Goldy

As a junior member of the minority party, and the 419th most powerful congressman in the U.S. House, Rep. Dave Reichert has a lot more opportunity these days to exercise his mighty biceps than he does his puny political influence. So on those few occasions when he is given the chance to play a role in current events, it is instructive to see what he does with it.

With the U.S. attorneys scandal metastasizing around him, the task of recommending John McKay’s replacement fell squarely on Reichert’s broad shoulders, and he responded with the kind of bold competence we’ve come to expect from the brawny “Sheriff” who had Gary Ridgeway firmly in his grasp, but on a hunch, let him continue murdering women for another 18 years. I’ve already remarked on the candidate at the top of the list, former congressman Rick White, a lapsed bankruptcy attorney with little courtroom and zero prosecutorial experience. Sure, he isn’t even eligible to practice law in Washington state (or, um, anywhere,) but he’s a loyal Republican, and that’s really all that counts, huh?

Now attention is turning to another of Reichert’s nominees, acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan, McKay’s number two, and the former longtime Yakima County Prosecutor. Scuttlebutt is that Sullivan would be the safe choice — an experienced prosecutor, (again) a loyal, machine Republican… and a man who once referred to undocumented immigrants back in Yakima as “wetbacks.”

Hmm. I wonder how that racial slur goes over with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales?

By all accounts, Sullivan has his supporters in WA’s legal community, but he has his detractors as well. He is widely disliked in the Yakima Nation for aggressively fighting their efforts to battle alcoholism by taxing or banning alcohol on their reservation. And victim-advocacy groups still cringe at a policy he started in 1979, that required rape victims to take lie-detector tests.

And while he can boast three decades of prosecutorial experience, Sullivan’s very last case as Yakima County Prosecutor didn’t go so well:

In a blistering decision, a Yakima County Superior Court judge has accused the county prosecutor’s office of misconduct and dismissed a murder-conspiracy case it was hoping to try a second time.

[…] “The state’s misconduct prejudiced the defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel,” Judge Susan Hahn wrote in her ruling.

But then, a prosecutor admonished from the bench for withholding evidence from the defense might be exactly the kind of “team player” the White House is looking for.

And then there’s Reichert’s third nominee, Mike Vaska. An experienced litigator and prosecutor widely respected on both sides of the aisle, Vasca ruffled party feathers by challenging the annointed Rob McKenna in the 2004 GOP Attorney General primary. He doesn’t stand a chance.

It wouldn’t surprise me if none of Reichert’s three candidates gets the job. Nice work Dave.

I find it curious that Republican blog-parrots keep scoffing at the idea that the U.S. attorneys firings represent any sort of scandal, at the same time the key players involved keep resigning in disgrace::

Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions.

[…] Republican sources also disclosed that it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly.

[…] “We have a crisis where there doesn’t need to be one, and now Democrats have an issue where they can open up the subpoena floodgates,” said an exasperated Republican aide. “Once these investigations start, there always ends up being a lot of messy collateral damage.”

“Messy collateral damage” because investigations like this tend to uncover the truth.

We all knew that Rev. Ken Hutcherson was a documented liar. Now, thank’s once again to The Stranger’s Eli Sanders, we now know that Hutcherson still is a liar.

From the Guardian:

His hands were bleeding and his eyes filled with tears as, four years ago, he slammed a sledgehammer into the tiled plinth that held a 20ft bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Then Kadhim al-Jubouri spoke of his joy at being the leader of the crowd that toppled the statue in Baghdad’s Firdous Square. Now, he is filled with nothing but regret.

The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator. Wearing a black vest, Mr al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifting champion, pounded through the concrete in an attempt to smash the statue and all it meant to him. Now, on the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, he says: “I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day.”

Anti-war marches are scheduled for 3 PM today at both Westlake Park (4th & Pine) and the Federal Courthouse (700 Stewart St.) The two groups will eventually merge at the Henry Jackson Federal Building, 915 Second Ave.

As I reported on Saturday, a Public Disclosure Commission investigation confirmed that King County Republicans had committed major reporting violations during 2006 — the KCRCC filed 56 late reports, and failed to provide employer and occupation information for 90-percent of their big donors. In fact, the reporting violations were so numerous and so serious that PDC staff recommended referring the investigation to the state Attorney General’s office “because the remedies the Commission could impose statutorily are insufficient given the number and significance of the apparent violations.”

