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I’m filling in for Dave Ross this morning (and through tomorrow) on News/Talk 710-KIRO. Here’s how the show is shaping up thus far:

9AM: Who won yesterday’s “Crucial Tuesday” primaries?
No, really… who won? I’m not really sure. I mean, I know Hillary Clinton won three out of four, including the big prizes of Ohio and Texas, but she didn’t really make a dent in Obama’s delegate lead, so mathematically, does it really matter? Joining me to help sort things out is Democratic strategist, pundit, blogger and friend of the show, James Boyce, who recently suggested on Huffington Post that an Obama nomination could lead to a popular vote landslide victory/electoral college loss in November. Later in the hour we hope to hear from the DNC about fears of a brokered convention.

10AM: Goldy talks to Republicans!
It happens. You know, sometimes. Tracey Schmitt, a Republican strategist and former RNC communications director joins me at the top of the hour to kvell about Sen. John McCain and his prospects in November. Later, we turn to the state GOP’s new transportation plan that promises to spend $6 billion on transportation projects… without raising taxes! House Transportation Committee chair Rep. Judy Clibborn (D-Mercer Island) joins me at 10:35, but first we hope to talk to one of the Republicans behind this plan to explain how it works… or barring that, maybe a magician.

11AM: Do high school students have ANY First Amendment rights?
17-year-old Avery Doninger was disciplined by high school administrators after calling them “douche bags” on her public blog, a decision upheld by a federal court that ruled she could be punished because the blog addressed school issues and was likely read by fellow students… raising the question… do teens have any rights at all? Geez… students can be disciplined every time they call a school official a douche bag, off school property, two-thirds of students would eventually be expelled. Doninger’s attorney, Jon Schoenhorn, joins me by phone.

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

I moved to Washington state in the summer of 1999. My first impressions of the state were largely positive. I liked almost everything about the area—except the traffic and transportation infrastructure. That fall, as I followed the debate over Initiative 695, my reaction was one of astonishment. “Why, the hell, would anyone want to gut funding for the state’s one serious weakness?”

But I-695 wasn’t about making the state a better place in any real sense. It was an appeal to individual greed and selfishness—a “free ice cream cones for everyone!” gimmick— that didn’t fully disclose the consequences for local government services, the ferry system, and other transportation infrastructure. My conclusion that autumn was that Washingtonians had no freaking idea how good they really have it. Subsequent observations have largely confirmed this.

In February, 2005 we learned just how good we have it government-wise. The Pew-sponsored Government Performance Project (GPP) graded Washington state a B+. From the individual scores, Washington ranked as the third best state government, with only Utah and Virginia doing better. When the report came out, we were in the midst of a contested gubernatorial election. The report seemed largely overlooked.

Last year we learned just how good we have it business-wise, when Forbes’ annual survey ranked Washington state number five in the nation for business climate. And Fortune magazine rated Washington the fourth best state in which to start a business—specifically citing our “low taxes”.

And earlier this week we learned how consistently good we have it government-wise when the 2008 GPP report was released. The 2005 results were not a fluke. Once again, Washington state ranks third behind Utah and Virginia. Our grade improved slightly to an A- overall. Individual grades were A- for money, A- for people, B+ for infrastructure, and A for information (see the full report for what these categories mean and how the grading was done).

Together these four reports strongly suggest that Washington’s government and business climate are near the top in the nation. The idea contradicts two of the three major right-wing talking points. Here’s the list:

1. The Washington state government performs poorly
2. The state government hurts the business climate
3. We are overtaxed for what we get out of our government

The third talking point can be decomposed into two parts. First, are Washingtonians overtaxed? And second, are tax revenues efficiently utilized by the state? The first part can be evaluated objectively by looking at the per capita tax burden for state and local taxes. Information for 2005 tax revenue (the most recent available) and state population sizes can be found at the U.S. Census Bureau. (The per capita tax burdens for all states can also be found at the Washington state Department of Revenue–either source yields the same results.)

In 2005, Washington’s state and local tax “burden” ranked at number 21, or about $3,651/person. The U.S. average was $3,447. In other words, we fell slightly on high side of average, but some $2000 below first ranked New York’s cost of $5,752/person and about $1,000 above last ranked Alabama at $2,569 per person. These figures make it difficult to argue that Washingtonians are taxed outrageously. (As a percentage income—the figure most widely cited in state by state comparisons—Washington ranks 37th, well below the national average.)

