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WhackyNation’s eminently whacky Mark Gardner accuses me of “smearing” Assistant State Treasurer Allan Martin, by describing him as a licensed mortician. But… um… Martin is a licensed mortician:

Martin, 54, is a former funeral director who says he has kept his license current for doing funerals and embalming.

Because as State Treasurer, you never know when that might come in handy.

Ironically, in his zeal to brand me as unworthy of serving in a profession that includes such beacons of journalistic integrity as Michael Savage, G. Gordon Liddy and Bill O’Reilly, Gardner overlooked a genuine factual error in my original post, that could actually rise to the level of constituting a “smear” had I known the information to be incorrect. But since the error concerned one of the Democrats in the race, Gardner apparently couldn’t give a shit.

In my post I pointed out that the name of the state’s chief economist, Dr. ChangMook Sohn, appears as a signatory to an online petition from the libertarian Cato Institute, calling for Social Security privatization, and technically, this true — Dr. Sohn’s name does appear on the petition. But Dr. Sohn assures me via email that he has “never signed or been asked to sign a petition to privatize Social Security,” and has no idea how his name got on the Cato petition. Furthermore, when asked specifically about his stance on the issue, Dr. Sohn writes:

As a principle, I do not comment on the Federal government policy issues. I am a state government official. As a private citizen, however, I oppose Social Security privatization. Given its expected negative cash flow situation within 10 years, the overhaul of the current system is inevitable, I believe.

I raised the issue in the first place because Social Security privatization doesn’t strike me as a Democratic value, and I am pleased to clarify that Dr. Sohn does not support it. I have contacted the Cato Institute, asking them to explain how Dr. Sohn’s name came to be attached to their petition, but have yet to receive a reply.

As for Martin, if he wants to send me an email denying that he is a licensed mortician, I’d be happy to post that correction as well.

Standing four-foot-something with a metal hook in the place of a left hand, Oregon US Senate hopeful Steve Novick certainly doesn’t look like your typical candidate… and he certainly isn’t running your typical campaign ads. I don’t know if these ads are effective in terms of actually getting votes, but damn do I love ’em.

Seattle Times political reporter David Postman is reporting from eastern Washington this week, and he’s sending back some great stuff. His most recent post is from Garfield County. (Anti-government types, pay attention: Garfield’s two largest employers are the federal government and the county itself. Go figure.)

Postman interviews some rock-ribbed Republican family farmers, and finds that not everything is going as planned:

These are no longer the energetic Republican backers who in 2000 spent $3,000 of their own money to make a batch of 4-by-8-foot “Save Our Dams” signs that urged people to vote Republican. You won’t see them at a rally this year, or maybe even at the Republican caucus Feb. 9. Where Mary had “a totally intense feeling” about the campaign in 2000, today there is a palpable sense of disillusionment.

In the GOP’s SOP, meaningless fringe issues are used to rile the peons, while the Wall Street faction gets exactly what they want. (Dividend tax cuts! Corporate tax cuts! A farm bill that pays millions to ADM and peanuts to the little guys!)

Meanwhile the Dyes sold off their life insurance policies, reduced their health insurance to a bare minimum, and put their kids on the state’s Basic Health Plan. And they all scrimped. When there was a bit of milk left in the bottom of a glass, it got poured back into the carton for another day. Mary said:

“In large part, there’s something really awful to me about a man who has been farming since 1978, now in his mid-50s, having to struggle like this.”

Farmers were at the epicenter of the Progressive movement in the early twentieth century. They said, through their great champion, that they would not be crucified on a “cross of gold.”

Mary stayed involved in politics up until mid-2004. She was a Bush supporter and leading the Washington state effort to draft that year’s party platform. Then as her family and friends struggled she no longer wanted to be part of the system that had once energized her.

She quit the campaign and all the party business. She didn’t tell anyone why and everyone was apparently too polite to ask.

“George Bush has betrayed me personally. … I just definitely thought he understood.”

Software folks have a saying for when something doesn’t work right. They say “it’s a feature, not a bug.” The Bush Administration was always all about screwing the little guy and using the government for the advantage of the powerful. That was the idea all along.

It would be easy to go all “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” on these folks, and to dis them for voting against (what I perceive to be) their economic self interest, but that’s gauche. I can’t expect them to be wooed by an argument of economic populism if the leading Democratic candidates aren’t wooing them with one. It’s as simple as that.

