher salary than the mayor himself?! Shocking, I know. And after we hear what Mak has to say for himself, I plan to hit him with a chair.

Now that’s showbiz.

I look forward to meeting with you at your earliest convenience to discuss this opportunity further.

Sincerely,

David Goldstein
HorsesAss.org

Grover and Me

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The Evergreen Freedom Foundation just sent me my invite via email:

Please join us
for a debate with special guest
GROVER NORQUIST
and
DAVID GOLDSTEIN
Political blogger and former KIRO radio talk show host

Monday, June 16, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Outback Steakhouse
701 Westlake Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
FREE

Please RSVP to Denise Brandt, 360.956.3482

That’s right, I get to debate neo-con, arch-villain Grover Norquist, courtesy of my good friends at the EFF. The man behind the Bush tax cuts debating a lowly, local blogger like me, at an Outback Steakhouse…? My how the mighty have fallen.

I’m expecting to have a lot of fun… especially if a few of my own supporters show up to cheer me on. So RSVP today and join me at the Outback Steakhouse for an evening of red meat, literal and otherwise.

Smart voters, stupid votes?

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The Seattle Times editorial board lauds WA’s confusing new top-two primary today, assuring us that…

Voters are smart. They will figure this primary out.

Um… are they referring to the same “smart voters” who just three days ago the Times claimed “were misled” by Initiative 297? And are these the same well-informed voters who Joni Balter says will get caught up in Obamania, to the detriment of Dino Rossi, because…

… voters who don’t know or care much about either Rossi or Gregoire will break in favor of the governor.

So… um… according to the Times, WA voters are smart enough to “figure this primary out,” but too stupid, uninformed, or uninterested to actually cast their ballots the right way. Huh.

Perhaps the Times really does think “voters are smart.” But they certainly don’t have much respect for the intelligence of their readers.

Well fuck that

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A poll of more than two thousand executives finds that 36% have issued a formal warning, and 6% have actually fired an employee for using foul language in the work place. According to the survey conducted by TheLadders.com, the five most egregious violations of workplace etiquette…?

1. Bad language (38.4%)
2. Excessive workplace gossip (36.5%)
3. Drinking on the job (35.2%)
4. Leaving the office without telling anyone (33.6%)
5. Too many personal calls (28%)

Jesus… that pretty much describes the average workday of the typical blogger.

Post Memorial Day post

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I received several emails over the weekend, from both the left and the right, suggesting (or goading) that I write a Memorial Day tribute of my own. And I would have… that is, if I had anything particularly relevant to say on the subject.

I’ve never served in the military, nor have any of my closest friends, nor anybody in my immediate family. Not my siblings nor my parents nor my grandparents nor my first or second cousins. I had a great uncle who served as an MP during World War II, guarding German prisoners of war, I believe stateside, but to my knowledge that’s about as close to combat as anyone on either side of my family has ever come. In fact, it seems clear that some of my ancestors emigrated to the U.S. specifically to avoid service in the Czar’s army.

As a child of the sixties, growing up watching the Vietnam War on TV, I vowed never to enlist, even if drafted. I would not give my life to fight what I believed to be an immoral war… and besides, I always thought I’d make such a crappy soldier that my risk of court martial for insubordination would far outweigh any chance that I’d ever do time for draft evasion. I was never a pacifist per se, but I’ve never believed in such a thing as a “just” war. Necessary perhaps, but never just.

Over the course of my 45 years I have come to know people who have served, some who even served in combat, but I’ve never known anybody who has sacrificed his life in service to our nation, nor am I aware of any close friend or relative to have lost a close friend or relative as such. The tragedy of war — Iraq, Vietnam or any other — has never directly touched my life.

I have both empathy and sympathy for those who have not been so fortunate, but my personal experience of Iraq is little different than that of Vietnam: it is something I watch on TV.

So who am I to memorialize our war dead when I know nothing of what they or their families endured? How can I adequately memorialize something for which I have no personal memory?

I am not a soldier. I do not come from a military family, nor from a cultural milieu were military service is common or even encouraged. Like President Bush and Vice-President Cheney and so many of the other hawks who foolishly led us into Iraq, I would have done almost anything to avoid military service. (The difference is, I admit it.) In this context, what words of commemoration could I have given, however heartfelt, that wouldn’t have come off as hollow?

Some of the fallen we honor each Memorial Day gave their lives willingly, others not. Some died defending freedom, others fell defending the folly or pride of their leaders. Some causes are more noble, some deaths more honorable… that is the nature of war, a nature reflected in the historical roots of Memorial Day itself, which arose after the Civil War to honor the dead of both those who defended the Union, and those who fought to preserve a Southern economy based on slavery.