What about value? Do Washingtonians get good value for their tax dollar? Consider two hypotheses. (A) Conceivably, we could all be paying a huge premium for our state government’s third-best performance. (Sort of like the lousy fuel efficiency that high-performance cars get.) (B) Alternatively, perhaps great performing governments are also highly efficient governments.

If hypothesis (A) is correct, we might use the information to find a parsimonious set of trade-offs between government performance and per capita cost. If hypothesis (B) turns out to be correct, we can rejoice in our double dose of success—a high-performance and efficient government. And then we can strike out that third right-wing talking point.

A natural way to test between these two hypotheses is by looking at the per capita costs to achieve the grade in the GPP. Since the GPP grade is a proxy for performance, we can use state tax rates to estimate the per capita cost of that performance. Here is how I’ve done this.

For all 50 states, I took the letter grades for all four categories (one each for money, people, infrastructure, and information) and converted them into numerical scores from A = 4, A- = 3.67, B+ = 3.33, …, F = 0. I then averaged the grades to get a number between 0 and 4. This gives Washington state a grade of 3.67, which is the third best score among all states.

Next, I divided the per capita tax by the numerical grade for an estimate of the efficiency—that is, we compute the cost for each unit of grade. The resulting price per grade point is akin to the price per pound when comparison shopping among, say, different brands of apples. We can directly use the numbers to find the best value around in state government.

The results are summarized in this table:

State	2005 per capita tax	Tax rank	Grade	Efficiency ($/grade)	Efficiency rank
Alabama	$2,569	50	2.17	1185	17
Alaska	$4,443	6	1.92	2314	46
Arizona	$3,079	34	2.59	1191	19
Arkansas	$2,902	44	2.09	1392	31
California	$4,055	12	2.00	2028	42
Colorado	$3,363	27	2.17	1553	36
Connecticut	$5,398	2	2.59	2088	43
Delaware	$3,894	14	3.17	1229	22
Florida	$3,369	26	2.67	1262	24
Georgia	$3,010	38	3.33	903	3
Hawaii	$4,338	7	2.17	2001	40
Idaho	$2,926	42	2.92	1004	7
Illinois	$3,849	16	1.92	2007	41
Indiana	$3,405	25	3.08	1105	14
Iowa	$3,273	30	2.83	1157	16
Kansas	$3,415	24	2.58	1322	27
Kentucky	$2,939	40	2.83	1038	9
Louisiana	$3,173	31	2.92	1089	13
Maine	$3,960	13	2.00	1980	39
Maryland	$4,276	8	2.92	1467	34
Massachusetts	$4,470	5	1.92	2334	47
Michigan	$3,494	23	3.33	1048	11
Minnesota	$4,088	11	2.83	1443	33
Mississippi	$2,575	49	2.17	1189	18
Missouri	$2,997	39	3.33	899	2
Montana	$2,913	43	2.42	1206	20
Nebraska	$3,746	18	3.09	1214	21
Nevada	$3,749	17	2.34	1606	37
New Hampshire	$3,306	29	1.33	2481	49
New Jersey	$4,890	4	2.09	2345	48
New Mexico	$3,151	32	2.50	1260	23
New York	$5,752	1	2.50	2301	45
North Carolina	$3,149	33	2.75	1144	15
North Dakota	$3,343	28	2.50	1337	28
Ohio	$3,637	22	2.67	1363	30
Oklahoma	$2,843	45	2.17	1312	26
Oregon	$3,052	36	2.42	1264	25
Pennsylvania	$3,710	19	2.75	1349	29
Rhode Island	$4,191	9	1.67	2517	50
South Carolina	$2,779	46	2.67	1041	10
South Dakota	$2,715	47	2.50	1087	12
Tennessee	$2,685	48	2.67	1007	8
Texas	$3,015	37	3.17	952	4
Utah	$2,933	41	3.83	765	1
Vermont	$4,137	10	2.50	1655	38
Virginia	$3,657	20	3.75	975	5
Washington	$3,651	21	3.67	996	6
West Virginia	$3,060	35	2.17	1412	32
Wisconsin	$3,872	15	2.50	1549	35
Wyoming	$5,251	3	2.50	2100	44
U.S.	$3,447	—	2.59	1333	—

The “efficiency” column shows how many dollars per grade point taxpayers pay in each state. The “Efficiency rank” goes from most efficient to least efficient. The best value in state government is found in Utah, where taxpayers paid $765 per grade point.