Huh. The polls were off big time again in South Carolina, predicting 38-percent of the vote for Barack Obama, when he actually pulled in over 55-percent. And yet nobody is leveling charges of election fraud, like the did in New Hampshire. Hmm. I wonder why?

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Are you wonked out Daily Kos?
Joel Silberman from Daily Kos joins me for the hour to talk about the tension between political wonkery and emotional generalism, and how it’s playing out in the current electoral cycle.

8PM: Is it time to reform mortgage lending?
Home foreclosure rates are rising, as more and more homeowners are falling victim to adjustable rate mortgages they can no longer afford, with many claiming they were misled by mortgage brokers and lenders. Maya Baxter from the Statewide Poverty Action Network joins me for the hour to discuss the crisis, and two bills that have been introduced in the state legislature to address this issue.

9PM: TBA
The usual liberal propaganda

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

So, the Seattle Times has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. Big deal. Next week they’ll also endorse Sen. John McCain on the Republican side. If the Times really embraces the kind of change they believe Obama represents, they wouldn’t endorse anybody for the Republican nomination, least of all a warmonger whose idea of straight talk is promising crowds “there will be other wars.”

Personally, I doubt many Washington state Democrats are looking to the op-ed pages for advice on who to caucus for on February 9, but if they are, I’m guessing the most influential endorsement of the primary season may have come today in the New York Times, and I’m not talking about an unsigned editorial. No, the big news following Obama’s impressive 29-point rout of Hillary Clinton in yesterday’s South Carolina primary was the moving op-ed column written by Caroline Kennedy, “A President Like My Father“:

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

[…] I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

I suppose I might have a reputation for being a hard-edged cynic, but my eyes actually teared up a bit when I first read Kennedy’s words. I so desperately want to believe what she believes, that Obama really does have that “special ability” to inspire and to lead and to bring us back together as a nation. I fully understand her father was just a man, as flawed as any, but that doesn’t diminish President Kennedy’s impact as a leader, however symbolic, and I too long for a president who can inspire me the way so many of my parent’s generation were inspired by him.

As both a liberal and an American, I have long felt cheated by history… robbed of a promising future by a handful of assassins’ bullets. Had President Kennedy lived to complete his terms, might we have avoided the mistakes that led to an all out involvement in Vietnam, a war that divided our nation and drained us of precious blood and treasure? Had Bobby Kennedy survived to win the White House, would American liberalism have survived to finally achieve the vision of economic justice and security first enunciated by FDR, and wouldn’t Americans have retained the faith in government that carried us through the Great Depression and World War II, rather than seeing that faith shattered by the betrayal that was Watergate? Had Martin Luther King Jr. lived to guide our nation to the Promised Land, rather than just glimpsing it from some far-off mountain top, would the Republican Party have been free to so ruthlessly exploit Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” to advance their selfish, conservative agenda?

My critics like to characterize me as some wide-eyed, lefty moonbat, but I’m nothing more or less than a 1970’s-era centrist who has been radicalized in style if not in substance by a decades-long, right-wing campaign to defile the proud legacy of American liberalism, and to brand its adherents as idiots, ideologues, traitors and worse. The radicalized middle from which I come did not lightly seize on unbridled partisanship as our political weapon of choice, but that is the weapon that has been used to cudgel us into submission for far too long. That the fierceness of the netroots and the new progressive movement to which it belongs frightens the political and media establishment, is understandable, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that our aggressive rhetoric and tactics have not played a significant role in our recent electoral victories. Only now that a netroots-powered Democratic majority is on the verge of seizing unchallenged control of the federal government, do we hear a renewed call for bipartisanship… and that is why I wince every time I hear Obama echoing their frame.

When Obama talks about reaching his hand across the aisle, the cynic in me envisions the other side leaping at the opportunity to lop it off. When Obama talks about bipartisanship, I fear it means willingly sacrificing the very political advantages we have fought so hard to achieve. It’s not that I don’t trust Obama, it’s just that I don’t trust the Republican leadership to reciprocate in kind… not these Republicans… not the party that so joyously swiftboated a war hero, and took a man who left three limbs on the battlefield and morphed him into Osama bin Laden. Hardened by decades of partisan, political war, I admit to finding a certain degree of solace in the more calculating nature of Hilary Clinton — the very same quality that appears to turn off so many other voters. Better to be calculating than naive.

