AP reporter Dave Ammons retired yesterday after 37 years at the Olympia bureau, and since his colleagues in the Capitol press corps are all paying tribute to him, I thought I’d post a little tribute of my own.
Ammons hasn’t always been a popular reporter amongst my fellow progressive activists, largely due to the lavish attention he’s heaped on Tim Eyman over the years, but even if Ammons played a significant role in making Eyman’s public career, I’ve always held a special fondness for him because, well… he made mine too.
It was Rich Roesler at the Spokesman-Review who first broke the story of my initiative to proclaim Tim Eyman a horse’s ass, but it was Ammons’ relentless coverage that drove the story to statewide and even national headlines for months, long after my fifteen minutes of fame should have expired. It was also Ammon’s AP Olympia bureau that, in the weeks following the 2004 gubernatorial election, anointed me “the liberal blogger” when they needed a partisan counterpoint to the sudden (u)SP juggernaut.
Political reporting can be godawful boring, but Ammons had an eye for characters like me and Tim who could catch the public’s attention, and he was matter-of-fact about the role he and his colleagues play in promoting the agendas of the people they cover. One day, a few weeks into the unexpected chaos of the I-831 campaign, my phone rings and the voice at the other end jovially announces, “Hi, it’s Dave Ammons… your personal publicist.” Of course, promoting me and my joke initiative was never the motive behind Ammons’ attentiveness, but unlike some of his more stuffy colleagues, Ammons never seemed shy about the symbiotic relationship between political reporters and their subjects.
Having a little bit of insight into the sausage factory that is journalism, I have always considered Ammons’ coverage to be fair, even when not particularly balanced, for while the progressive community may rightly complain that our efforts and issues routinely received short shrift compared to Eyman and his follies, it was not Ammons’ bias that was to blame, but rather our failure to give him a good enough story. And in the end, telling a good story is what every genre of writing—even journalism—is really all about.
Best of luck on your new endeavors Dave. And thanks.
I notice Mr. Eyeman is cultivating a more manly, rugged, and studiedly casual look these days — ever since he was accused on this blog of appearing, shall we say, a bit too tidy and ‘put together’ for a guy.
His hair is no longer plastered to his head and perfectly parted, a la ‘Alfalfa Style’.
I see now where he is planning on going to work for Republican Sam Reed. Considering the tilt of his writing, that’s where he belongs.
Ammons wrote a column recently, I think it was last week, about the gubernatorial race that was extremely biased in favor of Rossi. I guess he was getting some last licks in.
All I can say about Dave Repub is good riddance.
Goldy is right to point out that Dave really served as the chief publicist for Tim Eyman and his initiatives. In that role, Ammons can claim much credit for the pervasive divisiveness and dumbed down politics of Eyman, starting in the late 1990s, and continuing today – although the GOP seems to be distancing itself from Eyman these days too because they aren’t winning being joined at the hip with a jerk.
But it wouldn’t be fair to Ammons to just peg him with that role. He did many other things extremely well and just happens to be one of the nicest guys around. Dave, in the end, is bigger than the Eyman stupidities and even through the misadventure, he comes out of the AP with a record of performance and relationships few can match.
He did all this while enduring a few big jerks that came through the AP bureaus around over the last few decades.
Out-of-context, goldy said”
“I’ve always held a special fondness for him because, well… he made mine too.”
This is a career?? Blogging is a career?
Politically Incorrect @4,
Not much of one from an income perspective, but a career nonetheless.
