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

7PM: Radio Kos: Church and/or State?
Rev. Forrest Church is an author and theologian, the son of former Idaho Sen. Frank Church, and the Minister of Public Theology at All Souls Unitarian Church in New York. In her review and interview posted today on Daily Kos, Joan “McJoan” McCarter describes Rev. Church’s latest book, So Help me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State, as “an engaging, beautifully crafted and meticulously researched history of our nation’s first culture war over what role religion was to play in government.” Rev. Church and McJoan join me for the hour.

8PM: Will WA state ferries sink or swim?
An 80-year-old section of our state highway system was essentially allowed to disintegrate, when four steel-electric class ferries were pulled out of service due to serious corrosion. Washington State Transportation Commissioner Bob Distler joins me by phone for an update on the current plans to serve the effected routes, and a discussion what got us to this situation in the first place.

9PM: TBA
Liberal propaganda.

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

I don’t want to top Goldy’s tasty diatribe below, a must read, so just quickly will point to Danny Westneat’s column about John Fox today in The Times. And don’t forget the Seattle Displacement Coalition’s big fundraiser tomorrow night, 7 p.m. in University Temple United Methodist Church.

You’ve got to give credit to the folks at the Discovery Institute; when they put their “minds” to something, they never seem to let little distractions like public opinion, science or, you know, reality get in their way.

As political momentum grows for a highway-free Seattle shoreline, some would-be visionaries want to help traffic move by digging a deep tunnel from Sodo to north of downtown. […] Costs are unknown, but would be in the billions of dollars. Even if a suitable tunnel path exists, Seattle’s loose, watery soils present a challenge in places, and there’s not much room at the surface for ramp connections at I-5.

That hasn’t stopped the Cascadia Center, a branch of the Discovery Institute think tank, from promoting a tunnel.

No, no… of course it hasn’t, because the folks at the Discovery Institute are a bunch of fanaticist nutcases “visionaries”… you know, if by “visionary” you mean promoting Intelligent Design, seeking to overthrow the scientific method and “replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions,” and ignoring both voter sentiment (“No/Hell No” vote on the Viaduct; Prop 1’s crushing defeat) and economic reality in proposing a multi-billion dollar big dig through downtown Seattle.

I mean, Jesus H. Christ… what does it take to tarnish the Discovery Institute’s reputation? Does Bruce Chapman actually have to strip himself naked and go on a shooting rampage through the Tacoma Mall before our local media and political elite finally accept the fact that he might not be the same reasonable city councilman they remember from the 1970’s? Is there nothing he can do or say to destroy his credibility?

I once proposed building a gigantic rollercoaster along the West Seattle to downtown portion of the Monorail’s abandoned Green Line, and you didn’t see my joke of a transportation proposal picked up by the MSM, let alone labeled “visionary”. And yet the Seattle Rollercoaster Project is no less technically challenging nor politically, well, utterly fucking ridiculous than Discovery’s deep bore, crosstown tunnel. Engineering and economic feasibility aside, God himself could descend from the heavens with a blueprint in one hand and an infinite supply of cash in the other, only to be greeted by polar bear clad environmentalists and angry Eastside developers complaining that He isn’t doing enough to ease congestion on I-405. In a city where completion of a 1.3 mile vanity trolley line is feted like some transportation miracle, the very notion that local voters might commit more than a half billion dollars a mile to an untested technology is a dramatic tribute to Discovery’s primary mission of promoting the exercise of faith over reason.

Of course, it’s not merely faith in God that ultimately drives Discovery’s transportation planning, but more specifically faith in the Invisible Hand of God and the inherent efficiency of the free market. No doubt Seattle’s “Big Bore” would be pitched as a public/private partnership… you know, one of those sweetheart deals in which tax dollars are used to subsidize the privatization of a public asset. Sure, taxpayers would probably be better off financing our transportation improvements through payday loans, but then, who the hell am I to question the wisdom and motives of such an upstanding civic leader as Bruce Chapman?

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

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Josh Feit
The Stranger’s Josh Feit and Jonah Spangenthal-Lee join us for a recap of the week’s news, and a look ahead to what’s coming up. Do Seattle police tase first and ask questions later? Are Eastside Republicans a dying dead breed? Will the Legislature once again ignore Josh’s advice? All that and more, plus your calls.

8PM: Did Brian Boshes have a Ha Ha Hanukkah?
Brian Boshes says he grew up in a stable household with parents who still love him, and yet he grew up to be a stand up comic. Go figure. He’s performing in the Ha Ha Hanukkah show at the Mainstage this week (Dec 20-22), and joins us in studio for the hour. We’ll be chatting, and giving away tickets.