That said, I want to believe, like Caroline Kennedy, in the promise of Obama. I want a president who I don’t simply admire, but one who I find truly inspirational. I want my eyes to fill with tears, not at the thought of what might have been, but what can be. And not since Mario Cuomo ended his flirtation with a White House bid back in 1991 have I found a presidential candidate who offers me this hope.

Tomorrow, Sen. Ted Kennedy will appear with his niece at a rally in Washington D.C., to announce his endorsement of Barack Obama, and to personally pass the torch of Camelot on to a new generation. No doubt the right will take the opportunity to vilify Sen. Kennedy in the hope that some of their ridicule might rub off on the man he supports, but in doing so they perilously dismiss the power of symbolism, for even Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” was a reference to Camelot, and an attempt to co-opt the aura of the Kennedy era as his own.

Perhaps Camelot was always only a dream, but that doesn’t mean it can’t someday come true. Tomorrow, Barack Obama, surrounded by his beautiful wife and young children, standing beside the daughter and brother of the fallen king, has an unprecedented opportunity to rekindle this dream in the hearts of Americans. It is an opportunity to restore the faith of even hardened cynics like me.

Richard Holbrooke, former ambassador to the United Nations, continues his strong criticism of the Bush Administration’s approach to dealing with Afghanistan’s opium problem:

“I’m a spray man myself,” President Bush told government leaders and American counter-narcotics officials during his 2006 trip to Afghanistan. He said it again when President Hamid Karzai visited Camp David in August. Bush meant, of course, that he favors aerial eradication of poppy fields in Afghanistan, which supplies over 90 percent of the world’s heroin. His remarks — which, despite their flippant nature, were definitely not meant as a joke — are part of the story behind the spectacularly unsuccessful U.S. counter-narcotics program in Afghanistan. Karzai and much of the international community in Kabul have warned Bush that aerial spraying would create a backlash against the government and the Americans, and serve as a recruitment device for the Taliban while doing nothing to reduce the drug trade. This is no side issue: If the program continues to fail, success in Afghanistan will be impossible.

The opium issue in Afghanistan has often been treated as a side issue, and Holbrooke deserves credit for strongly challenging that perspective. The way we’re dealing with the opium production is as central to the difficulties we’re having as anything else commonly cited for why we’re losing ground to the Taliban (targeting civilians in airstrikes, being distracted by the Iraq occupation).

Fortunately, Bush has not been able to convince other nations or Karzai that aerial spraying should be conducted, although he is vigorously supported by the American ambassador, William Wood, who was an enthusiastic proponent of aerial spraying in his previous assignment, in Colombia. Wood, often called “Chemical Bill” in Kabul, has even threatened senior Afghan officials with cuts in reconstruction funds if his policies are not carried out, according to two sources.

Aerial spraying in Colombia (under the plan initiated by Bill Clinton in 2000 and continued by the Bush Administration) has been a complete disaster. It has failed to achieve any of its intended objectives and has caused a significant amount of damage to America’s reputation in that region because aerial spraying has a number of additional consequences that affect far more than just those who grow the prohibited crops. In Afghanistan, unleashing a similar disaster would strengthen the Taliban at an even greater rate than what’s happening today.

The current approach of manual eradication, favored by the British and by the Karzai government, is only slightly less counterproductive. The Taliban provide security for the opium traffickers against the government’s eradication teams for a fee (often paid with weapons). In other words, it’s not the profits from the opium trade by itself that enrich the Taliban. It’s the need for protection from the government’s eradication teams that enriches them. If Chemical Bill and the Spray Man get their way, the need for protection will increase and the Taliban will get paid by the traffickers to shoot down low-flying aircraft (aerial eradication of crops has to be done from a very low altitude). It simply has no chance of working in such a poor security environment.

In a nation where roughly 50 percent of the national economy comes from the opium industry, there’s simply no way to uproot it, either by going after the farmers, the traffickers, or the high-ranking government officials who profit from it (including Hamid Karzai’s brother). As much as it may strike people as being irresponsible, simply doing nothing about the opium farming would actually be better than what we do now. Holbrooke doesn’t hold back in his assessment:

But even without aerial eradication, the program, which costs around $1 billion a year, may be the single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy. It’s not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan.

According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, the area under opium cultivation increased to 193,000 hectares in 2007 from 165,000 in 2006. The harvest also grew, to 8,200 tons from 6,100. Could any program be more unsuccessful?