OK, if you say so…
Hey Dave–
Before you retire you should have reported this about Gregoire’s “leadership” team:
THE “A” TEAM
Office of Financial Management Director VICTOR MOORE, $163,056
Department of Transportation Secretary PAULA HAMMOND, $163,056
Department of Social and Health Services Secretary ROBIN ARNOLD WILLIAMS, $163,056
THE “A-” TEAM
National Guard (Military Department) commander Gen. TIMOTHY LOWENBERG, $151,347
Higher Education Coordinating Board Executive Director ANN DALEY, $151,704
Department of Ecology Director JAY MANNING, $147,000
Department of Corrections Secretary ELDON VAIL, $147,000
FAIR TO MIDDLIN’
Department of Health Secretary MARY SELECKY, $141,549
Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development Director JULIE WILKERSON, $141,549
Department of Fish & Wildlife Director JEFF KOENINGS, $141,549
Department of Information Services Director GARY ROBINSON, $141,549
Deparatment of Revenue Director CINDI HOLMSTROM, $141,549
Department of Personnel Director EVA SANTOS, $141,549
Employment Security Commissioner KAREN LEE, $141,552
State Patrol Chief JOHN BATISTE, $141,552
STRUGGLING TO MAKE ENDS MEET
Department of Labor and Industries Director JUDY SCHURKE, $139,320
Department of Early Learning Director JONE BOSWORTH, $139,320
ELIGIBLE FOR FOOD STAMPS
Department of Agriculture Director VALORIA LOVELAND, $122,478
Parks and Recreation Commission Director REX DERR, $120,579
Utilities and Transportation Commission Chairman MARK SIDRAN, $120,579
Lottery Director CHRISTOPHER LIU, $120,579
Department of Financial Institutions Director SCOTT JARVIS, $120,576
Department of Retirement Systems Director SANDY MATHESON, $120,576
Department of Veterans Affairs Director JOHN LEE, $120,583
Department of Licensing Director LIZ LUCE, $120,588
Department of General Administration Director LINDA BREMER, $120,587
Health Care Authority Administrator STEVEN HILL, $120,588
PARTTIME WORKER (NO HEALTH COVERAGE)
Liquor Control Board Chairwoman LORRAINE LEE, (at 60%), $56,990
This is merely the BASE salaries.
Add AT LEAST 50 for Retirement; Health, Dental & Vision Insurance; Other Benefits, PAID Holidays, PAID Sick Leave & PAID Vacations.
Not to mention overhead & expense accounts.
Don’t taxpayers have a right to know the TOTAL COMPENSATION PACKAGE’s of the Gregoire “leadership” team??????????????
Ammons, by reason of his role in helping to launch your career, can take indirect credit for helping to rid FEMA of Brownie. Of course, the primary credit for that belongs to you, Goldy — and also more than a little bit to your sources and also to some degree to the MSM mavens who picked up the story after you exposed Brown’s background.
@4 Goldy’s career is saving our precious America from you fucktards. Blogging is merely the means by which he’s doing it.
@6 Churchill wasn’t particularly well paid, either. There isn’t necessarily a correlation between compensation and the value to society of the services that one renders.
@7 Cripes, you can’t hire a CEO’s driver for that anymore. These days, most CEOs go for $10 million a year and up. Some cost more than the 520 bridge.
What is it with you Republicans that you think public servants shouldn’t be paid; that only people who pursue private profit at the expense of the public interest deserve to be paid for what they do?
Not that you’re always wrong. George W. Bush, for example, isn’t worth one cent of the salary we pay him. He’s Kerry Killinger to the millionth power. Like Killinger, he should be fired and forced to pay reparations.
I’d like to see any private, for-profit business larger than a lemonade stand try to hire a chief executive for $120,000 to $163,000 a year. Public servants are grossly underpaid, and they do us a lot more good and inflict a lot less damage on our well-being than most private sector managers.
@7 (continued) The state agency head salaries you listed are approximately the same as what the Bush administration pays to private-sector mercenaries in Iraq with your tax dollars. Of course, they pay our soldiers quite a bit less because of their ideological hatred for public servants of all stripes including soldiers.
So … the Bushies use tax dollars to pay gun-totin’ “contractors” $150,000 a year to shoot unarmed Iraqi civilians, and Bush-apologists like Cynical bitch about paying state agency heads $120,000 to $163,000 a year to supervise anywhere from several dozen to several thousand employees …
Ain’t that just like a wingnut.
Maybe the best thing to do with wingnuts is tag their phone lines so that when they call a public entity to request a service, no one answers. If they need firemen or cops or paramedics, let ’em deal with it themselves. And, above all, let’s make them fight their wars themselves.
@7 (continued) Oh yeah, I almost forgot — speaking as a retired public servant, fuck you and your ilk, Cynical. I’m tired of the bleatings of ingrates like you and I’m soooo glad I don’t have to put up with it anymore.
11. Roger Rabbit spews:
“@7 Cripes, you can’t hire a CEO’s driver for that anymore. These days, most CEOs go for $10 million a year and up. Some cost more than the 520 bridge. What is it with you Republicans that you think public servants shouldn’t be paid.”
ROG
I figured this would strike a raw nerve with you. What I have a problem with is putting Political Allies with little or no experience in these key positions. Back-scratching.