9PM: HA rides/derides the SLUT!
HA has always been fair and balanced, as evidenced by bloggers Will and Paul opposite take on the South Lake Union Trolley. Both Will and Paul join me in studio for a no holds barred review/debate of Seattle’s idea of a mass transit system.

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

This week’s Birds Eye View Contest is still unsolved. This is an open thread…

Yes it’s Saturday morning, and yes, it’s ugly-raining outside, and it’s the season of peace and goodwill and you only have single-digit days left to do your Christmas shopping. You rightfully expect it to be one of the softest news days of the year. But we know all you HA addicts out there cannot help yourselves. On the off-chance one of us tireless scribes has somehow seen fit to post a new set of calumnies, buffoneries and outrages, you just have to click. Doncha…

We will try not to disappoint. There actually is a lot of stuff happening out there, for a Saturday in December. Maybe the ever-cynical powers that be are trying to slip things by us during the holidays, the way the Bushies like to disclose illegal initiatives and unconstitutional policies on Friday afternoons.

The Times trumpets an $8 million proposal by Gov. Gregoire to actually do something about physician/counselor sexual misconduct, a courageous act typical of a politician entering a re-election year. In one of those mercilessly cold-eyed observations that only hardened journalists have the guts to print, the story notes “Gregoire said several of her initiatives are in response to a 2006 Seattle Times investigation, ‘License to Harm,’ which brought the registered-counselor loophole to light.” Yes, let’s close that gaping loophole nearly two years after the fact while patting ourselves on the back without even the meekest challenge over why it took so damn long to do anything. After all, Gregoire’s failure to act last year might well have cost The Times a Pulitzer. We still eagerly await a newspaper investigation that does something to warn and protect readers from society’s ills in time to be meaningful, rather than react with high dudgeon to the damage done. But then, that might mean getting on the guv’s bad side, or the legislature’s, or…remind me, how did that “loophole” get into law in the first place?

Not that the P-I can’t wring hands with the best of them. Its lead story has to do with the mortgage-induced plight of an Iraq war veteran. (As if to provide a helping hand, the paper also offers a companion piece, 7 Tips to Sell Your Home. Tip No. 1: Have the local rag write a Page 1 story about it.) Nothing surprising, but give the P-I credit: Iraq war, mortgage crisis. D’ya think there could be a connection? We are left to connect the dots ourselves, of course, while marveling over riveting prose like: “For a soldier, the mortgage crisis is the same as for civilians, but also quite different.” Wow, who edits this stuff?

Lines like that kept folks like Will Durst from becoming a journalist, more’s the pity. One pimp-slap of Gov. Gregoire and he’d be back at the Eastlake Zoo, scanning the help-wanted ads. Local cynics of the Durst cloth will note the quiet resurrection of the waterfront tunnel boondoggle now that tunnel-basher and surface-option-backer Peter Steinbrueck is leaving the City Council. Yes, the public voted down a tunnel, but wait, that one was different. This one “would not follow the shoreline and would be deeper beneath downtown.” Jan Drago for one is on the case: “We need to make better use of the real estate we have … including our subterranean assets.”

What makes this all ironic as only Seattle’s incestuous little political circle can be is that Drago just last night, at Steinbrueck’s going-away party at City Hall, was singing paens to his “tireless passion” for preserving Seattle’s civic and environmental integrity: “Many times I would go into my office on weekends, and who would already be there but Peter,” she effused. No doubt trying to figure out how to counteract Drago’s latest Big Development rape-n-pillage scheme. Steinbrueck will, however, continue as one of Seattle’s biggest above-ground assets, teaching at the U.W. and writing a column for Crosscut.com, Drago having handed him a great initial topic.

(This and nearly 90 other media clips from the past week in politics can be found at Hominid Views.)

Another victory for Intelligent Design….

They Never Learn Dept.: Last August, our dailies spent two weeks hyperventilating about lane closures resulting in huge I-5 backups that never materialized. No matter. Top headline in the P-I‘s web site (and on tee-vee) today: lane closures coming for two weeks resulting in huge I-405 backups! Even worse: the traffic mess will interfere with your Christmas shopping!! (Seriously. This was the focus of the P-I’s article.) Smelling salts, please: the article made no mention of August’s I-5 experience, in which people changed their travel habits accordingly. But we can’t have a daily paper stuffed full of ads from the malls suggest that you avoid I-405 and patronize your local neighborhood stores instead, now, can we?