Washington state is the 6th best value (i.e. sixth most efficient government) by this measure. It cost taxpayers just under $1,000 per grade point, compared to a national average of $1,333.

The worst? Rhode Island, where taxpayers spent $4,191 for each grade point in their score.

In the individual sub-categories, Washington state does well (results not shown in the table). We are ranked 7th most efficient for money, 7th most efficient for people, 12th most efficient for infrastructure, and 7th most efficient for information. Not too shabby!

The analysis rejects hypothesis (A) in favor of hypothesis (B). We really can rejoice in our government that is both high-performance and efficient. Right-wing talking point number three would seem to be well off the mark.

One potential criticism of this analysis is that the GPP might be strongly related to efficiency—that is, higher state scores may already reflect lower per capita taxes. If so, we should see a high correlation between per capita tax and the GPP score. We don’t. The squared correlation between the two measures is r² = 0.034. In other words, there is only the weakest relationship between per capita tax and GPP score. Here is a scatter plot for visual confirmation:

I feel vindicated. My early impressions were right. The perpetual whiners in this state who claim that our government is broken, inefficient, poorly performing, bloated, ineffective, incompetent, and expensive are wrong—they don’t know how good they have it. They’ve hunkered down so tightly on the compound that they’ve lost touch with reality.

The facts are plain and can be evaluated objectively…Washington state is one of the greatest values around in state government. And, judging by the recent increases in both the GPP scores and the Forbes rankings, Washington is not only a great value, but has been improving.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views)

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E… but no doubt folks will be dropping by quite a bit early to watch the election returns trickle.

In fact, I’m headed off to DL in just a few moments, but polls have closed in Vermont and Ohio and some winners have already been declared. Obama is projected to win Vermont, where he currently leads Clinton 58-40 with 4% of precincts reporting, and McCain is projected to win… well… who the fuck really cares about McCain now that that race is already over?

UPDATE [5:17]:
No, I haven’t left for DL yet. But almost. Meanwhile, while the networks are saying Ohio is “too close to call”, final exit polls suggest a narrow victory for Clinton, likely within five points. In the end, its the delegate count that matters most, and so far it doesn’t look like Clinton is poised to pick up much ground on Obama in pledged delegates. As Jonathan Singer explains over on MyDD:

If Obama can get about 64 percent in Vermont tonight, the delegate spread would be 10 to 5 rather than 9 to 6 … I don’t think Obama will be able to hit 70 percent, which would yield an 11 to 4 spread, but if he could hit that 64 percent mark it could potentially mean that Obama would net as many delegates from Vermont as Clinton will from Ohio.

As of the moment, Obama leads Clinton 59-39 in Vermont, with 15% of precincts reporting.

UPDATE [6:11]:
Polls just closed in Rhode Island, where with 0% reporting, Obama and Clinton are neck and neck in a 0-0 tie. Obviously, it’s “too close to call”. (Or, more accurately, as Nick just pointed out, “too early”.)

More useful, Obama leads Clinton in Texas, 54-45 with 2% reporting. That may not sound like very much data, but over a million ballots have been counted, as all the early voting apparently gets reported as a single precinct. Clearly, Obama kicked ass in early voting. Expect the gap to close, just as Clinton closed in the polls over the final days of the campaign.

Elsewhere, Clinton leads Ohio 59-39 with 3% reporting, and 50-49 in Rhode Island with 4% reporting, while as earlier, who gives a flying fuck about McCain?

UPDATE [6:23]:
CLINTON WINS!!! (Rhode Island.) After losing 12 straight primaries and caucuses to Obama, Clinton has apparently finally notched a victory, with the networks declaring her the winner of “The Ocean State”… which ironically, is not actually on an ocean. (Or for that matter, is an actual island. Go figure.)

