Democrats Work is bringing Gen. Wes Clark into one lucky congressional district to participate in a community service project, and today is your last day to vote for Darcy Burner and WA-08. I’m hearing rumors that she is neck in neck with Charlie Brown in CA-04, so if you haven’t already voted in this round, please vote for Darcy now, and bring Gen. Clark in WA-08!
Amen at work
As much as I hate to question the judgment of Seattle’s most objective journalist, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by David Postman’s recent post: “Reichert gets Dems help on wilderness bill.”
Postman asserts that by garnering the co-sponsorhip of Jay Inslee and Norm Dicks on his wilderness bill, Dave Reichert has made any attempt to question his green credentials a “tough argument.” Okay. I’ve disagreed with Postman before. No biggie.
But how does Postman, a self-proclaimed champion of fairness and balance, present the tough arguments of those of us who dare to challenge his thesis? With a big, fat, editorial caveat:
But the campaign of Reichert’s Democratic opponent, Darcy Burner, and her amen bloggers have called the bill a cynical attempt at green-washing.
“Amen bloggers” …? Really?
Postman’s got it half right, but what really makes it so tough for us to argue against the Reichert mythology is when media gatekeepers like Postman intentionally undermine our credibility before presenting our rebuttal.
The implication is clear. Postman… he’s a serious blogger. Joel Connelly, whose blog post he cites in support of his thesis… he’s a serious blogger. But amen bloggers like me and Dan Kirkdorffer and our colleagues, well… we’re just goddamn partisans whose work you can pretty much dismiss without consideration… no matter how well reasoned or how well supported by the facts.
Obviously, I find Postman’s brushoff a tad irritating, but not having benefited from a proper J-school education myself, perhaps I don’t fully understand the finer nuances of his profession? So I’m hoping Postman can explain to me, in the abstract, from his journalistic perspective, what exactly the difference is between an opinion expressed by a columnist like Joel (or an editorial writer like Kate Riley) and that of a lowly blogger like me?
I mean, an opinion is an opinion, right? Is a newspaper columnist inherently more credible because he’s paid to write his opinions, while I just spew mine for free? If I were paid $90,000 a year to write my opinions, would I suddenly be harder to dismiss? Or do I have to be paid by the right people, say some corporate media conglomerate, or perhaps a fifth-generation newspaper family that claims gravitas as a birthright, like some Lamarckian adaptation?
Surely it can’t be the fact that we express opinions that makes us amen bloggers so unreliable, as Postman himself cited Joel’s opinion as definitive support of his thesis. Neither can it be the mere medium that is in question, print vs. online, as in this particular instance all three of us are peddling our work via blogs. So is Postman implying that it is our proud partisanship that costs us our credibility, while it is his and Joel’s vaunted impartiality that secures their own?
Such an implication would leave me even more confused, because doesn’t the mere act of having an opinion imply some sort of bias or partisan leaning? Isn’t the explicit role of the columnist to express his opinions, freely informed by personal bias as well as the facts? Indeed, Joel describes himself as an environmentalist; doesn’t that make him a partisan too? And while I understand that reporters like Postman jealously guard their appearance of impartiality, wasn’t his elitist dismissal of other bloggers as “amen” an act of editorializing that reveals a personal bias of his own?
And finally, you can’t get much more partisan than the candidates themselves, and yet reporters routinely regurgitate their pronouncements and public statements without prepending a cynical asterisk.
So if it’s not our opinions, it’s not our medium, and it’s not our partisanship that automatically undermines our credibility, I can only assume that Postman’s obvious disdain for us amen bloggers comes from the quality of our work itself. In which case I’d argue that he owes it to us (not to mention his readers) to critique and refute our work before dismissively brushing it off as unworthy of serious consideration, because when Postman implies that Joel is credible but we automatically are not, or that Reichert’s motives should be taken at face value while ours most definitely shouldn’t, well I can’t help but take that as a personal slight especially in the absence of any serious effort on his part to back up his assertions… you know, apart from the occasional characterization of me as a drunkard, a hypocrite or a knee-jerk lackey.
The other bloggers are fully capable of defending themselves, but my question for Postman is, what is it that I have written to earn such disrespect? When I accused Reichert of bragging about bringing home earmarks in one piece of franked mail, while bragging about opposing them in another… was I wrong? When I attacked Reichert for promising to cut Medicare when speaking before fellow Republicans, but promising to defend it when franking his constituents… did I mislead my readers, deliberately or otherwise? I’m asking, because if I’m so wrong so much of the time you’d think a simple refutation would come as easily as a dismissive wave of the hand.