While I may not know war firsthand, I know my history. I know that for every Yorktown there is a Gallipoli… for every Afghanistan there is an Iraq. The same armies that risked their lives to liberate the Nazi death camps, incinerated the city of Dresden and tens of thousands of innocent civilians—women, children, babies—with it.

I’m not a politician, and so I do not have to pin a flag to my lapel, place my hand over my heart and pretend that patriotism always trumps history or common sense. And so on Memorial Day I honored our war dead in the best way that I knew how: by keeping silent. It is simply not in me to ignore my own internal dissonance, but it would have been disrespectful to voice it on a day that means so much to families who have sacrificed so much for our nation, whatever the cause… and so much more than I myself have ever been asked to give.

Top-two sucks poo

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Oops…

Although state officials had predicted single-party contests would be rare under the new system, there could be a half-dozen legislative races this year with candidates from the same party running against each other in November.

Couldn’t see that one coming, could you?  In fact, I’m surprised it’s only a half-dozen legislative races.

Supporters of the top-two primary, like Sec. of State Sam Reed, keep arguing that it offers voters more choice.  Well, in the 36th LD, the district highlighted in the article, voters will be given the choice this November between a progressive Democrat and a liberal Democrat.

How’s that working out for you, Sam?

Gov. Gregoire honors veterans on HuffPo

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With posts to first Daily Kos and now The Huffington Post, Gov. Chris Gregoire is beginning to get into this blogging thing:

As Memorial Day approaches, I encourage all of you to take the time to honor our fallen veterans. Sadly more than 100 Washington men and women have died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mike and I have tried to attend every funeral service for Washington’s fallen soldiers, and we will continue our commitment to honoring these brave individuals by showing their families that we acknowledge their tragic loss.

And unlike the Bush administration, Gov. Gregoire provides both talk and action when it comes to supporting our troops, signing 47 pieces of legislation regarding veterans and their families during her first term, more than any other governor in state history.

Read the whole thing.

Unarmed and dangerous

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The Seattle Times has the story of 41-year-old Pauline Goldmeier, who chased down a group of teens stealing her $500.00 mountain bike, eventually leading to the arrest and detainment of three of the five suspects.

When Pauline Goldmeier pulled up to her Seward Park home last week and saw a group of teens making off with her $500 mountain bike, something snapped.

She’d been the victim of a carjacking, a kidnapping and uncounted incidents of vandalism, but that day she’d had enough.

“They had no idea whose bike they were stealing,” said the 41-year-old legal secretary and mother of two. “I’ve had a lot of things happen to me, and I’m tired of it.”

Good for Goldmeier.  But imagine how differently this incident might have ended had Goldmeier, as so many on the right advocate, been armed at the time “something snapped” …?

I’m just sayin’.

Sometimes it’s better not to speak your mind

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Oy…

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly apologized Friday after citing the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as a reason to remain in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination despite increasingly long odds.

“I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever,” the former first lady said.

The episode occurred as Clinton campaigned in advance of the June 3 South Dakota primary.

Responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race, she said: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race

Yes, it was offensive, and yes, it was an awfully dumb thing to say. And while yes, she was quick to apologize, yes, she should have worded her apology more directly.

But honestly… it’s true. Who doesn’t fear for Obama’s safety above that of the typical candidate, and why wouldn’t that thought enter into Clinton’s calculation? I’ve always assumed that one of her reasons for sticking with this so doggedly—however small—is the desire to lay undisputed claim to the nomination should anything, scandalous or tragic, happen to Obama.

You don’t come out and say it—that was a fuck up—but you can’t blame her for thinking it.

WaPo: Reichert is 2nd most vulnerable House Republican

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The Washington Post’s top political handicapper Chris Cillizza has updated his list of House seats likely to change party hands in November, and look what makes the top twenty:

19. WA-08 (GOP-held): Rep. Dave Reichert (R) is a very strong candidate but the demographics of this Seattle-area district are trending in the wrong direction for the incumbent. Democrat Darcy Burner came within 7,000 votes of beating Reichert in 2006 and is back for a rematch. Reichert could do everything right in the next five months and still lose. (Previous ranking: N/A)

Keep in mind that 13 of the races ahead of WA-08 are for open seats, and that Cillizza ranks Reichert as the second most likely Republican incumbent to lose his seat. And this analysis coming from a guy who thinks Reichert a “very strong candidate.” (Perhaps Cillizza was just referring to Reichert’s biceps?)

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