Same Theme, Take Two: Three days ago, we were breathlessly told that the Port Townsend-Whidbey Island car ferry run was going to be out of service “for a year or more.” Today, we learn that it’ll be back next month. Moral: Don’t believe the hype.

In another Much Ado About Nothing story, everyone is milking another day of coverage out of the SLUT by reporting — gasp! — that someone left five ball bearings in the tracks Wednesday. (Great. Now every teen delinquent in the region knows a simple way to get yourself on tee-vee and the front page.) The P-I’s story in particular was notable for a closing quote by King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson John Urquhart:

“We have no idea what their motive was, no idea who put that there and we’re not going to speculate.”

This just after P-I reporter Scott Gutierrez had run a paragraph of exactly that sort of speculation-by-innuendo:

Despite civic leaders hailing the $52 million streetcar line, it has been controversial among area residents. During the opening run, a bicyclist group organized a protest to call attention to the dangers of streetcars for bicyclists.

What, exactly, does that have to do with the ball bearing incident? Shall we spell it out?

And, to round out our local bad media day, a tale of two headlines.

The Seattle Times: “McDermott votes against Christmas resolution to protest Bush veto.”

The P-I: “McDermott: Christmas vote was jab at bill’s GOP sponsor.” Which in turn conflicted with the story’s lede, a third, particularly treacly non-explanation from Mickey D: “Christmas is really about children…A children’s holiday, if you will.”

Barf. On so many levels.

Hard to tell whether it’s sloppy reporting, or Sunny Jim saying stupid things while trying to make a non-story go away. Or both.

Nationally: War on Terror Watch #1: The House yesterday passed a controversial and sadly redundant bill to ban waterboarding and “other harsh interrogation tactics.” Controversial: nearly 200 reps, most Republicans, voted for torture, something unthinkable even ten years ago. Redundant: didn’t we already pass a bill banning torture two years ago? Aren’t we already signatories, quaint or not, to the Geneva Conventions? Naturally, George Bush issued an immediate veto threat against a measure he already basically signed into law in early 2006 (with a signing statement saying, correctly, that he’d ignore the law).

War on Terror Watch #2: Remember the uproar last year when a bunch of jihadist wannabes were arrested in Miami, with the Bush administration, as usual, using the busts to play Fear Factor with the American public? Never mind.

Officials had acknowledged that the defendants, known as the Liberty City Seven for the depressed section of Miami where they frequently gathered in a rundown warehouse, had never acquired weapons or equipment and had posed no immediate threat. But, the officials said, the case underscored a need for pre-emptive terrorism prosecutions.

The prosecution’s case against the seven, accused of, well, let’s call it hazy plotting to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and other landmarks, fell apart Thursday. A Miami jury acquitted one defendant and a mistrial was declared in the cases of the other six when the jury deadlocked. Naturally, the feds immediately announced that the remaining six would be retried. And naturally, the outcome of the trial is getting a lot less attention than the original arrests.

Instead, the most talked about news story of the day is a sports non-story, given that we knew the general outline of it two years ago. Former Sen. George Mitchell released his long-awaited report on steroids in baseball yesterday, and it was sweeping, but far from complete, offering 91 names of current or former players alleged (at times on very thin evidence) to have taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The Mitchell investigation was essentially a preemptive move by baseball owners to (lightly) investigate themselves, sacrificing the reputations of a relative handful of players so as to hopefully forestall any federal or criminal investigation, which would turn up far more names in what was by most accounts a drug culture pervasive in the sport for over a decade. Roger Clemens (based on one person’s uncorroborated account) was the biggest of yesterday’s sacrificed reputations. Barry Bonds has been a lightning rod for steroids criticism and headlines because he has been black, surly, and very, very good for a long time, and now you can add Clemens, who has been white, surly, and also very, very good for a long time.

Twelve former Seattle Mariners were among the 91 named in the Mitchell report (but, after Jose Guillen was dumped this fall, no current ones). Note that Bret Boone, frequently suspected of steroid use in his Mariner heyday, was not named. (Neither, thank God, was Edgar Martinez or Jay Buhner.) But that itself means nothing. Mitchell had no subpoena power, and only two current players would talk with him. Most of those accused has ties with at least one of two people who did talk, former trainers for the Mets and Yankees. Seattle Times reporter Geoff Baker, in his Mariners blog, had the most succinct take of the day on the report:

Tip of the iceberg stuff. We’ve got all these names pouring out based mainly on the sworn declarations of two people — Radomski and Brian McNamee. Just imagine how many we’d uncover if Mitchell had the power to force everyone to talk to him under oath.