UPDATE [6:28]:
Mike Huckabee was still running for president? Who knew? He’s on TV announcing his withdrawal, with “this lady to my right” standing with him, just half step behind and to his side. I’m assuming he’s referring to his wife, but it might have been nice to mention her name. Assuming he knows it.

UPDATE [6:50]:
John McCain’s wife is better preserved than Vladimir Lenin. I wonder if she stops smiling if her face will crack?

UPDATE [7:20]:
As I predicted, the Obama’s lead in Texas is narrowing as more votes come in, down now to thin 50-48 margin. Man am I smart.

I’ve been too busy this week to closely follow the most recent incidence of Democratic spinelessness over the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretapping, but I have a question that I don’t think has been asked yet. The issue here revolves around immunity for the telecom companies who complied with the Bush Administration as they broke the law. I think that what the telecoms did was inexcusable and I certainly don’t have much sympathy for the executives who went along with it. But there’s obviously a bigger problem here, and that’s the fact that we had an administration in the White House that was putting pressure on these companies to break the law in the first place. The question I have is: Are the Democrats in the House even considering the possibility of granting the telecoms immunity in exchange for information that could incriminate high ranking Bush Administration officials? If so, I’m fine with giving them immunity in exchange for having a few of them testifying under oath in front of the House with the details of how the Bush Administration broke the law. I don’t see what would stop them from doing this, and even if it remains impossible to actually indict the Bush Administration officials who are fingered, it would still make it even more clear that the Justice Department under Bush looks the other way when it comes to the crimes that this administration has committed. As I said, I haven’t been able to follow this too closely this week, so I want to throw this out to the wind to see if I’m missing something.

Earlier today I had state Sen. Brian Weinstein on The Dave Ross Show talking about SB 6385, his Home Buyer’s Bill of Rights. The bill would simply give purchasers of a new single family home the same basic warranty and rights provided to condo buyers since 1990. Right now it’s virtually impossible for a home buyer to sue a contractor for shoddy workmanship and materials — even violations of the building codes. This bill would fix that.

The bill passed overwhelmingly in the Senate and in the House Judiciary Committee, but faces a fast approaching Friday, 5PM deadline to get to the floor of the House for a vote. While it certainly doesn’t hurt to complain on the radio or a blog, it’s a helluva lot more effective to complain to your representative directly, so that’s why I urge you to call the legislative hotline at 800-562-6000 and ask your representative to urge House Speaker Frank Chopp to give this bill a vote.

Righties often complain that our elected officials don’t listen to us, but that’s just because they want us to give up. The truth is, they do listen to us, we just don’t speak up often enough. Give your reps a call at 800-562-6000 and ask them to pass SB 6385, the Home Buyer’s Bill of Rights.

I’m filling in for Dave Ross this morning (and through Thursday, March 6th) on News/Talk 710-KIRO. Here’s how the show is shaping up thus far:

9AM: Why is Sen. Patty Murray so pissed?
Sen. Patty Murray delivered an angry tirade on the floor of the US Senate this morning, decrying the Air Force refueling tanker contract as little more than an economic stimulus package for Europeans. Sen. Murray joins us at the top of the hour to summarize her grievances and to tell us where we go from here. What is the US sacrificing by outsourcing crucial military contracts overseas, and is economic stimulus a factor the Air Force should have been considering? Or if taxpayers can save a few bucks on the French built “Freedom Tanker”, is that all you need to know?

10AM: Are liberals coming back in the Lone Star State?
In this morning’s New York Times, Texas Monthly executive editor writes that “Lone Star liberals are back“, suggesting that more than a decade of Republican one-party rule in Texas may be over. Prof. Thomas Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South joins us at the top of the hour to discuss our shifting electoral map. We’ll also get updates from the ground in both Ohio and Texas on this crucial election day.

11AM: Is state government working hard, or hardly working?
Are homeowners second-class citizens? State Sen. Brian Weinstein joins us at the top of the hour to give us an update on SB 6385, his Homeowner’s Bill of Rights, which gives buyers of single family homes the same legal warranties currently given buyers of condos. The bill flew through the Senate two years running, but so far Speaker Frank Chopp has refused to let it come to the floor of the House. We’ll ask… why? Later in the hour will discuss a new report that ranks WA’s government as one of only three states to receive an “A-” grade on management performance. Surprised? We’ll explore why.

