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Jack McClellan is one twisted dude. He’s the sicko who posts photos of children on his website, where he chronicles the best public places to stake out little girls, or “LGs.” While McLellan emphatically claims he’s never inappropriately touched a child, his obsessive public fantasizing certainly pushes the limits of the First Amendment, and demands extraordinarily close scrutiny from law enforcement officials.

McClellan is under a restraining order prohibiting him from loitering within 30 feet of minors, and as a father of an LG, news of McClellan’s arrest yesterday outside a UCLA child development center elicited no empathy from me. Yet I couldn’t help but notice the curious way the AP wire story was reported.

As of 9AM PST this morning, a quick Google News search found over 200 published articles on McClellan’s arrest, and in nearly every single one the headline refers to him as a “pedophile” or “admitted pedophile” or “self-described pedophile” as in the Los Angeles Times headline, “Pedophile arrested outside UCLA child development building.”

That is, every single headline except that in the Seattle Times, which had its own unique take on McClellan’s dangerous perversion: “Controversial blogger is arrested near children.”

“Oh no, a controversial blogger?” I thought, reading the headline, “Which of my trusted colleagues turned out to be a disgusting pervert? Hmm… Postman is down in California for a few days, perhaps it’s him?” But no, it turned out to be not a blogger at all, but rather a “self-proclaimed pedophile.”

Over two hundred other papers saw this wire story and described the perp as a pedophile, but to the fearful headline writers at the Seattle Times, McClellan’s most disturbing biographical detail is that he blogs. How many readers clicked on this misleading headline, expecting the juicy details of a well-known blogger brought down by scandal? I sure did. And how many righties turned away disappointed to learn the “blogger” in question wasn’t an evil netroots leader like Markos or Atrios or even a lesser local blogger like me?

To primarily describe McClellan as a “controversial blogger” would be like introducing Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen as a “dog shooter.” In fact it’s worse, since blogging on its own is a neutral activity, whereas shooting your neighbor’s dog is both a heinous and criminal act.

That the Seattle Times would imply that McClellan’s infamy stems from his blogging rather than his pedophilia says something about the paper’s own fearful approach to new media competition. But it also provides a warning to which the blogging community should take heed: if the old media is willing to spin the arrest of pedophile into a headline about a fallen blogger, just imagine what they’ll do given the whiff of a real netroots scandal. No doubt there are some amongst the broader netroots community with skeletons in their closets or ethical and/or legal lapses in their future. As we gain readers and influence the media and political establishments will surely attempt to use their vast resources to defend their turf. And they won’t stop at misleading headlines.

Following up on my post from yesterday, SeattleJew set up a Cafe Press page with some designs showing Giuliani and his terrifying 1994 quote about freedom. I think the text is too small, but otherwise, I love the idea. If anyone else wants to try their hand at a design using that quote, send the Cafe Press link to me or post it in the comments. If it looks good, I’ll post it up here on the front page.

This is an open thread…

* I’m glad that there’s someone calling bullshit on the foreign policy establishment. A desire to attack anyone who didn’t attack us on 9/11 is acceptable, but the idea of getting the people who attacked us is beyond the pale. Odd those serious people.

* Seriously chicken hawks, don’t complain about being called chicken hawks unless you’re willing to get your head handed to you.

* And speaking of chicken hawks, Bill Kristol is impressed with what the U.S. Military is doing in Iraq.

* But at least Kristol isn’t wishing for another terror attack on U.S. soil. You know, for unity sake.

* And in any event, an interviewer’s questions totally proves that all liberals are looking for an Islamic version of creation science.

Locally, the crazies can’t compete with all that. But they’ll try.

* Dino Rossi’s idea man has decided that we should annex Mexico. Just make it a state. Oh and then force them to all speak English. That’s my favorite part of the plan.

* Some conservatives engaged in media criticism.

* Dave Reichert is still neither independent or bi-partisan.

This is an open thread

Dino Rossi’s idea man, Lou Guzzo, has already called for a gambling ban across the United States. But he’s far from done with his efforts to protect all of us from ourselves. He’s got another item in his list of things to banish from the globe:

Boxing

What?! You mean a group of Oklahoma City billionaires, desperate to bring a major league team to their home city, had no intention of keeping the Sonics in Seattle when they purchased the team? Who’d a thunk?

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma City energy tycoon says the group that purchased the Seattle SuperSonics hopes to move the NBA franchise to Oklahoma City, but he acknowledges the team could make more money in the Pacific Northwest.

“But we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here,” Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, told The Journal Record for a story in Monday’s edition. “We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it’s great for the community and if we could break even, we’d be thrilled.”

[…] “We started to look around, and at that time the Sonics were going through some ownership challenges in Seattle,” McClendon told the newspaper. “So Clay, very artfully and skillfully, put himself in the middle of those discussions and to the great amazement and surprise to everyone in Seattle, some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.”

That’s right, Clay Bennett — the guy the easy marks at the Seattle Times editorial board judged to be negotiating in good faith — “artfully and skillfully … made off with the team.” Hoity-toity editorialists comfort themselves by dismissing bloggers like me as unserious, but they do their readers a disservice when they infuse their coverage with the kind of naivete that comes from their solemn dedication to establishmentarian objectivity:

There have been whispers and shouts that SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett is only buying time until he can move the teams to his home state of Oklahoma. This is an unfair claim. Bennett has done nothing to suggest that moving the teams is a foregone conclusion.

No, I guess it was never a foregone conclusion, but with Bennett and the other owners willing to lose money in Oklahoma City — in fact, preferring it over making a modest profit in Seattle — it would take a helluva sweet deal to keep the team in the region. You know, something like a free half-billion dollar arena from which they keep all the revenues. Bennett and his buddies never negotiated in good faith (hell, they never even negotiated,) they always intended to move the team to Oklahoma City, and they laughed at the naive, big city rubes who ever believed otherwise. You don’t get to be a billionaire by taking the first deal slapped on the table, yet that’s exactly what the Sonics asked WA state and local officials to do.

Unless the NBA intercedes for the good of the league, the Sonics are moving to Oklahoma City. All the talk thus far has been little more than a charade to keep hopeful fans in their seats until the Key Arena lease expires in 2010.

Some rich person is throwing a shindig in Gasworks Park, and everyone’s been abuzz over just who it is. Dan Savage decides to check it out:

SIK [Dan’s codename for his friend who worked the posh event. -Will]also told me that, just a few moments before I breached security, a Wallingford resident—one of the with-friends-like-these-who-needs-enemies “friends” of Gasworks Park—had treated him to a screaming fit. SIK told this “friend” of Gasworks that parks all over the city can be rented for weddings, and the “friend” of Gasworks insisted that his wasn’t the case, that it was theft, that it was a public park and what SIK and his crew were doing was illegal, blah blah BLAH.

Most of the park was open to the public, including a large lawn right next to the spot where the tents were set-up—the perfect spot to watch the fireworks display later that night.

I took my son’s dog for a walk after I got home from my party-crashin’ bike ride… and what do you know? There was a wedding in Volunteer Park the same night. Most of the lawn in front of the Seattle Asian Art Museum was covered by a huge white tent. That lawn not only has the best views of the Space Needle and the reservoir, but it also happens to be my son’s dog’s favorite place to take a shit. I noticed that a couple of other dog walkers—park regulars, always fully clothed—nearby; apparently that lawn is a favorite for lots of neighborhood dogs. The best man was giving a speech about the lucky couple—when they met, when he first realized it was serious, how nervous the groom was the first time he met his future in-laws. The folks with dogs standing outside the tent joined in the applause at the end of the speech, and then strolled off to find other places for their dogs to crap.

No one screamed “theft!,” and no one threatened to sue. Everyone in the neighborhood seemed genuinely happy for the couple. The next day we got our park back, no harm done.

The “Friends of Gasworks Park” are ridiculous ninnies who need to take a Valium with their wine spritzer. Gasworks belongs to everyone, not just the neighbors, and like all Seattle parks, it’s for rent for special events. Always has, always will be.

I just got back from a weekend away in the hinterlands of Washington state. Specifically, at a family cabin on the Natches River. It’s a nice place to visit, even if it’s “red”, in a political sense. I also get the chance to see where my transportation dollars are going. With just about 18% of the state’s population, the east side gets 22% of the transportation dollars. I don’t mind, I just wish they’d stop complaining so much.

In the 14th legislative district, Curtis King is challenging Sen. Jim Clements. He’s attacking Clements for doing liberal things. You know, investing in health care, school funding reform. While Sen. Clements is no liberal, he’s maybe a little better than Curtis King in my eyes.

That said, if I were a Yakima area GOP activist, I’d be for Curtis King. He’s the real deal. Clements has the orchardists on his side, along with Dino Rossi’s endorsement. King is fighting an uphill battle against powerful special interests. The GOP isn’t going to get back in the majority by playing along with Senate Democrats. I say: fight on!

Speaking of what people were saying back in 1994, here’s a gem from Rudy Giuliani:

Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

If you weren’t clear about what the term Nanny State refers to, read that quote again. A Nanny State is what you get when you elect people who think like that. If Rudy were President, and Congress passed a bill that made cross-dressing illegal, I have trouble believing that Giuliani wouldn’t sign it.

On a completely unrelated topic, how much taxpayer money was wasted on this bullshit:

Several search-and-rescue groups collaborated today to rescue 10 sheriff’s deputies stranded in the Skamania County wilderness Saturday night.

Skamania County Sheriff’s deputies and Clark-Skamania Drug Task Force officers had removed more than 3,000 marijuana plants on the east side of Dog Mountain Saturday.

With some of them exhausted and dehydrated, the group decided to spend the night in the wilderness rather than hike out of the narrow gorge, said Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox. All but one of the 10 sheriff’s deputies had been rescued by early this afternoon.

This video is from a 1994 interview with Dick Cheney in which he gives reasons why the U.S. did not invade Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War:

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

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

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Dan Savage
Stranger Editor and nationally syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage joins me for the hour. Rumor has it Dan might be gay, so perhaps we’ll talk about gay issues (you know, antiquing, musical theater, anal sex… stuff like that,) or maybe we’ll do our usual recap of the week’s news and other issues of the day. We’ll see.

8PM: Everything I need to know in life I learned from television
Parents want to give their children every advantage, so no wonder so many put their babies in front of “educational” videos like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby that promised to give kids a leg up. Now a new study shows that babies who watch these videos actually learn fewer words than their counterparts. Is TV an educational tool, or just an electronic babysitter? Did TV make you and your kids stupid, or better informed. American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson Dr. Ari Brown joins us to give us her take on the new study, and why the Academy does not recommend television for children under the age of two.

9PM: What’s up South and East of the border?
Julie from Idaho’s Red State Rebels and TJ from Loaded Orygun join me for the hour for a round table round up of regional news and politics.

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

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
My show will be preempted by Seahawks preseason games tomorrow and next Saturday.

I ran a few local notables through the Simpsonizer.

Also, no one’s gotten the Birds Eye View Contest yet this week…

Great piece by Don Duncan in today’s Seattle Times. I don’t say it often, but truly great piece in the Seattle Times.

UPDATE:
And while I’m at it, great piece in today’s Washington Post.

…because life is too short to hold it all in.

Darcy Burner won the sole endorsement of the Pierce County Young Democrats this week in her primary race against Rodney Tom for the Democratic nomination in WA’s 8th Congressional District.

“Darcy [Burner] is the right candidate for the 8th District,” said Sam Ross, PCYD Chair. “She’s right on the constitution, she’s right on healthcare, she’s right on the Iraq occupation, she’s a leader on technology and economic innovation. On all the issues that Young Democrats believe in, Darcy will stand with us always, and on all the issues that truly matter, Darcy will do what she knows to be right.”

This early endorsement in a high profile primary is important for a number of reasons. First, the Young Democrats have strong chapters at University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University, and have promised aggressive recruitment, doorbelling and phonebanking drives at local colleges and universities. Second, it demonstrates the strong appeal Darcy has amongst one of the fast growing segments of the Democratic Party: younger voters.

In 2002 the electorate was equally divided between Democrats and Democratic-leaners (43%) and Republicans and Republican-leaners (43%). Today only 35% align themselves with Republicans, and 50% with Democrats. The Republicans are doing particularly badly among independents (the fastest-growing group in the electorate) and younger voters. The proportion of 18-25-year-olds who identify with the Republican Party has declined from 55% in 1991 to 35% in 2006, according to Pew. Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, notes that the share of Republican voters aged 55 and over has increased from 28% in 1997 to 41% today, whereas the share aged 18-34 has fallen from 25% to 17%.

The Democratic Party is getting younger, which not only bodes well for the future, it bodes well for candidates like Burner who appeal to their values. It’s kinda cliche to say it, but our young people are our nation’s future… as are future leaders like Darcy Burner.

Yeah sure, I’m no economist, so the other day when I said “fuck inflation” in response to the Federal Reserve’s refusal to cut interest rates in the face of a looming credit crunch that threatened to suck the broader economy down the sub-prime toilet, many readers appeared more offended by my economic heresy than my foul language.

Well… fuck you:

Fed seeks to calm markets with a flood of cash

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, trying to calm turmoil on Wall Street, announced today that it will pump as much money as needed into the U.S. financial system to help overcome the ill effects of a spreading credit crunch.

The Fed, in a short statement, said it will provide “reserves as necessary” to help the markets safely make their way. The central bank did not provide details but said it would do all it can to “facilitate the orderly functioning of financial markets.”

The Fed pushed $35 billion in temporary reserves into the system today morning, on top of a similar move the day before.

Hey… flooding the the financial system with cash… isn’t that supposed to be inflationary? You know, just like cutting interest rates?

I’m not suggesting an interest rate cut necessarily would have preempted or softened the market meltdown we’ve seen over the past couple days, but it certainly does appear that the Fed’s OCD-like focus on inflation blinded it to the severity of what has now become a worldwide credit crunch. And of course, rather than just assuring market liquidity — you know, propping up corporatist interests — cutting interest rates might have helped some threatened homeowners avoid foreclosure by making refinancing more affordable.

I’m just sayin’…