Have I proven to be dishonest or dishonorable? Have I been a poor political analyst? Have you found the quality of my prose to be incoherent, unintelligent, uninformed or otherwise wanting when compared to the standard we’ve come to expect from our city’s two dailies? Because if so, the least you could do is show me the courtesy of critiquing my writing and refuting my arguments before blithely dismissing me as just an “amen blogger.”
Come on David, cite a few examples. Show what liars we are. Prove to the world why we cannot be trusted. I betcha you can’t, because while opinions and interpretations can be partisan, facts cannot, and as Dan has proven, my god do we bloggers labor over getting our facts straight.
Which is why, I guess, so many of us found your characterization of us as “amen bloggers” so frustrating, if not downright offensive. Like the lazy trolls who, incapable of actually refuting my arguments, point to my occasional use of foul language as reason alone to dismiss me, you have seized upon our outspoken partisanship as an opportunity to be equally curt and scornful. But if we are relevant enough to be publicly dissed, aren’t we relevant enough to be told the reasons why? Is our work really that lacking, or is there some other, more personal reason that causes you to show us so little respect?
Which brings us back to Joel Connelly, who on this issue I have no compunction in saying is flat-out wrong. Joel pines for a romanticized past in which the Republican Party truly embraced environmentalism, and in which the mantle of bipartisanship was more than just a last ditch rhetorical refuge for the electorally impaired. Reichert’s green credentials don’t pass the laugh test, and I’ve told Joel this to his face in no uncertain words. He thinks my unforgiving partisanship is dangerous, mean spirited and counterproductive. I think his desperate longing for bipartisanship is naive. And yet Joel frequents Drinking Liberally, engages us in debate and joins us on our podcasts because despite our differences we like and respect each other.
Likewise, I have repeatedly professed my respect for Postman and his work… a respect that clearly is not reciprocated. No, he was so concerned with dissing us bloggers that I wonder if he even bothered reading his own post?
Why would someone with such sterling environmental credentials like Inslee, or a congressman who has no worry about re-election, like Dicks, agree to co-sponsor something if they thought it was designed only to help Reichert’s re-election prospects?
Duh… um… because they genuinely support expanding the wilderness area, regardless of Reichert’s motives? You gotta admit, it’s a possibility. (Do they teach that in J-school… objectively establishing one’s thesis by asking rhetorical questions?)
Reichert had been frustrated that he wasn’t getting any co-sponsors from the delegation.
You don’t just “get” co-sponsors, you do the hard work of actively seeking them out. Which I guess explains why seven months later, Inslee was the first co-sponsor to sign on. Hell, Reichert hasn’t even bothered to get the support of a single Republican colleague. (Or is evaluating Reichert’s competence as a legislator off-limits during an election year?)
See how much I respect you David? Enough to actually bother to critique your work, instead of just insulting it. Think of it as tough love.
Yeah, I know… it’s an awfully long post in response to a single word, but I’m just plain tired of tiptoeing around the fragile egos of Postman and a handful of his peers who insist on taking every critique of them or their institutions as a personal insult. Do they have any idea how sensitive they come off? Do they know how many times I’ve been embargoed on a story with the specific instruction not to post until Postman or some other journalist publishes first, out of concern that if I break the story on HA, the “real” journalists will willfully ignore it?
That’s what we’ve come to, a point where media pettiness has led some in the progressive community to seriously question whether they’ll face retaliation from reporters and editors for openly allying with bloggers like me. And that, by the way David, is why I tend to relentlessly focus on stories like Reichert’s abusive and dishonest franking practices… because nobody else will! You don’t think the Burner campaign and the state party don’t shop around their stories before eventually sending them my way? We’re not an amen chorus, we’re the media outlet of last resort for progressive campaigns and causes that can’t get the time of day from a press corps obsessed with sex scandals and horse races.
Unlike some bloggers on the right who ridiculously claim to be “small ‘l’ libertarians” while maintaining an active role in their local Republican Party, I have always worn my bias on my sleeve, and I have always urged my audience to read me in that context and make up their minds for themselves. My comment threads have always remained open, and for the most part unmoderated, subjecting my work to the most brutal form of public vetting you will find anywhere on the web.
Yes, I aggressively support Darcy Burner because she is damn smart and a damn hard worker, and because I believe the phrase “Congressman Dave Reichert” is an insult to anybody with an IQ above 110. Yes, I am proudly partisan, but my work has always been based on facts, and I challenge anybody—even Postman—to prove that my facts don’t stand on their own.