Have you ever looked at some of the resumes of these puffed up Bureaucrats??
Example, Victor Moore was paid a meager $95,000 a year when he worked for the state House of Representatives.
I don’t mind seeing Public Money go to highly skilled people. Butg most of them have surrounded themselves with massive, costly bureaucracies…with no incentive to trim or flatten the organizational chart.
Need a strong dose of OUTPUT analysis of these agencies. How many are doing things just
“cuz we’ve always done it that way”.
Too much stagnation & waaaaaaaaaaay too many career bureaucrats courtesy of 28 years of Democratic rule. Need Rossi in there to clean house & shake things up.
15. Roger Rabbit spews:
‘Maybe the best thing to do with wingnuts is tag their phone lines so that when they call a public entity to request a service, no one answers. If they need firemen or cops or paramedics, let ‘em deal with it themselves.’
Bad example Rog. I support funding Public Safety and Infrastructure. PERIOD!
Roger,
You’re the fucktard. You’re the one with the IQ of a rabbit. You admitted that yourself in a previous thread.
BTW, are you sure that respiratory disease ain’t fatal?
Goldy, you might be pissing away some good earnings years here, and that’s OK as long as you realize what you’re doing. Don’t piss and moan when you’re 65 and don’t have shit for retirement. And, for Pete’s sake, don’t take encouragement from dildos like Roger. He doesn’t give a shit if you live in poverty in your old age or not. He’s got his and doesn’t give a shit about anybody else, but he likes to pretend he’s truly “progressive” and “liberal” and “good.” He’s a fucking hack failed attorney, that’s all.
You know, Roger, you really are a fucking moron. We don’t have to have any ideology at all to realize you’re a fucking old codger with nothing better to do that bitch about how you wasted your life being a fucking loser attorney. You couldn’t even be a decent ambulance chaser, you were so bad.
Just drop dead, asshole! You’d be doing the world and our precious America a favor.
Hey Goldy – Whyizzit Tim can make a comfortable living being an activist, and you can’t?
How much money have you saved The Producers? Tim’s up to about 8 billion so far. What the fuck have you ever accomplished? Do ya think maybe that’s why you’re broke? Plus the fact that you’re a fucking idiot…
Just wondering…does it bother any of you marxist moonbats that your votes in the primaries don’t matter? You are all being DISENFRANCHISED by Howard Dean.
Neither Hussein nor The Smartest Woman In The World can close the deal by the convention. So it’s gonna come down to unelected superdelegates. These elitist assholes have to make the choice between being sexist or racist since both resumes are paper thin, and both are simply marxist ideologues.
Doesn’t matter. Neither has a fucking prayer in November. I’m certainly no McCain fan, but he’ll mop the floor with whoever you guys pick.
Sucks to be you..
@17 “What I have a problem with is putting Political Allies with little or no experience in these key positions. Back-scratching.
Have you ever looked at some of the resumes of these puffed up Bureaucrats??”
For a moment there, I thought you were finally going to admit the lack of qualifications of the people the Bush administration has appointed
to important commissions like the FCC, top agency positions, U.S. attorney posts, and judgeships; but then you went all wingnutty on me …
@19 Of course I have the IQ of a rabbit. After all, I’m a rabbit. Too bad you humans aren’t as smart as us rabbits. Some of you, anyway.
@20 “Just drop dead, asshole!”
My veterinarian assures me that you’re neither this lucky nor deserving — so you’d better get used to having me around, goatfucker.
@21 et seq.: If Eyman has saved us $8 billion as you claim, surely you can spare $100 from your share to pay the gambling debt you owe to Goldy, you dishonorable lying welshing piece of shit.
Why $3.50 Gas Is Cheap And Will Cost More In The Future
1. In 1980, the average U.S. household spent 5% of its income on gasoline; today, that figure is 3.5%. So, there’s still plenty of room for gas prices to keep going up before American drivers will be forced to cut back on their consumption.
2. Most of the recent new oil finds have been offshore. A deepwater drilling platform can cost $1 billion. A single deepwater well can cost $240 million.
3. Oil producing countries and oil companies won’t make the huge investments needed to develop these expensive sources if their effect is to lower the price of oil.
4. The world consumes about 3.5 million bbls. of oil per hour. Thus, finding a new 1-million-barrel oilfield would supply global needs for about 17 minutes.