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

On the same day Washington was ranked amongst the top three most effective state governments, Gov. Christine Gregoire helped demonstrate how she made the grade by announcing revised plans that would replace the 520 floating bridge two years sooner and at as much as $700 million below previous estimates. Much of the savings come simply from accelerating construction, thus avoiding anticipated inflation of concrete and other materials.

The accelerated schedule is achieved through a number of means, including expediting the environmental permitting process and beginning construction on the rest of the 520 corridor sooner than originally planned, but much of it is due to advancing pontoon construction at two facilities simultaneously. Construction on smaller pontoons will now begin in 2009 at an existing facility in Tacoma, while construction on a new facility at Grays Harbor will begin in 2010, with production coming online the following year. Pontoons from both facilities will be floated through the locks, and into Lake Washington, where they will be assembled on site. This accelerated construction plan also has the ancillary benefit of creating hundreds of new local jobs at a time the national economy is headed into recession.

The proposal calls for a six-lane bridge — two general purpose lanes and an HOV lane in each direction — and will avoid the need for a draw span by raising the clearance on the Eastside approach. The bridge is designed to be expandable, with the ability to add new lanes or rail capacity by attaching a new row of pontoons to one side, and is now scheduled to be completed by the Fall of 2014, with full 520 corridor improvements to be finished by 2016. The total project will be financed by $1.7 billion in state and federal money, and as much as $2 billion in tolls.

In a letter to legislative leaders, Gov. Gregoire explained that the revised plan came in response to a request she made to WSDOT in January to explore all options for accelerating construction. Credit surely goes to WSDOT for rethinking the construction plan and finding the savings in both time and money, but credit also goes to Gov. Gregoire for pushing this process along.

TNT’s blog:

Tim Eyman seemingly will do anything to rile up his supporters, including what the Nixon-era press secretary called being “at variance with the truth.”

(That means “lying.”)

Here’s what Eyman e-mailed to his fans (and reporters) Sunday night:

Gregoire plans to sue the voters, disrespecting the voters’ approval of I-960. Gregoire is sticking her finger in the eye of the voters. She plans to sue the voters, disrespecting the voters’ approval of I-960.

Well, that’s just not true.

I asked Eyman today why he told his supporters that Gov. Chris Gregoire is suing over Initiative 960 when the lawsuit is being filed by Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, and he said, “She’s (Gregoire) the head of the Democratic Party. And she could stop it if she wanted.”

Well, that’s not true, either. Gregoire may very well be in sympathy with what Brown is doing, but Eyman is framing the issue as if it’s all Gregoire’s fault.

Eyman also proceeded to say a few more things in the interview that were flat-out wrong and I told him I wasn’t obliged to report things he said if I know they are wrong. He told me he was just exercising his right of free speech.

Huh.

The newspapers Tim Eyman lies to are the same ones who run his guest columns, the same ones who quote him, and the same ones who, more often than not, play stenographer for his bullshit. It’s nice to see the TNT actually call him on it, but this is the exception and not the rule.

*UPDATE*

And from the “Just Because It’s On The Radio, Doesn’t Mean It’s True” file, what’s the deal with Dori Monson breathlessly repeating Timmy’s lies? I know for a fact that those KIRO cats have access to the interwebs, so the D-Man has no excuse. Dori could easily have looked it up and found that it’s Sen. Lisa Brown’s lawsuit, not the governor’s. But he didn’t.

Maybe you missed this, but I love this story:

A speaker introducing Republican presidential candidate John McCain at a rally here Tuesday ridiculed Democratic contender Barack Obama for his intention to meet with “world leaders who want to kill us” and pointedly referred to the Illinois senator as “Barack Hussein Obama.”

Local conservative radio host Bill Cunningham went on to describe Obama as “a hack Chicago, Daley-style politician who is picturing himself as change.”

“When he gets done with you, all you’re going to have in your pocket is change,” he said.

McCain later condemned Cunningham’s remarks and apologized to Obama.

