Perhaps my absolute favorite thing about Seattle’s congressman is that he excites our retarded comment trolls like nothing else. These are priceless:
Only in a place like Seattle can someone like Baghdad Jim McDermott exist.
Ah yes. Only in Seattle. Whereas, only in Florida do you find a congressmen who desperately wants to fuck young page boys, and trolls for them on the internet. Or, say in Vancouver, where you can find a family values conservative who watches porno with a gay hooker in a Spokane hotel.
McDermott fenced stolen property. Ergo he’s a crook. McDermott lied about fencing stolen property. Ergo he’s a lying liar.
To which HA’s own Lee responds:
“Fencing” requires a profit motive, which was not the case in this incident. Ergo, you’re a fucking retard.
Goodness, gracious. Just look at what we’ll miss when McDermott retires.
On a personal note, I’d like to thank Congressman McDermott for perhaps his greatest accomplishment in public life: the creation of Washington Basic Health. WBH has allowed the working poor to get health care and avoid medical bankruptcy. Once derided as “socialized medicine” by Republicans who can’t do math, WBH is now embraced by other states as the model for public health care delivery. It should be noted that WBH does something liberals love (providing health care to those who can’t get it otherwise) by doing it in ways conservatives admire (allowing companies to compete, thus creating an incentive to keep costs down). While I hope that universal health care is on it’s way from Washington, it’s good to know that Dr. McD made it happen here in WA state.
Good conversation, Will. It’s an art, you know!
* And speaking of torture: “A blood-spattered ‘torture complex’ used by Iraqi insurgents, and the remains of 26 people buried nearby, were found in the province of Diyala on Thursday, the US military announced…. The torture chamber was housed in an area containing three detention facilities, the military said. ‘It had chains on the walls and ceilings, a bed still hooked up to an electrical system and several blood-stained items,’ a statement said.” I remember a time when we had the moral authority to denounce such horrors without looking like hypocrites.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/
Puddypud, Marvin, Piper, etc #2 is for you.
Yes, our resident wingnuts will go apoplectic over McDermott, but stuff like this goes almost completely unnoticed. Indeed, I’d brought up the Justice Department’s deliberate foot-dragging on prosecuting Jim Tobin in an earlier thread, and not one wingnut sought fit to say anything about it.
Point out stuff like this PBS NOW report and our resident trolls will yawn at best, or, more often than not, regurgitate hackneyed versions of Democrats do it too.
The words of former GOP operative Allen Raymond seem appropriate: “After ten full years inside the GOP, ninety days among honest criminals wasn’t really any great ordeal.”
[Deleted- Off topic]
McDermott always has my vote. Of every Washington State Congress member he is the only one that votes how I would more than 60% of the time. More importantly, I can contact his office and actually be heard.
Just as a funny story, my girlfriend contacted both Patty Murray’s and Maria Cantwell’s offices to voice her opposition to a specific measure. She received canned responses from both of them (which she expected) thanking her for her stance supporting the measure that she was opposing (which she didn’t expect). We will be voting for neither of them the next time they come up for reelection. it’s obvious that not only do they ignore their constituents, they try to falsify their constituents stances as well.
So David@6: You mean you’ll not register a vote for WA US Senator? I can’t fathom you voting for a wascally Wepublican.
Looks like it’s time to contribute something to McD.
Thanks, Pud.
re 7: You are a sneering, ignorant, WingNut™ Ahs-Wi-Peh™.
Washington Basic Health
Sorry Will, but this is new to me. What role did McDermitt play in this state legislation?
It would be nice to believe he has actuallya chieved something.
And then there is this puddybud. It seems that Republicans don’t think their message and policies and governing expertise alone are enough to win elections.
@11 http://www.alternet.org/story/71260/
David @6:
That has definitely been my experience with Cantwell, but not with Patty Murray (or maybe her canned response was just of a significantly better quality, but it at least seemed to address the specific issues I raised).
After the Alito cloture vote, I have issues with Cantwell, and have supported others in the primaries.
I’ve always been amazed that even after McDermott’s warnings about launching a war in Iraq have been shown to be incredibly prescient that people still call him Baghdad Jim as if that’s some kind of an insult. Wingnuts, please do everything you can to remind people of what McDermott did before the war began.
@11:
‘governing expertise’
Snark!
After a few years of saying I would never vote for Cantwell again due to her support of the Iraq war resolution-I held my nose and voted for her in 2006. I want to stop the war and it seemed the best chance of doing that was to have the Dems take control of the Senate. So a year later we have 30,000 more troops in Iraq. And the Dems have given Bush tens of billions of dollars to continue the war. The Democrats suck. they are spineless and corporate owned. The Republicans have a spine but are also corporate owned and are neo-fascist religious hypocrites to boot. The only reason to vote for Democrats is they are not Republicans. I don’t know if that’s enough for me these days.
re 16: Once we have a secure Democratic majority, we can start in on the Democrats we don’t like.
Like that rat-bastard Lieberman.
Whoa! Holy Joe Lieberman, my preferred pick for GOP VP nominee, is a rat-bastard? He’s the only known Democrat with a brain, a heart, and a conscience. That’s why he’s hardly a Democrat. (And he couldn’t abide another minute in a big tent so big that even headcase lucy or notright could ooze under the canvas and get in.)
So headcase loosie (TM) what ya gonna do with the 41 blue dog democrats? They turn on ya there goes the Moonbat! legislative majority down the Pelletizer (TM) pellet hole.
Make their day. Email all of them your succinct response in post #17.
headcase loosie ™: Give them you best Lester Maddox thoughts!
They all suck: You just don’t get it do ya.
Democrat politicians say what you want to hear when it comes election time> You vote for them then they do what the hell their leaders tell them to.
At least you know what Republicans stand for.
So why do you vote for someone who smiles in your face before the election then spits in it later?
They all suck: You just don’t get it do ya.
Well, they’re politicians. You want better representation, you’ve got to figure out a system that doesn’t involve electioneering.
The only substantive difference between Republicans and Democrats is their basic beliefs with respect to the purpose of Government. For me those basic beliefs mean that, with Republicans, I’m totally screwed 100% of the time, and, with Democrats, I’m screwed somewhere closer to 50% of the time.
So, yeah, I get reamed either way. Only with Democrats, it hurts less.
@14 Lee
Calling Jim MickieD prescient is degrading to the concept of prescience.
The fellow has no credibility BECAUSE of the grandstanding he does. He could stand on the Mall and announce that the Martians had arrived and, assuming he was telling the truth, folks would just shake their heads.
If I focus in just the issue of MD’s stand on the invasion, he could have been a lot more effective in making YOUR point if he had taken a stronger stand based on realpolitic rather than conviction.
That si why I asked Will to relate the story of MD’s role in WA state’s health system. Since being in Congress I am not sure that McD can point to anything he has done successfully.
re 21: “At least you know what Republicans stand for.”
They tell you that they are for corruption, cronyism, cynical pandering, killing your kids in useless wars, running up the national debt, wiping their ass with the constitution, trooling for gay sex in public restrooms, making gay advances to teenage boys, AND a strong belief in Jaysus H. Christ?
Don Joe: My people have been reamed over 43 years and still come back for more!
I just don’t know why they are sheeple.