Or imagine if we had a news media that didn’t often spend its time covering trivia and even screwing that up.

I talked with Sen. Brian Weinstein this afternoon and while he gave a lot of reasons for not seeking a second term — tired of “banging my head against the wall” on issues like the Homeowners Bill of rights, disgust at the recent special session, etc — he says his primary motivation is that he simply needs to make money again… a commentary on our “citizen legislature” that I think deserves a more in depth conversation. Far from bitter or defeated, Weinstein seemed genuinely cheerful at the turn of events, and gave credit to Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown for bringing Fred Jarrett into the fold, a goal that had consistently eluded House Speaker Frank Chopp. Weinstein may not have always been the most politic politician, but he was passionately progressive, racking up one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate. He’ll be missed. (At least by me.)

As for Jarrett, well, now that he has torn that scarlet letter from his chest and replaced it with a bright blue “D”, I feel free to divulge a little secret. Back in January of 2006, when it became apparent that no other experienced candidate was willing to get into the congressional race against Dave Reichert, I went to Jarrett and pleaded with him to seek the Democratic nomination. He simply responded that he was “too old,” and that as a state we needed to pursue a “seniority strategy” by electing a younger candidate, preferably mid 30’s, to be in a position to eventually fill Norm Dicks’ role in the delegation.

I liked Darcy Burner, but up until that point I’d always thought of her youth as a liability. Jarrett’s response got me thinking about the many unique advantages Burner would bring to the job, and when, a few weeks later I started to forcefully advocate for her election, I did so with unquestioned enthusiasm. It was an uphill battle for an unknown novice to challenge a sitting incumbent, but I was confident that if she won, Burner would serve her district and the state well.

A while later I approached Jarrett again, this time asking him to publicly endorse Burner, arguing that the support of a respected Republican like him could sway enough votes to swing a close election. I was reminded of that conversation while reading Jarrett’s quote to Postman today:

“I felt there was a strong tradition in the Republican Party that really couldn’t be lost. So what I’ve been doing as long as I’ve been in the Legislature is trying to articulate that moderate Republican, progressive Republican, viewpoint, and what I found is I may have a lot of ego, but I don’t think I have enough ego to think anymore that I can do it.”

That’s kinda what Jarrett told me a year and a half ago, though not exactly in those words. I don’t know if Jarrett ultimately voted for Burner, but I can tell you that endorsing her would have required him to switch parties, and he just wasn’t prepared to go that far at that time. This was his GOP, dammit, and he didn’t want to give it over to those bastards. At least, that was the impression I came away with at the time.

But times change, as do political parties, and I think it fair to say that the GOP left Jarrett long before he left it. Jarrett’s decision was years in the making, as was the political transformation that has been sweeping formerly Republican suburban districts nationwide. As I wrote back in November of 2004, even in the immediate wake of the deeply disappointing 2004 election, the path toward a Democratic majority was clear: subdivide and conquer.

Just like the Democrats lost their base in the South with their support of civil rights legislation in the sixties, the GOP risks alienating their moderate, suburban base by abandoning fiscal conservatism to focus on right-wing social issues at home, and military and economic imperialism abroad. The neo-cons may dominate the national Republican leadership, but they do not represent the majority of suburban voters.

Families move to places like Mercer Island for better public schools, cleaner streets, safer neighborhoods, and all the other public services that a higher property tax base provides. These are people who believe in government because they benefit from it every day, and they routinely tax themselves to pay for the services they want.

These are people with whom urban Democrats have common ground, and we have an opportunity to exploit the wedge the neo-cons have provided, to expand our base politically and geographically. For in addition to a shared belief that good government is necessary to maintaining a high quality of life, suburban and city voters have a mutual interest in maintaining an economically and culturally vibrant urban core.

Welcome home Fred.

Zis is an open thread.

Well, apparently, state Rep. Fred Jarrett is no longer my favorite Republican elected official.

Marking the end of an era in which the Republican Party once dominated Eastside politics, Jarrett will officially switch parties before the start of the 2008 session, while declaring his candidacy as a Democrat for the seat being vacated by Democratic state Senator Brian Weinstein.

Oh, did I mention Weinstein is stepping down after one term in office? It’s been a busy day.