And with that I say… amen.
Open thread
Of course, you really can’t believe anything you see in this video, or anywhere else on HA, because I’m just one of those “amen bloggers.” So move along… nothing to see here.
BREAKING: Dino Rossi quits Republican Party!
You know it’s a bad political climate for Washington Republicans when even the man at the top of their state ticket has chosen to officially deny his affiliation with the party. Dino Rossi filed for governor this week, and under the bizarre rules of our new top-two primary has declared his affiliation as “Prefers G.O.P. Party.”
The G.O.P. Party…? What the hell is that? The “Grand Old Party Party” …?
State Attorney General Rob McKenna has declared that he “Prefers Republican Party,” as have Secretary of State Sam Reed and Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Southerland. And so have US Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Doc Hastings and Dave Reichert, as in fact has every other Republican declaring for federal or statewide office.
But Rossi, no, he’s too ashamed (or savvy) to have the Republican brand attached to his name. What a weasel.
(H/T Richard.)
UPDATE:
Just to be clear, Dino Rossi filed as a “Republican” in 2004, so it’s not like he doesn’t know how to spell the word.
Hiding the Truth
The AP’s Gene Johnson has the story of a local Marine whose family has been kept in the dark about the circumstances of his non-combat death.
Cook upgrades WA-08 to “Toss Up”
According to Jonathan Stein at Mother Jones, Cook Political Report has just changed their ratings on 10 House races, all of them with Republican incumbents, and all of them moving in the Democratic direction. And one of these, of course, is WA-08, where Darcy Burner looks increasingly well situated to unseat Dave Reichert.
CA-04 — OPEN (Doolittle) — Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CO-04 — Marilyn Musgrave — Lean Republican to Toss Up
CT-04 — Chris Shays — Lean Republican to Toss Up
IL-10 — Mark Kirk — Lean Republican to Toss Up
NM-02 — OPEN (Pearce) — Likely Republican to Lean Republican
NY-29 — Randy Kuhl — Lean Republican to Toss Up
NC-08 — Robin Hayes — Lean Republican to Toss Up
OH-01 — Steve Chabot — Lean Republican to Toss Up
VA-02 — Thelma Drake — Likely Republican to Lean Republican
WA-08 — Dave Reichert — Lean Republican to Toss Up
Both Cook and CQ have now upgraded WA-08 from “leans Republican” to “toss up” and “no clear favorite” respectively. I’m guessing Rothenberg will follow shortly.
UPDATE:
Here’s the summary analysis from Cook:
WA-08 Dave Reichert
Lean Republican to Toss Up
This high-tech, upper-income district in the Seattle suburbs is prototypical Obama terrain. Although it is likely Reichert’s reputation as a law-and-order moderate will allow him to outperform McCain by a handful of points, it simply may not be enough. Even if she is slightly to the district’s left, Democrat Darcy Burner is running a more focused campaign than she ran in 2006 and still lacks a record to attack. Reichert, who will not be able to spend Burner and the DCCC dollar-for-dollar this time, will look more like an underdog this time around – which is not a terrible image to possess in this climate. This race appears headed to another photo finish.
Could I please have those five minutes back?
So… Joni Balter kinda-sorta admits that Washington is not a battleground state… and then expends 740 words pretending it is. And we learned what from this column?
You know, the main downside to reading the Seattle Times online for free, is that I can’t demand a refund or threaten to cancel my subscription.
Four more years?
Matthew Yglesias makes an astute observation:
In some ways, I think McCain himself doesn’t quite realize how Bush-esque he is. He clearly doesn’t like Bush, and has been disliking him for a long time. But that kind of personalized, overblown disdain for Bush-the-man can wind up leading you to overestimate Bush-the-grand-strategist. To McCain, Bush’s policies have failed because of Bush. Replace Bush with McCain and shift tactics around the margins, and the same basic ideas should work out fine. It’s a nice theory, but I don’t think it’s a true theory.
McCain has a tendency to say things on the campaign trail that simply aren’t true, such as his claim Tuesday night that he “strongly disagreed with the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq…” a claim clearly contradicted by many prior public statements.
It could be, as Yglesias suggests, that McCain has conflated his personal dislike for Bush with his personal evaluation of the administration’s strategies and tactics—McCain may actually believe he opposed Bush, despite his near-lockstep support for the President’s policies. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t remember critical facts about key policies and issues. Or maybe he’s just lying.
Whatever. McCain himself may believe he is a “maverick,” but over the past few years both his Senate voting record and his record of public statements say otherwise. These are contradictions of which voters will be made well aware over the coming months.