McCain could have shrugged the whole thing off by saying “this guy doesn’t speak for me,” but he didn’t. What he did do is throw a supporter under the bus for a minor political infraction.

There’s a dumb ass Rush Limbaugh wannabe in every radio market, and this guy was just doing his right wing radio schtick as a “warm up” for the senator. Well, he’s not happy with how Sen. T-Rex Arms is treating him:

“Why is he attacking me and not Obama or Hillary? He ought to attack Democrats and quit attacking conservatives like me,” Cunningham said. “I’ve had it up to here with John McCain. He’s off the list. I’m joining Ann Coulter in supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

No kidding.

And what’s with the “Hussein” thing anyway? Inbred mouth-breathing types like to mention it as a way of saying:

“Hey look! This guys gots a funny name! He must be a A-rab or sumthin’.”

“Hussein” is like the “Smith” of the Arab world. It’s a common name in most of the world. It would be funny if Mahmūd Ahmadinejād’s middle name was Smith or something like that.

I can see the attacks ads already:

You though President Ahmadinejād hated The Great Satan… but did you know that his middle name is…

…Johnson?

Can we really trust someone with a funny American name? No.

This message was approved by XXXXXX because we need a president with a patriotic middle name.

If only we could export that kind of thing to other countries.

While Dino Rossi and his fellow Republicans travel the state bemoaning our hostile business climate and out-of-control government, Gov. Christine Gregoire’s administration keeps racking up top grades from impartial national observers. First Forbes Magazine (hardly a bastion of liberal propaganda) lauds Washington as “the big story” of its annual Top States for Business survey, documenting our rise from 12th to 5th place under Gov. Gregoire’s leadership, and now the Pew Center on the States grades Washington an A- for performance in its 2008 State Management Report Card… the top score awarded this year, shared by only Virginia and Utah. (Hat tip Andrew.)

How are those campaign themes working out for you, Dino?

Washington receives an A- or higher in three of four categories; only in Infrastructure does our state drop to a B+, and that less than stellar mark is largely due to a decades long deficit in public investment that the Gregoire administration is only beginning to turn around. And like the Forbes survey, the Pew report not only shows top performance, but progress under the current administration, with Washington improving from a B+ the last time the survey was conducted back in 2005:

Washington has been a consistent leader in results-based governance. It was ahead of nearly all other states in controlling spending by keeping track of where investments were and were not paying off. Under Governor Christine Gregoire, Washington’s government has, if anything, moved further ahead on this front.

Of course, Rossi’s dire warnings of administrative mismanagement and looming crisis are just the usual political bluster; after three years of ducking questions on nearly every contentious issue that has confronted our state, Rossi has little option but to attack Gov. Gregoire’s leadership. But as empty and misleading as the Republicans’ anti-Gregoire rhetoric has been, we can’t assume it won’t ultimately resonate with voters, for I’m guessing the governor’s top grades likely come as a surprise even to some of her most ardent supporters.

No doubt a lot of the blame for this public perception gap falls on the governor herself, for as good an administrator and negotiator as she’s proven to be, she’s not always been the best communicator. (Recent communications staff changes look awfully promising, but Gov. Gregoire could still learn some lessons in self-promotion from Attorney General Rob McKenna.) Whenever I have the opportunity to speak to top Democratic elected and party officials I always tell them that if the public doesn’t understand their accomplishments — if voters don’t appreciate the value they’re getting for their tax dollars — it’s because these officials are doing a crappy job of telling their story. 99 percent of political life is exceedingly dull, and the bureaucratic process is duller still, so crafting a narrative that reaches beyond the occasional crisis or partisan food fight yet still manages to shape the public debate, requires both creativity and relentlessness on the part of public officials and their staff.

Yet I couldn’t touch on this topic without also blaming our local press, for it is, in the end, their job to inform and educate the public on what is really happening in Olympia and the impact it has on families throughout the state, an assignment they routinely fail when it comes to reporting on our government’s successes. Oh, I’m not blaming the rank and file political reporters; I think they generally do a pretty good job with what limited resources they have… and it’s not their fault that “State Government Program Operates Smoothly” doesn’t exactly make for a compelling headline. Their job is to tell a story too, and crisis, corruption and mismanagement, when it occurs, makes for a helluva a better read than a tedious tale of government doing what, in fact, it is supposed to do.