For months rumors have swirled that Weinstein might not seek a second term, or that Jarrett might run for the seat regardless, but any hope of a GOP pick-up is erased by Jarrett’s long-overdue move across the aisle. Jarrett, the last remaining Eastside Republican legislator, has faced growing pressure in recent races despite his moderate voting record and well-earned popularity, but as a Democrat, he’s a virtual shoo-in. Meanwhile, Republicans face a daunting challenge in holding taking back the 41st LD House seat without the universally well-liked Jarrett on the ticket.

More coming….

No doubt Idaho’s GOP establishment has been shitting bricks over US Sen. Larry “Wide Stance” Craig’s refusal to step down and allow the state party to appoint an heir apparent, but nobody really believes the Republicans risk losing this seat in this famously red state, do they? Well, according to a new survey conducted by Democratic pollster Lake Research Partners, um… maybe.

1. Idahoans are in the mood for change. Fifty-nine percent of voters believe that things in the United States are pretty seriously off on the wrong track. Only a quarter (26%) believe things are going in the right direction.

2. The Republican brand is in decline and a generic Democrat defeats a generic Republican. Forty-two percent of voters would vote for the Democrat in a hypothetical Senate race, compared to 36% who would support the Republican (21% are undecided). The Democrat leads by six points despite a 12-point Republican advantage in partisanship (40% Republican to 28% Democrat, 31% independent). Notably, voters criticize the job performance of President George Bush and Senator Larry Craig. Sixty-six percent of voters say Bush is doing either a just fair or poor job as President and only 33% say he is doing an excellent or good job. Craig is similarly critiqued: 56% just fair or poor, 37% excellent or good.

3. Jim Risch is not as strong as conventional wisdom dictates and Democrat Larry LaRocco is rated as popular. Asked to rate their feelings toward some people and organizations using a scale from 0-100, voters rate Risch a “56,” compared to LaRocco who scores a “57.” Despite his years as State Senate President Pro Tempore, and five years as Lt. Governor (including six months as Governor), the supposed Republican frontrunner has no advantage.

4. The data follows on the heels of two consecutive strong elections for Democrats in Idaho where voters have trended away from Republicans. In the 2006 State Legislative contests, Democrats managed to flip 6 State House seats from the Republican column. Additionally, Boise’s Democratic Mayor, Dave Bieter, won reelection this past November with 64% of the vote.

Sure, the poll was conducted on behalf of Democratic challenger Larry LaRocco and nobody is suggesting that he is even close to holding the upper hand, but Republicans would have to be nuts to write this seat off as an easy hold in such a volatile political climate. LaRocco is an impressive candidate — a likable economic populist in the mold of Montana’s Brian Schweitzer and Jon Tester — and if he runs an equally impressive (and well financed) campaign, the GOP will be forced to respond in kind. This poses a particular dilemma for the NRSC, which trails its Democratic counterpart by a nearly three to one margin in cash on hand, but has many more seats at risk.

Republicans have 22 US Senate seats to defend in 2008, compared to only 12 for the Democrats, and of the 10 races uniformly considered competitive by Beltway pundits, only one (Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu) is currently held by a Democrat. If the NRSC finds itself spending money fending of LaRocco in Idaho, that’s money it won’t have available to spend defending, say, a very vulnerable Sen. Gordon Smith in Oregon, who has a field of credible Democrats vying to take him on next November. And if the NRSC ignores LaRocco, writing off Idaho as a gimme, well, they need only look to the House Republicans’ disastrous strategy in 2006 for a vivid illustration of the possible consequences.

Faced with tight resources and an exploding number of potentially competitive races in the final weeks of the campaign, the NRCC resorted to political triage, ceding first-tier races to the Democrats while assuming the third-tier “Republican favored” races would mostly fall their way. This left the NRCC free to focus most of its resources on the second tier, where it pulled out narrow victories in eight of nine high-profile races, including WA-08. Problem was, Republicans ended up losing not only all the first tier races, but all the third-tier races as well. The NRCC gambled and lost.

It may seem odd to suggest that the road to a 60-seat Democratic majority lies through traditionally red states like Idaho and Alaska of all places, but that’s the beauty of the 50-state strategy that worked so well in 2006. Washington voters may not have a US Senate race on their ballot next November, but there are two key contests on our borders, and both our media and our money will play a big role in determining the winners. Stay tuned.

UPDATE:
Well, that’s what I get for not reading Joan. The poll was actually conducted by Myers Research on behalf of Idaho Dem House member Nicole LeFavour, who was considering getting into the race. Joan’s got more details over on Daily Kos.