The Piñata Policy
George Friedman at Stratfor, a publication by current and retired intelligence officials, lays out the stark reality of what’s happening in Mexico right now, warning of that country’s potential to become a failed state. The root of the crisis is the growing influence of the cartels who operate an approximately $40 billion a year industry in illegal drugs, nearly all of which is consumed in the United States. Friedman sees a possibility that the cartels, who already dominate most of northern Mexico, could soon become powerful enough to usurp the power of the elected government in Mexico City as well.
The recent violence from Mexico has been staggering. Over a thousand people, including hundreds of police, have already been killed this year in fighting between federal officials and the cartels. The cartels operate with such impunity in parts of the country that they’re able to publicly advertise for recruits. Some Mexican police officers in the border region are even attempting to flee to the United States.
Friedman makes the appropriate comparison to 1920s alcohol prohibition, reminding us that during that time, the city of Chicago had a failed government. And had Al Capone and his men become powerful enough to defeat the federal agents, America could have become a failed state. Thankfully, America only allowed its doomed experiment in alcohol prohibition to last for just over a decade. Our current prohibition, however, has been going on for several decades now and has turned all of Mexico into an even more extreme version of 1920s Chicago with modern weapons.
Occasionally, we see some intelligent discussion of this growing problem in the traditional media (like this column from Neal Peirce in the Seattle Times last week). But in the political realm, there are no solutions on the horizon. The only thing being proposed is the Merida Initiative, a laughable effort to provide Mexico with $1.4 billion that the Mexican government might even turn down because of the strings attached.
I’m sure that much will be made over the disagreements between the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress over the Merida Initiative, but neither party has the political courage to do what Friedman explains is the only realistic solution:
One way to deal with the problem would be ending the artificial price of drugs by legalizing them. This would rapidly lower the price of drugs and vastly reduce the money to be made in smuggling them. Nothing hurt the American cartels more than the repeal of Prohibition, and nothing helped them more than Prohibition itself. Nevertheless, from an objective point of view, drug legalization isn’t going to happen. There is no visible political coalition of substantial size advocating this solution. Therefore, U.S. drug policy will continue to raise the price of drugs artificially, effective interdiction will be impossible, and the Mexican cartels will prosper and make war on each other and on the Mexican state.
I’ve been asked recently why I focus so much on the topic of drug policy when most of the country still considers it a political minefield. It’s because even though it’s a political minefield, that doesn’t mean it’s any less urgent to fix. Our current approach to dealing with the drug trade in Mexico is piñata policy, put on a blindfold and swing a big stick hoping that you hit something and a bunch of candy falls out. Many people think that we can do this forever, just pretending that it’s the best way while allowing us to keep from breaking free from the drug war mindset. They’re wrong. And the damage in Mexico (not to mention Afghanistan, Colombia, and in our inner cities) is the proof that they’re wrong. The millions of refugees from this war who have already fled to the United States from Mexico should be a good indication of that.
This country needs to develop a viable constituency that demands from the next American administration that we start dismantling the international drug war and to deal with the problem of drug addiction in a way that doesn’t bring a country of 100 million people to the verge of becoming a failed state. Yeah, I talk about the drug war a lot. I do it because we can’t afford not to any more.
[h/t to Transform for the link]
Dave Reichert’s frank hypocrisy
As I’ve posted previously, there’s more to Dave Reichert’s abusive franking practices than simply a flagrant waste of taxpayer money, for it is not just the medium that is at question here, but the message itself.
Yesterday I contrasted two franked mail pieces, one in which Reichert promises “bold” earmark reform, and the other in which he brags about the amount of earmarked bacon he brought home to his district. You can’t get much more hypocritical than that.
Or can you?
In a widely distributed franked mail piece from 2007 headlined “Issue Alert: Medicare Cuts,” Reichert touts his opposition to “devastating cuts” in senior benefits:
In this taxpayer funded mailer, Reichert promises to “uphold my pledge to protect Medicare,” from, you know, all those social service slashing Democrats in Congress.
And what kind of pledge exactly is Reichert talking about? Well, judging from this clip from May of 2006, back when he thought he and his fellow Republicans would still control Congress in the coming session, it wasn’t much of one:
Yup, when Reichert talks about taking a “closer look at government waste,” the first place he looks is Medicare and Medicaid, because “you get the biggest bang for the buck when you cut those programs.”
Wow. That’s some pledge.