No, I blame the editorial boards, for not only failing to place our government’s flaws in their proper context, but for occasionally, maliciously doing the exact opposite. Of course the op/ed pages are the place for publishers and editors to express their opinions, but the gatekeepers of the Fourth Estate have public obligations that should run deeper than those of a mere blogger. As purveyors of a journalistic paradigm that aspires toward impartiality and objectivity, editorial writers and columnists have a unique responsibility to reassert a sense of proportion unavoidably lost in the daily rush of headlines. I don’t expect newspapers to attempt to balance the bad news with good news — that would be pointless and boring — but if they are to strenuously avoid editorializing within their news reporting, then they have an obligation to balance the news on their editorial pages by providing a little context. At least, they should have this obligation if they expect to be taken seriously.

Take for example Kate Riley’s column today in the Seattle Times, “When it comes to open government, a sledgehammer is sorely needed“, a dire headline if there ever was one. According to Riley our public disclosure laws have “utterly eroded,” and much of the blame falls on Gov. Gregoire who has allegedly “slapped open-government advocates in the face.” Uh-huh. And what does the Pew report say on this subject in comparing Washington to the 49 other states?

Bottom line: No state in the nation is better at developing and sharing information than Washington.

I don’t disagree with Riley that the Legislature needs to act to address the potentially frivolous use of attorney-client privilege as an end-run around our public disclosure laws (though her column might have been more useful had it come before this session’s legislative cut-offs,) but the tone and tenor of her piece suggest a system that has fallen into complete disrepair at the hands of a secretive governor. It is, through its utter lack of context, a mean spirited and misleading column, perhaps appropriate to the pages of a partisan blog, but unworthy of the weight of credibility assumed the pages of our state’s largest newspaper. The Times will run few articles trumpeting the everyday successes of our public disclosure laws, and understandably so. But the least they can do when criticizing our government’s failures on their op/ed page is to present those failures within the proper context of its established record of success.

That the majority of Washingtonians don’t understand how well managed our state government is compared to other states is a failure of our local press. But grading on a national curve, I guess I have to bump their report card up to a C.

FYI, Dave Ross is back in town today, and back on the air at 710-KIRO, but I’ll be back filling in for him Tuesday through Thursday. I’m particularly looking forward to Wednesday when I’ll have the opportunity to do some post-election coverage of tomorrow’s big primaries in Ohio and Texas. Talk to you then.

Stop by the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally to meet the local bloggers, and you’ll find that several of us originally hail from Philadelphia… though in fact, I don’t think that any of us technically grew up within city limits. I was 3 years old when my family moved out to the burbs for the usual reasons — better schools, safer streets, a little plot of land — but like most of the region’s natives, even those growing up across the river in New Jersey, I’ve always self-identified as a Philadelphian. We rooted for the same teams, consumed the same media, enjoyed or suffered the same local economy, and relied on “Center City” Philadelphia as our cultural and economic core. Of course, I could be more accurate and cop to growing up in Bala Cynwyd, but that sort of geographic specificity would actually be less useful to most folks from outside the region. Besides, which of the many Philadelphia suburbs I grew up in defines me a helluva lot less than the city these suburbs grew up around.

And so a couple of headlines in today’s Seattle Times op/ed page got me thinking about what I’ve long felt to be one of the greatest weaknesses of my adopted region: its determined resistance to establishing (or admitting to) a regional identity. In a column titled “The Eastside’s edge“, Lynn Varner lavishes praise on the booming economies of Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah and Renton, daring to hope for a “geographic shift of the region’s power center”, while at the same time an unsigned editorial looks less favorably on the city proper, opining “A changing Seattle, and not for the better“.

Uh-huh. This sort of neeter-neeter-neeterism not only does little to encourage the kind of regional “rapprochement” for which Varney claims she hopes, but actually distorts our understanding of the local economy, for the changes taking place both in Seattle and its surrounding suburbs are not only integrally linked, but are actually quite typical of growing metropolitan regions nationwide. Indeed, if not for Lake Washington’s geographic barrier it is likely that much of the Eastside would have been annexed long ago — just as Seattle did to neighboring communities to the North and the South — thus this supposed competition between cities would mostly be taking place within city limits. As if that really mattered.

City lines may determine school district boundaries, tax rates, land use regulations and other errata of modern life, but we are all one metropolitan region with shared cultural, economic, and increasingly, political interests. That Boeing lost that big Air Force tanker contract is a blow to the entire region, not just to the folks on the 767 assembly line up in Everett. If the Sonics sneak out of town in the middle of the night it will be a loss to sports fans throughout Western Washington. Those “music halls, sports stadiums, parks, [and] open space” the Times writes about are enjoyed by families in Ravenna and Renton alike, regardless of where these public amenities are located — hell, I even once ran into Tim Eyman and his Mukilteo-based family enjoying the taxpayer subsidized facilities at Seattle’s Children’s Museum. And then there’s the Times itself, a newspaper printed in Bothell and published by Mercer Islanders, but that still claims the place name “Seattle” in its masthead. We are the world.

Yet folks from around here are more likely to tell you that they’re from Bellevue or Kirkland or Redmond than to admit to being citizens of goddamn Seattle, despite the fact that you old timers all seem to worship the same TV clown and apparently share the same savant-like ability to distinguish between a 737-500 and a 737-600 by the distant sound of its engines. (Not to mention the regional, one-week obsession with hydro races. What’s up with that?) I mean, really… to this 16-year transplant, you natives all look alike.

Let’s be honest, like my home town of Bala Cynwyd, nobody outside of the region even knows how to pronounce Issaquah, let alone cares where it is; hate to tell ya folks, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Issaquah is just another Seattle neighborhood. The first step toward working together to solve our region’s problems is self-identifying as one, so let’s drop all this petty localism, recognize our shared interests, and march arm in arm toward achieving a common goal on which we can all agree: kicking the spandex-clad asses of those bike-worshiping, bastards down in God forsaken Portland. Go team.

Lebanon

The Saudi Arabian embassy in Beirut has called on its nationals to leave Lebanon a day after a US warship was positioned off the country’s coast.

The embassy on Saturday sent SMS messages to Saudis living in Lebanon urging them to leave the country as soon as possible, Al Jazeera’s correspondent said.

Gaza

Israel vowed to press its campaign against militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday despite an international outcry over the deadly onslaught that prompted even the moderate Palestinian leadership to cut off all peace talks.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to continue the ground and air operation that has killed 71 Palestinians since Saturday following the death of one Israeli civilian last week and earned the Jewish state international condemnation for disproportionate use of force.

Iraq

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said in Baghdad on Sunday that the “Iranian and Iraqi nations will always stand by each other.”

In a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani, Ahmadinejad called his landmark visit to Iraq “a new page in the history of the relations between the two countries and cooperation in the region.”

The Iranian president arrived in Baghdad on Sunday morning and was received by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie.

Talabani, who grinned broadly and eagerly shook Ahmadinejad’s hand, called the visit “historic”, AFP reported.

Throughout this decade, we’ve been led to believe that the first two stories are examples of freedom being on the march, while the third example is a setback. In reality, they’re all setbacks, with the third story being the indication of the failure of the approach used in the first two.

John McCain’s new chart-topping single:

(And about ninety more media clips from the past week in politics can be found at Hominid Views.)

From the Seattle Times:

School officials in San Francisco and elsewhere are grappling with the difficulty of getting students to accept free or subsidized lunches because of the social stigma.

Or, um… maybe the kids would prefer to eat real food rather than pizza and corn dogs?

On a more serious note, my first thought in reading the article was, why the fuck are the free and reduced price lunch kids being identified as such? It doesn’t work that way in Seattle elementary schools, where kids have accounts from which the cost of meals are deducted. Who’s to know? So why are free and reduced price lunch kids forced to stand in a separate line in San Francisco?

Most of the separate lines came in response to a federal requirement that food of minimal nutritional value not be sold in the same place as subsidized meals, which must meet certain nutritional standards.

Gee, well, I suppose one simple solution might be to eliminate this federal requirement. Or — and I don’t want to get too radical here — perhaps we shouldn’t be serving school kids “food of minimal nutritional value”…? Which of course, gets back to my first comment: corn dogs? Yuch.