The Seattle Times David Postman picks up the story this morning on his blog, but I find it more than a bit surprising that our local papers have gone to press three times since the report was issued Friday afternoon, without a single column inch of coverage. Compare that to the amount of ink the Times alone devoted to similar reporting violations committed by the state Democratic Party:

• Dems admit mistakes to PDC
• Disclosure lapses cost state Democrats $150,000
• Panel: Punish Democrats for violations
• Agency slams Democrats for tardy reporting of campaign donations
• PDC says Democrats broke finance laws

And that wasn’t even an exhaustive search.

I’m just sayin’…

Still recovering from your post St. Patty’s Day hangover? Tune in for a little “hair of the blog that bit you” tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: Who (or what) won the Viaduct vote?
A lot of pundits and politicians say the big winner in Tuesday’s election was the one option that was not on the ballot. The Stranger’s Erica C. Barnett was the first local reporter to cover the surface-plus-transit alternative, and she’ll be joining me in the studio for an analysis of the vote, a first-hand report from the big Olympia press conference the next day, and a discussion of our region’s broader transportation issues in general.

8PM: Blogger roundup!
Fellow HA blogger Will joins me in the studio for a roundup of this week’s news.

9PM: TBA

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

A longtime advisor on Al Gore:

“He has lost a few pounds, and Hillary can read into that what she wants,”

I’ll be having a happy but way too sober St. Patty’s Day celebration tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: Will WA’s 2004 contested election bring down US AG Alberto Gonzales?
Attorney Jenny Durkan was a key member of the legal team that successfully defended the legitimacy of our 2004 gubernatorial election, and she’ll be joining me at the top of the hour to discuss the growing scandal surrounding the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, why it matters, and how this scandal and the 2004 election dispute might all be linked. Was the Bush administration subverting our justice system for partisan political purposes? Call in and let me know what you think.

8PM: Is the state Democratic Party undemocratic?
A bill was introduced in the state legislature this week to cancel our April presidential primary and have the parties choose all their delegates through caucuses. Does this shut most people out of the primary system, or encourage voters to get involved and participate? Is a crowded room of neighbors arguing and debating less democratic than a TV advertising fueled beauty pageant?

9PM: TBA

Plus, occasional live reports from my half-Irish daughter Katie on her family’s annual St. Patty’s Day bash down in Olympia.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

It is hard to believe this didn’t make the local papers, but the Public Disclosure Commission issued a report yesterday citing the King County Republican Central Committee of numerous and serious reporting violations, and recommending action by the state Attorney General.

Staff Recommendation — The investigation conducted by PDC staff demonstrates multiple apparent violations during 2006 by KCRCC of RCW 42.17.080, 42.17.090, and WAC 390-16-034. Staff recommends that in accordance with RCW 42.17.360(5) and 42.17.395, the Commission report the apparent violations to the Attorney General’s Office. The staff recommendation is appropriate because the remedies the Commission could impose statutorily are insufficient given the number and significance of the apparent violations.

The PDC investigation — prompted by a formal complaint filed by Republican gadfly and HA regular Richard Pope — concluded that the KCRCC filed a total of 56 reports from 5 to 306 days late, many of them after the election in question, and failed to provide required employer and occupation data for 90-percent of the 114 contributors giving over $100. Lacking the statutory power to adequately penalize the KCRCC for such pronounced and prolonged violations, the staff recommends handing the investigation over to the AG’s office for further action.

I’m not sure what argument the KCRCC could use in its defense — either they were grossly incompetent or willfully heedless of the law. Or both. So considering the severity of the violations — and the reputation AG Rob McKenna is attempting to carve for himself as “Mr. Sunshine” — I would expect the AG’s office to uphold the integrity of our public disclosure statutes by levying a six-figure fine.

I have an email correspondence going on with AG Rob McKenna’s office on a number of questions regarding former U.S. Attorney John McKay, and what if any role McKenna might have played in both the dismissal and the search for a replacement. McKenna’s communications people are good. Their response was prompt, concise and deftly worded in a way that does not exactly provide a direct answer to some of my questions. I’ll report back after they reply to my follow-up.