Reichert has sent out over one million pieces of franked mail since winning reelection in November, 2006—none of them fact checked by media truth squads, none of them rebutted by the opposition, and all of them paid for with taxpayer money. He uses his franking privileges to create a demonstrably false impression about his votes in Congress and his stance on the issues.
And as far as I can tell, our local editorialists and columnists just don’t seem to care.
UPDATE:
The video clip above is ©2006 by TVW. You can view full coverage of Reichert’s speech here.
UPDATE, UPDATE:
YouTube has pulled the clip at TVW’s request, so exercising my rights under the fair use exemption, I have reposted the clip using a different service.
Open thread
I especially love Britt Hume’s cogent commentary.
Reichert: Obama “will steal money out of your wallets”
Last week’s performance at the Washington State Republican Convention wasn’t the first time Rep. Dave Reichert laughed at the thought of Hillary Clinton plummeting to her death from an airplane; as the TNT’s Niki Sullivan reported back in March, he delivered the same “joke” before the Pierce County Republicans at their annual Lincoln Day Breakfast in Tacoma. But that wasn’t the congressman’s only questionable quip of the day:
At one point in the speech, he reminded people that Barack Obama may seem friendly and electable, but he’s a liberal, “and he will steal money out of your wallets and purses.”
The crowd was silent.
So… a famously former sheriff warns the crowd that a black man is going to steal their wallets? Yeah, I can imagine the stunned silence. (Though personally, I always cross the street whenever I see Barack Obama coming toward me on a sidewalk. You can never be too careful.)
(Sigh.) And this is best Washington’s 8th Congressional District has to offer?
UPDATE [Lee]: Matt Stoller posts about Reichert’s sexism.
Love Being right is never having to say you’re sorry
A couple years ago Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels rankled a few folks by suggesting that the Frank Colacurcio Sr. might be involved in organized crime:
“The clubs don’t make their money off of Pepsi (and …) they’re not allowed to serve alcohol,” Nickels said during his monthly appearance on a call-in television show on Seattle’s government affairs cable channel, called Seattle Channel. “I believe that there is organized crime involved in at least that club and perhaps others.”
Yeah, sure… the Colacurcio’s had a long history of gambling, vice, and suspected mob involvement, but to suggest that a family is connected to organized crime, simply because they have a very Italian sounding name (and own a string of shady strip clubs… and were suspected in a series of execution style killings)… well, that’s just offensive.
Where’s the proof, critic’s asked? Apologies were demanded. Nickels refused.
Well, since truth-defenders like Erica are such sticklers for apologies, I’m guessing they’ll be sending a few “I’m sorries” Nickels’ way, now that his charges appear to be backed up by a five-year federal investigation.
Inspired Governor
Gov. Christine Gregoire comments on Obama’s apparent victory:
We have just witnessed an historic primary season where ideas and ideals rose to the forefront of the debate in our country. The candidates and voters should all be commended. Now it’s time we all stand together and unite behind our Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.
Many years ago, I was inspired by a man who offered a similar message of hope and belief as Barack Obama does today. Then, it was John F. Kennedy, a man whose words and actions led to my career in public service. Today, I feel similarly toward Sen. Obama. He offers this country a vision of positive change and leadership we can stand behind.
Our country is about its people, and for the last eight years we’ve been divided and moving in the wrong direction at home and abroad. It’s time to stand proud and take back this country. Sen. Barack Obama is the right person to lead us.
We need a partner in the other Washington that believes it is our responsibility to provide healthcare to children, fund a world-class education system and fight global climate change. While we’ve gotten results for families in our state over the last four years, imagine even greater possibilities with the barriers down and a partner in place in our nation’s capitol.
It’s time to renew our country’s economy. It’s time our nation recommits to every working man and woman. It’s time for good quality, affordable, accessible health care. It’s time that we tell every child to dream as big as they possibly can, and that dreams really can come true. It’s time to eliminate hopelessness and poverty and give the great people of this nation a vision worth believing in.
Indeed…to me, this vision is like a breath of fresh air—a beam of sunlight breaking through—after 7.5 years under a cloud of incompetence, immorality, deception, and scandal in the White House.
Obama wins, Clinton claims victory
I’m listening to Hillary Clinton speak and I can’t quite figure out where she’s going. She started off very conciliatory, but she didn’t concede. And then she went into her usual schtick about winning the popular vote, and winning the swing states. So who knows.
Meanwhile everybody else seems to know Obama is the nominee but her (and her fans,) which makes Clinton’s speech all the more uncomfortable to watch. I feel like I’m watch a Pirandello play.
UPDATE [7:15PM]:
Well whaddaya know… Obama just claimed victory too!
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