5. Although an oilfield’s size matters, its production rate matters even more. A deep offshore field containing billions of barrels of oil can make only a limited contribution to global production if each well costs a quarter billion dollars to drill.
Al Gore was right. If his 50-cent gas tax had been enacted, gas would be cheaper today, because American drivers wouldn’t have bought all those gas guzzling SUVs and pickups. Our roads would be in better shape, too, because that money would have been spent on domestic infrastructure instead of building indoor ski resorts in Arab countries. First the wingnuts laughed at Al Gore. Then they paid through the nose at the pump. The one followed the other like a cart behind a horse.
That’s the interesting thing about this world — there’s no free lunch. When wingnuts shoot themselves in the foot, they pay. And pay, and pay, and pay, and keep paying. I have no sympathy for them.
Cynical wants you to believe that state agency heads aren’t worth $120,000 to $163,000 a year because they’re unqualified for their jobs.
What does that make the hedge fund managers, bank and mortgage company presidents, and corporate CEOs whose mistakes have cost the economy trillions of dollars worth? You don’t see Mr. C criticizing their salaries. And you never will, because despite his protestations, he is an ideologue, slavishly captive to a morally, socially, and economically bankrupt ideology that has never worked and never will work.
If y’all think $3.50 a gallon is an issue, wait until we attack Iran and the Straits of Hormuz get buttoned up. Ya ain’t seen nothing yet.
And…while we’re on the subject of fuel prices, why is it that diesel used to cost way, way less than gasoline for about a century or so, but now it’s about 25% more? I’m sure the “experts” can conjure up plenty of techno-babble to explain it, but could it be–horrors! that they’re hoping to force all the transit systems in the country to raise their fares and keep people driving cars?
Rabbit 27 – The reason gas is 4 bucks a gallon is due to LIBRULISM. You fucking libruls refuse to allow any more drilling here in Murka, refuse to let refineries build new or expand, and tax the shit out of it. Food is unaffordable because you fucking idiots have fucked up the free markets with incentives to convert food to fuel. All in the name of a fucking hoax.
As Husseins’s spiritual mentor would say “the chickens have come home to roost”.
And you fucking idiots think it’s OK for gummint to nationalize the health care and energy businesses. GMAFB.
You fucking people are dangerous. And you will get your asses kicked in November. Idiots…
Fart – I think the Lincoln can keep the Strait open. If it comes to a raghead in a zodiac vs the Lincoln, I’m pretty sure the Lincoln will win.
Idiot…
We all know that McCain is a liberal conservative, but he does have his strong points. He is a believer in opening up public schools to competition. The task will be hard, but he could make federal funding(which I am against) available only to school districts that allow competition. He will also keep taxes low (I hope) and appoint conservative justices. McCain is no Reagan, but he has got my vote.
So what do you know about schools, dog? Ever volunteered in the classroom? Ever been on the PTA? When did you last talk to a teacher or administrator?
So what do you know about schools, dog? Ever volunteered in the classroom? Ever been on the PTA? When did you last talk to a teacher or administrator?
I know that nearly 40% of parents who live in Seattle don’t send their kids to the Seattle public schools. This in a city that ranks in the top five when comparing income to housing prices. What more do you need??
I need to know what you know about what actually goes on in the classroom. Otherwise, it’s just spew.
Of course most of your posts are spew.
And Seattle ain’t all public schools. How many of those who take their kids out of the public schools vote for those loons (yes, I said it) on the school board?
@20 I never had any ambition to be an ambulance chaser. Not a smidgeon. I used my law degree for the public good, not to enrich myself. Of course, that’s a concept no Republican will ever understand.
@21 “Whyizzit Tim can make a comfortable living being an activist, and you can’t?”
Because he’s a whore. Pay your gambling debt, loser!
@31 Instead of spewing bullshit, just shut up and pay your gambling debt, loser.
@32 I like your confidence. How about if we make you stand in the bow to provide the Iranians with a diversionary target?
If I were Iran, I wouldn’t mess with the Lincoln or any other U.S. warship. I’d just sink a great big fat-ass supertanker right smack in the middle of the shipping channel. That would take care of it.
I don’t hope for that, of course, but I’m not selling my oil stocks just yet, either.
I need to know what you know about what actually goes on in the classroom. Otherwise, it’s just spew.
Of course most of your posts are spew.
The only spew here is your pathetic argument of not being the classroom. Liberal run Seattle public schools are a failure by many measures, of course liberals fail at everything they do.