To be fair, McKenna was heading out to Montesano and Grays Harbor this morning, so my answers were provided secondhand by Communications Director Janelle Guthrie. But she did manage to offer one direct quote from her boss:

“We had a good relationship with John McKay. He was an excellent attorney, highly respected by other prosecutors as well. I think President Bush made a mistake.”

Hmm. I didn’t actually ask what McKenna thought about McKay’s job performance or President Bush’s decision to fire him, so the fact that he chose to offer his opinion unprompted is telling. (Not to mention a display of political savvy that is apparently beyond the reach of fellow Republican Dave Reichert.) For by publicly defending McKay and criticizing Bush, McKenna would appear to be separating himself from both the widening scandal, and the slow-motion implosion of the Bush administration itself.

But taken at his word, his statement also does something else that I hope levelheaded voters will take to heart: it hammers yet another nail in the coffin of the oft-repeated GOP meme that Democrats somehow stole the 2004 gubernatorial election.

As the New York Times points out in an editorial today, “phony fraud charges” were at the center of the U.S. attorney firings:

In its fumbling attempts to explain the purge of United States attorneys, the Bush administration has argued that the fired prosecutors were not aggressive enough about addressing voter fraud. It is a phony argument; there is no evidence that any of them ignored real instances of voter fraud.

[…] John McKay, one of the fired attorneys, says he was pressured by Republicans to bring voter fraud charges after the 2004 Washington governor’s race, which a Democrat, Christine Gregoire, won after two recounts. Republicans were trying to overturn an election result they did not like, but Mr. McKay refused to go along. “There was no evidence,” he said, “and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury.”

So if McKenna, fully aware of McKay’s public comments, is now vouching for McKay’s performance and criticizing his firing… isn’t he also vouching for the integrity of the 2004 gubernatorial election?

McKay refused to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury, which is of course exactly what many Republicans wanted him to do. That is what the EFF’s Bob Williams and the BIAW’s Tom McCabe angrily demanded. That is what all six Republicans on the King County Council demanded when they wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. That is what our friend Stefan at (un)Sound Politics continues to demand today. When then-WSRP Chair Chris Vance describes speaking with McKay and complaining to the White House, he appears incredulous that good Republicans wouldn’t subvert our supposedly impartial judicial system for partisan political purposes:

“We had a Republican secretary of state, a Republican prosecutor in King County and a Republican U.S. attorney, and no one was doing anything.”

Not to mention a Republican state Attorney General, Rob McKenna. In 2004 the entire investigative, prosecutorial and administrative apparatus was controlled by loyal Republicans, and yet there were no indictments, there were no prosecutions, and there were no grand juries. Why? For the same reason a cherry-picked judge in a Republican county dismissed “with prejudice” all allegations of fraud: there was no evidence.

I believe a sort of mass psychosis set in to our state’s Republican establishment in the wake of Dino Rossi’s incredibly close and understandably frustrating loss to Gov. Chris Gregoire — a mindset of dark thoughts in which party stalwarts cynically determined that absolutely everything and anything was possible at the hands of their enemies across the aisle… and that absolutely everything and anything was permissible in response. Fed by the paranoid fantasies of the right-wing blogs, and the ruthless partisanship of the BIAW and EFF, the state GOP not only pursued a hopeless legal contest, but set in motion a series of events that ultimately led to McKay’s firing. The WSRP made the biggest political mistake possible — it came to believe its own propaganda — and in so doing played a major role in instigating a national scandal that threatens Gonzales himself, and further tarnishes the Republican brand.

“President Bush made a mistake.” Absolutely, and in more ways than one. It remains to be seen if McKenna’s efforts to separate himself from this mistake after the fact are entirely supported by the record of his own actions and statements at the time.

Of course I was only joking when I suggested that Rep. Dave Reichert should recommend “Major” to replace John McKay as U.S. attorney for Western Washington. That would be ridiculous. Major doesn’t even live in Western Washington, and like Rick White, he isn’t currently eligible to practice law in the state. And, oh yeah… he’s a dog.