Well, the one favored by Chemical Bill and the Spray Man would be. But otherwise, thank god we still have people like Holbrooke who are speaking up about this.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: What happened down in South Carolina?
Minutes after the polls closed everybody called it for Barack Obama, and in a “rout”. Democratic strategist, blogger, pundit James Boyce joins us again with his analysis of today’s results from the South Carolina Democratic primary, and a look toward Tuesday’s big Republican showdown in Florida. Does Obama really have the momentum heading into the Feb. 5 primary-palooza? Is Rudy Giuliani really the Max Bialystock of politics?

7:30PM: What’s happening down in Olympia?
The Stranger’s Josh Feit joins me for an abbreviated look at the week’s news, focusing on his first hand observations from the legislative session. A progressive tax break? Not so pernicious transportation governance reform? New domestic partner rights? All that and more.

8PM: Saturday night comedy with Riggs
Local comedian Riggs joins us for our not so wonky Saturday night conversation with somebody who really is funny, instead of somebody who just thinks he is.

9PM: TBA
The usual liberal propaganda

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

If you haven’t already seen this over on Slog, Dan Savage filmed a short segment in South Carolina talking with Huckabee supporters for last week’s Real Time with Bill Maher

Not only is the Acela one helluva nice train, you never know who’s gonna sit behind you, blabbing on his cell phone….

A few days back I wrote about Darcy Burner’s impressive ranking among ActBlue’s Top Ten Candidates in 2007 by number of contributers. Well it turns out there’s another, equally impressive ActBlue top ten list Darcy made:

Top Ten Pages with the Highest Number of Tippers: (pages with 100+ contributors)

Page	% of Tippers
Eschaton ’08 Challengers	77%
Freeze Out Fox News	77%
Not One Red Cent	74%
Burn Bush for Burner	71%
Blue Majority	70%
BlogPac Heroes	69%
AMERICAblog Supports Tom Allen	69%
Blue America ’08	68%
Help Skinner Finish the Job	68%
BlogPac	67%
Steve Beshear	67%

ActBlue funds its operations largely from the tips donors have the option of making with each contribution, and Darcy’s contributors proved extraordinarily generous. This tells me that Darcy’s contributors understand that winning races requires more than just great candidates like Darcy… it requires building and maintaining a robust progressive infrastructure that makes insurgent campaigns like Darcy’s possible.

Thank you all for your generosity and hard work. Of course, we still have long road ahead, so please do what you can to help Darcy get to the other Washington.

WhackyNation’s Mark Gardner wants me fired. I won’t bother linking to his post ’cause Carl has already blockquoted the hell out of it over on Effin’ Unsound, and besides… why should I drive traffic to the website of somebody who wants me fired? But I thought I’d take a moment to comment on what I see as a disturbing theme of some like Gardner on the right.

Gardner asks “When is KIRO going to fire David Goldstein?” and then goes on to write:

I’ve said it here before: I don’t understand why Bonneville Broadcasting Management in Salt Lake doesn’t tell the local station manager to fire Goldstein for embarassing Bonneville’s reputation for quality journalism. I would have fired this smart ass a long time ago. I’m sure Lou would have, too.

Ignoring for a moment that A) Gardner is objecting to something I posted on my blog, not something I said on air; B) I’m no more a journalist than, say, Dori Monson; and C) nothing I wrote in that post was untrue… what Gardner really doesn’t understand — what has totally flummoxed my right-wing critics since Bonneville International took control of the station last year — is why this wholly owned subsidiary of the Church of Latter Day Saints hasn’t fired my sorry ass just because I am unabashedly liberal. That’s what truly confuses folk like Gardner, who obviously believe that the proper and expected use of the power of media ownership is to stifle the voices of those who disagree with you.

Notice that Gardner doesn’t ask why KIRO management doesn’t fire me, but rather, why the folks in Salt Lake City don’t order them to do so… you know, like Gardner expected they would back when news first broke that Bonneville was reacquiring the station, because, hell, the whole point of owning media is to control the public debate, right? Gardner’s vindictive call for me to lose my livelihood, and his puzzlement at conservative ownership’s failure to fire a liberal host, is a window into Gardner’s own pseudo-fascist fantasy about the proper role of money in politics. And I can only assume that his anger over my continued employment is a testament to a job well done.