But if Reichert really wants to live up to the Seattle Times’ absurd assertion that he possesses “a conscience-driven independent streak,” then I have a serious suggestion that would not only put the U.S. attorney’s office in the hands of perhaps the most qualified candidate out there, but would absolutely cement our local media’s love affair with the notion that Reichert is a political moderate. Reichert should recommend replacing McKay with a candidate who has years of prosecutorial experience, a demonstrated respect for the Constitution, and an unchallenged reputation for rising above the political fray. Reichert should nominate John McKay.

Really.

Politicians are often faced with a choice between good policy and political expedience, but this is one of those rare occasions when doing the right thing would also qualify as a stunning act of political savvy. Think about it. Who is best qualified to fill out the final two years of the term? A six-year U.S. attorney with excellent performance reviews, or a one-time bankruptcy attorney with expired credentials who would have to bone up on the legal profession itself, let alone learn the job on the job? If Reichert wants to nominate the best qualified candidate, McKay is the hands-down winner.

Plus, a McKay nomination would not only inoculate Reichert from the growing scandal surrounding Gonzales, Rove and the teetering Bush administration, it would in a single stroke forever establish his credentials as the conscience-driven independent he pretends to be. A Republican congressman sticking it to the Justice Department like that would make national headlines, while transforming Reichert into a local hero.

From a purely political perspective, it would be fucking brilliant. Which I suppose explains why you’re more likely to see Reichert nominate Major than McKay.

UPDATE:
Dave Neiwert at Orcinus is also calling for John McKay’s name to be resubmitted.

Rep. Dave Reichert
US House of Representatives
1223 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Rep. Reichert,

I understand that you have submitted three candidates to the White House as a replacement for John McKay as U.S. attorney for Western Washington, and while I understand that at least two of the candidates have adequate legal credentials, I fear that in conducting your search you may have overlooked the most important qualification: loyalty.

It wasn’t McKay’s legal expertise or prosecutorial skills or even his investigative shortcomings that cost him his job (hell, it’s not like it took him 18 years to catch a serial killer who was a prime suspect from day one,) it was his lack of loyalty that got him fired. What President Bush and your fellow Republicans need most in this office is not a top-notch legal mind, but a faithful and loyal companion.

And who could be more faithful and loyal than Major, who is not only looking for a new home, but could use a high-paying government job as well? Here is his CV:

Hi, I am Major. Well yes I do know I am gorgeous but please… try not to gush. I am indeed a big friendly golden boy but be aware I do have just a touch of a stubborn attitude (perhaps there is some chow in me?) and I just might believe that I am as smart as you are. I do have a great sense of humor and will prefer that in my human as well. Other dogs are great but I am really more of a people dog. If you are looking for a loving, devoted, intelligent companion I am your man. Take me home and lets make mischief together.

Yeah, sure, Major might believe that he’s smarter than you, but then who doesn’t? And you yourself can attest to how being a “big friendly golden boy” can take you far in politics.

So please, add Major to your list of candidates for U.S. attorney. Major desperately needs a new home, and Attorney General Gonzales desperately needs a loving, devoted companion, who enjoys making mischief. It’s a perfect match.

Respectfully yours,

Goldy

UPDATE:
When in the above letter I quipped that “at least two” of the candidates were qualified, I was of course implying that Rick White was not. Well, HA regular Richard Pope has more on that in the comment thread, pointing out that White was suspended from practicing law in 2003, and is currently not eligible to practice law in Washington state.

But he is a loyal Republican, and really, that’s all that matters.

Via Kos:

I saw this Saturday night on Mad TV, and I gotta admit it took me a moment to catch on to the joke. I was hoping somebody would put it up on YouTube, so quick… watch it before Fox has it pulled.

Well, duh-uh…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military for the first time Wednesday said in a new report that some of the violence in Iraq can be described as a civil war.

In its bleakest assessment of the war to date, a quarterly Pentagon report said that last October through December was the most violent three-month period since 2003. Attacks and casualties suffered by coalition and Iraqi forces and civilians were higher than any other similar time span, said the report.

Tim Eyman and I met with the Seattle P-I editorial board this morning to discuss initiative reform. I don’t think he likes me. Was it something I said?

The P-I describes the confrontation as “Initiative Fireworks!” Listen to the podcast and judge for yourself.

Tim asked for the meeting, but apparently expressed some reluctance once he learned I would be representing the opposing view. So I want to personally thank you Tim, for keeping our date — I’m always happy to let you ride my coattails.