So why hasn’t KIRO fired me? Well, perhaps because I bring them raw talent with a lot of upside, a virtual lock on local liberal talk in this very liberal market, and a proven track record of bringing in quality guests on weekend nights like no other weekend host before me? Perhaps because I’ve slowly but steadily grown my audience over the past year and a half, and my breaks are packed to the gills with paying spots? And maybe — just maybe — because serving the needs of the community and turning a profit appear much further up the list on their mission statement than Gardner’s goal of crushing liberal dissent?

If you have your own thoughts on why KIRO hasn’t fired me, please add them to the comment thread.

If you’re wondering why Dave Reichert is so desperate to snag a seat on the Appropriations Committee, it all comes down to supply and demand. Reichert’s looking to the plum assignment as an opportunity to trade influence for campaign cash… something that’s been in short supply for the minority party this election cycle. And whoa boy, is there a lot of demand.

Reichert benefited from a flood of NRCC and RNC money in 2006, and still only managed to just squeak by newcomer Darcy Burner. But in 2008 the GOP has a helluva lot more turf to defend, and a helluva lot less cash on hand. Just take a look at the growing list of open House seats for a good illustration of the Democrats relative advantage:

Republicans
1.		(CA-52) Duncan Hunter		March 20, 2007
2.		(IL-18) Ray LaHood		July 27, 2007
3.		(MS-03) Chip Pickering		August 16, 2007
4.		(OH-15) Deborah Pryce		August 16, 2007
5.		(IL-14) Dennis Hastert *		August 17, 2007
6.		(AZ-01) Rick Renzi		August 23, 2007
7.		(MN-03) Jim Ramstad		September 17, 2007
8.		(IL-11) Jerry Weller		September 21, 2007
9.		(AL-02) Terry Everett		September 26, 2007
10.		(NM-01) Heather Wilson		October 5, 2007
11.		(OH-16) Ralph Regula		October 12, 2007
12.		(OH-07) David Hobson		October 14, 2007
13.		(NM-02) Steve Pearce		October 17, 2007
14.		(LA-01) Bobby Jindal *		October 21, 2007
15.		(CO-06) Tom Tancredo		October 29, 2007
16.		(NJ-03) Jim Saxton		November 9, 2007
17.		(WY-AL) Barbara Cubin		November 10, 2007
18.		(NJ-07) Michael Ferguson		November 19, 2007
19.		(LA-04) Jim McCrery		December 7, 2007
20.		(MS-01) Roger Wicker *		December 31, 2007
21.		(PA-05) John Peterson		January 3, 2008
22.		(CA-04) John Doolittle		January 10, 2008
23.		(LA-06) Richard Baker *		January 15, 2008
24.		(NY-25) Jim Walsh		January 24, 2008
25.		(FL-15) Dave Weldon		January 25, 2008
Democrats
1.		(CO-02) Mark Udall		January 16, 2007
2.		(ME-01) Tom Allen		May 9, 2007
3.		(NY- 21) Mike McNulty		October 29, 2007
4.		(NM-03) Tom Udall		November 10, 2007
5.		(IN-07) Julia Carson *		November 26, 2007
6.		(CA-12) Tom Lantos		January 2, 2008

(* Seats will be replaced prior to the 2008 election.)

25 open House seats for the Republicans compared to only 6 for the Democrats. And the money disparity is even worse; as of January 22, the DCCC reported over $30 million cash on hand, while the NRCC reported only $2.3 million… an amount equal to what they spent on Reichert alone in 2006. (In fact, the NRCC is sitting on almost $3.4 million of debt, so their balance sheet is actually in the red. Damn.)

If God helps those who help themselves, the same is true of the political parties, and Reichert better help himself to some hefty contributions and quick, if he hopes to stay on an even footing with Burner. Third term incumbents are generally expected to be pumping dollars into NRCC coffers, not sucking money out, and it’s not clear that his party can afford to make his race the same priority they did last time around. Oh… and I’m not so sure it helps Reichert that the man he’s trying to bump aside from the Appropriations seat is the man he’ll have to rely on to cut the big checks, NRCC chair Tom Cole.

It’s shaping up to be a tough year for Desperate Dave and his fellow Republicans.

Some Wyoming transplants have significantly lowered this city’s average IQ.

My Birds Eye View contest this week is a real place, I swear.

UPDATE: Just saw this at Slog, have to post it too: