Reichert’s new mailer
Eat me, Seattle Times
The civil war in Iraq continues to escalate, with American soldiers caught in the middle. A bomb tore through a crowded Baghdad market yesterday, killing at least 31 and injuring 51 others. At the same time, a marine fighting in Iraq’s Anbar province became the 100th US serviceman killed in October, the highest monthly death toll since President Bush famously announced “mission accomplished.”
Meanwhile, $133 million worth of weaponry has gone missing — nearly 4 percent of the pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other arms the Pentagon has supplied Iraqi security forces. Not that we could track these arms if we wanted, considering that the Defense Department has registered the serial numbers of only 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided — less than 3 percent.
Both these wire stories appeared somewhere in today’s Seattle Times, but apparently neither was important enough to warrant a mention on the op-ed page of the our state’s largest newspaper. Instead, our fair city’s solemn guardians of public discourse chose to dedicate scarce column inches to yet another one-sided, partisan attack: “Denounce the ad, Darcy Burner.”
Compare that to the Seattle P-I, who on the very same morning chose to editorialize on trivial matters… you know… like the escalating violence in Iraq.
The president can’t be held directly responsible because he’s not up for election again. Short of impeachment and history’s harsh judgment, he won’t pay the price for a foreign policy folly that has made the world a more dangerous place.
But those who continue to aid and abet him in this disastrous policy are up for election, in just over a week, and voters across the country can and should hold them accountable.
Unless, of course, we want to stay the course.
As the P-I editorialists point out, in this election, “War is the issue“… an issue their colleagues at the Times seem determined to avoid until after election day. Because the Times knows that if voters do follow the P-I‘s advice, Dave Reichert will lose.
That’s why instead of addressing issues that voters truly care about, the Times editorialists are busy focusing on inside horse race bullshit, and rhetorical legerdemain like demanding Burner pull an accurate ad that she did not run.
Deconstruction anyone? Let’s see…
But there is one TV ad benefiting Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner that is beyond the pale, not because of what it says but because it violates a copyright of TVW, Washington’s public-affairs network.
Oh my. In an age when Karl Rove takes a war hero who left three limbs on the battlefield, and morphs him into Osama bin Laden, it’s an alleged copyright violation that the Times finds “beyond the pale.” How shocking.
But the thing is, the DCCC ad doesn’t violate anybody’s copyright. Reichert spoke for about 20 minutes that day, and by any legal definition the few seconds excerpted by the DCCC constitutes “fair use.” I myself have posted to HA longer clips from Reichert’s speech, and I’ve yet to receive any cease and desist orders from TVW. And if I did, I wouldn’t comply.
To argue that the DCCC has violated TVW’s copyright would be like arguing that I have violated the Seattle Times‘ copyright by block-quoting the paragraph above. If that truly represents Times publisher Frank Blethen’s expert interpretation of the “fair use doctrine” then I challenge the Times to sue me now, because I promise you Frank, I’m going to violate your copyright again. And again and again and again. In fact, you know what Frank..? I’m going to violate you again right now:
Burner should denounce the ad and call for its removal.
Take it like a man Frank, and get used to it… because in this new media landscape of excerpts and aggregation, you’re my bitch.
As to the Times‘ admonition that Burner should call on the DCCC to pull the ad, well, either their editorialists are getting their election law advice from the same quack advising them on fair use, or… they’re simply being disingenuous with their readers. (I’m guessing the latter.) Burner can’t call on the DCCC to pull the ad; that would be illegal. The FEC strictly prohibits coordination between campaigns and organizations engaging in independent expenditures, because otherwise the expenditure wouldn’t be, um… independent.
Like their feigned outrage over nonexistent copyright violations, the call for Burner to pull the ad is a red herring. As is the Times‘ tangential reference to the fact that the Burner campaign had ordered a copy of the tape months ago, as the video has been freely available on the internet to all comers since it first aired in May. (I linked to it way back on June 1.)
In fact, the entire editorial is nothing more than an elaborate (if poorly constructed) straw man argument intended to distract from the simple, devastating truth behind the DCCC’s ad: Dave Reichert publicly admitted that the Republican leadership tells him when to vote against them.
The Times refutes this, accusing the DCCC of taking the quote out of context:
The TV ad depicts Reichert at a meeting saying GOP leadership comes to him and tells him how to vote, and he’ll take the vote.
It omits his next line: “There are some times when I say, ‘No, I won’t.’ “
But what the Times omits is the five minutes of rambling preamble in which Reichert puts the disputed quote entirely in context:
I’ll tell you that back in Washington there are lots of games played and I just want to give you, we talk about freedom and we talk about America and we talk about the dream. The dream has to include everybody and there has to be compromise and we can’t have, I’ve been to district meetings in my district where people have said, “why in the world should I vote for you. It’s just like voting for a democrat for crying out loud.” I am going to vote libertarian and I said, “you know what sir, that would be a huge mistake and here’s why.” I’ve tried to explain to this person how things work a little bit back in Washington D.C. and why certain votes have to be taken. Sometimes the leadership comes to me and says “Dave we want you to vote a certain way” and they know I can do that over here. Another district isn’t a problem but over here I have to be very flexible of where I placed my votes. The big picture here is to keep the seat, keep the majority, and keep the country moving forward with republican ideals. Especially on the budget and protecting our troops who’re protecting this country and how that will be responsible with taxpayer dollars. That’s the big picture. Not the vote I place on ANWAR that you may not agree with or the vote that I placed on protecting salmon. You have to be flexible. So when the leadership comes to me and says , Dave you have to vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority, I do it. There are sometimes when I say no I won’t. There are sometimes when things come to the floor like Schiavo. I was one of five republicans that voted with the Democrats on Schiavo because that was the right thing to do.
Yes, Reichert broke with the GOP leadership on the Schiavo vote. He’d personally been through a wrenching end-of-life decision in his own family, and so he says he voted his conscience. (It didn’t hurt that he also voted with his district.) But that’s the only vote of conscience he cites.
Taken in the context of the entire speech, Reichert makes it absolutely clear that conservative Republicans should ignore his handful of moderate votes on things like the environment because “certain votes have to be taken” in order to “keep the seat.” Reichert bluntly (and stupidly) told the audience that the leadership tells him when to vote against them, and that is exactly what his audience of Republican elected officials understood him to say. How do I know? Two of them told me. State Rep. Toby Nixon (R-45) called the confession “shocking,” but went on to explain…
To be clear, by saying “it was shocking” I was expressing the surprise I felt at the time that Rep. Reichert was so open and frank about being approached in this manner, not at the fact that it happened. It is, in fact, quite common for majority party leadership to go to freshman members of their party and provide such guidance, in order to provide cover for those freshmen in their first re-election campaign when they are most vulnerable to challenge. It happens quite frequently in the Washington State House of Representatives, too.
Surely, the Times editorialists understand this. They read my blog. They’ve seen Nixon’s quote. They know how the political game is played.
And yet they continue to defend Reichert’s cynically manufactured image as a “conscience-driven independent,” because they also understand that his reelection hopes pivot on his ability to separate himself in the eyes of voters from President Bush, the Republican leadership and their failed policies at home and abroad.
That is what this latest anti-Burner editorial is all about. The DCCC ad is devastatingly effective because it uses Reichert’s own words to debunk his myth of independence. It also shows up the Times‘ stubborn defense of Reichert’s fictional independence as either stupid or dishonest. (Again, I’m guessing the latter.)
Indeed, the Times incessant Burning-bashing is almost comical in its logic. When Reichert’s media folks aren’t making up quotes out of whole cloth, they rely on single-word quotations like an ad for a bad movie… and yet it’s the Democrats who the Times accuses of lifting quotes out of context. And while Reichert has run a relentlessly negative and at times sexist campaign, it is Burner who Times editorialist Kate Riley accuses of “conjuring rage.” (Curiously, in her unsigned editorial endorsing Reichert, Riley criticizes Burner for her lack of public service, yet apparently believes she’s more than qualified to represent the voters of the 4th CD. Go figure.)
Yes, Burner has attempted to define her opponent through strongly worded TV spots, but then, so has Reichert. No wonder so many readers, bloggers and journalists have found it absolutely impossible to take seriously the Times‘ one-sided, I’m-rubber-you’re-glue, reality-distorted portrayal of this race.
The truth is, the Times doesn’t want their readers to take this race seriously, because if they seriously discussed the issues at stake — the issues that matter most to local voters — Reichert would lose. That’s why instead of editorializing on the Bush administration’s failed policy in Iraq — a policy Reichert has given every indication he would continue to support — the Times has instead chosen to focus on a bullshit, manufactured, campaign ad dispute that voters couldn’t care less about.
Reichert said what he said: he votes the way the leadership tells him to vote. And that is why he’s going to lose this election.
UPDATE:
Per Another TJ’s suggestion:
New poll shows WA-08, WA-05 in dead heats
The latest round of polling from Constituent Dynamics and RT Strategies shows Washington’s 8th and 5th Congressional Districts both within the margin of error just two weeks prior to the election.
In WA-08, Democrat Darcy Burner now leads incumbent Dave Reichert 49% to 47%. In WA-05, incumbent Cathy McMorris leads Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark 51% to 46%. Both polls were conducted Oct 24-26, and are within their 3.1% margin of error.
I haven’t had a chance to look at the cross-tabs, but it’s interesting to note that when you have an incumbent as well known as Reichert, undecideds tend to swing towards the challenger. As for Goldmark, climbing within five points is incredible considering that two years ago McMorris won by 20, and he’s only been campaigning since April — if the wave is big enough, Goldmark is in a position to be swept into office.
Both races will be determined by turnout.
Open thread
Courtesy of SNL, via Crooks and Liars
“The David Goldstein Show” tonight on Newsradio 710-KIRO
Again, a crappy day for Birds fans (Seahawks and Eagles) so I’m just going to take out my anger and frustration by trash-talking some politicians tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM.
7PM: Do multimillionaires need yet another tax break? Multimillionaire Seattle developer Martin Selig has sunk nearly a million dollars into estate tax repeal Initiative 920, and multimillionaire Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen has contributed the blood, sweat and rhetorical tears of his entire editorial board. But in a state with the most regressive tax structure in the nation (by far) can one possibly justify making estate tax repeal a top priority? No on 920 spokesman Sandeep Kaushik will join me to field your questions, and hammer a few more nails into the initiative’s coffin. Kaushik, a former newspaperman himself, will also join me in ranting on the way this self-serving initiative has distorted the editorial process at many of our state’s leading newspapers.
8PM: What can we expect from a Democratic Senate? Um… a Democratic state Senate, that is. Washington Dems currently hold a nominal 2-seat majority in the state Senate, with two conservative Dems often voting with the Republicans on key issues. But Dems are poised to pick up as many as five seats in close races throughout the state. Two of the party’s most promising new candidates, Eric Oemig (45th LD) and Yvonne Ward (31st LD) join me to talk about their races, and what we might expect from a real Democratic majority.
9PM: Obama-rama hit town this week. Did Seattle just meet the next President of the United States? Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was greeted by standing-room-only crowds in the wake of his kinda-sorta announcement that he might in fact be considering a run for the White House. Obama was in town hawking his book and campaigning for Darcy Burner and Maria Cantwell, and local blogger Andrew Villeneuve will give us a firsthand account of the big rally. Can Obama win? Is America ready to elect its first black president? Do you just not get the whole Obama thing? Give me a call and share your thoughts.
Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).
Open thread
Well, if they’re gonna run racist ads down in Tennessee, the least the GOP could do is be honest about it. (Courtesy of The General.)
A vote for Reichert is a vote for Boehner
This morning on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked House Majority Leader John Boehner if he he thought Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “has to go.” Boehner’s answer?
I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years.
Let’s be absolutely clear what November’s election is all about, at least when it comes to the war in Iraq. The Republican leadership continues to unflinchingly support President Bush’s failed policies in Iraq… and both Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris continue to support the Republican leadership. Should Reichert and McMorris win reelection, they will vote to retain Boehner as Majority Leader — or perhaps even promote him to Speaker of the House. Should Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark win in November, they will vote for a new House leadership, one that will finally hold the Bush administration accountable for its failures. This is a choice between “stay the course” and a “new direction.”
So if you think Rumsfeld is “the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years,” vote Republican.
Elsewhere in the interview, Boehner claimed that “the President is listening to the commanders on the ground.” Hmm…
Major General John Batiste
Challenge met: HA readers raise over $30,000!!!
Sometime last year Darcy Burner and I had a conversation about what role the netroots might play in the upcoming election, and I told her what I told all candidates: don’t expect us to raise much money. In fact, I was so convinced that the local netroots were not yet developed enough to function as an effective fundraising tool that I only created HA’s Act Blue page as an afterthought, sometime near the end of March. I thought maybe we might manage to raise a couple thousand dollars.
Man was I wrong.
In a little more than seven months, 361 HA readers have now contributed a total of $30,090.39 to Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark… over $4,600 coming during the last 24 hours. Wow.
Your incredible generosity has already accomplished two very important goals. Your contributions helped demonstrate the grassroots support that brought big donors and the DCCC into these campaigns. Without you, these races never would have become competitive.
And… your contributions have also helped demonstrate the growing power and efficacy of the netroots. If we were a PAC, our $30,000 would have made us one of the largest grassroots PACs in the state. This is the kind of money that forces politicians to take notice.
HA’s fundraising is even more amazing when you put it in perspective. Over the past seven months HA’s daily readership has averaged about 2,500 unique visits a day. (It’s now up to about 3,300.) That means on average, about one in every seven HA readers has contributed via our Act Blue page. Even more impressive, we’ve raised about $12 for every reader — that’s about four to five times the dollar-per-reader ratio of high profile sites like Daily Kos. Astounding.
So I want to thank all of you for your generosity and trust. When I first started pitching for Darcy and Peter, you had no assurances that either would make their race competitive. I promised you that you wouldn’t be throwing your money away, and you trusted me with your hard-earned cash. So again, thank you.
That’s it. I won’t be asking you for any more money this election cycle. But if you still want to contribute to Darcy and Peter they could definitely use your time. Personally, I plan to contribute a few hours via MoveOn’s innovative Call For Change program. Just sign up online and MoveOn will give you a script and some phone numbers to call.
Both races are going to be awfully close. Whoever turns out the most voters wins. Let’s do whatever we can over the next 10 days to make sure that the winners are Darcy and Peter.
Times boosts Pope, endorses opponent
Perennial candidate and HA regular Richard Pope received a much needed boost to his campaign for King County District Court, when the Seattle Times today endorsed his opponent, judge pro-tem Frank LaSalata.
Pope’s colleagues at the King County Bar Association rate him as “not qualified,” their lowest category, citing him for a history of unprofessional conduct. The Times suggests a vote for his opponent, judge pro-tem Frank LaSalata, whom the association pegs as “well qualified.”
So congratulations Richard, on the Times editorializing against you. It puts you in great company.
Fundraising challenge update
At about 11 am today I challenged the HA community to raise an additional $4,600.00 for Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark over the next 24 hours. The goal is take us over the $30,000 mark by 11 am Saturday.
Since then, 25 of you have contributed an additional $2,666.00, taking us more than halfway towards our target in only 10 hours. Our running total of $28,090 leaves us a tantalizing $1,910 short of our goal.
This is it… the final 14 hours of HA’s last fundraising drive of the 2006 election. With your help, we can take back the House. So please dig deep into your pockets and give now.
UPDATE:
Peter Goldmark has officially been added to the Fourth Wave of the DCCC’s Red to Blue program. It’s the generous support of people like you who have helped Peter take WA-05 from a safe Republican district into one of the most competitive in the nation.
UPDATE, UPDATE:
8 AM and we’re up to $29,560.39! Three hours left in the drive, and only $440 to go. Who wants to put us over the top?
Ron Boehme: like father like son?
Over in the 26th Legislative District, Democrat Larry Seaquist is in a surprisingly tight race with Republican Ron Boehme for the state house seat vacated by Derek Kilmer. I say “surprisingly,” because while the highly respected Seaquist is the retired commander of the Battleship Iowa, Boehme is a certifiable nutcase who the Tacoma News Tribune accurately describes as “about as far right as they come.”
But it’s not simply Boehme’s far-right religious beliefs that make him out to be so nutty… although they do — Boehme has written that Satan controls our public schools and that America needs “a severe spanking.” It’s just that when Boehme says “I am a prophet,” and claims that God audibly talks to him, well… it gives one pause considering the man’s unstable family history.
Specifically, I’m talking about Boehme’s father, who the candidate proudly mentions in the opening paragraph on the About page of his campaign website:
His father, Robert Boehme, arrived in Port Orchard in 1950 at the request of the local Chamber of Commerce who were looking for more doctors. “Doc Boehme” served the medical needs of South Kitsap for over thirty years.
And, um, you know what else Robert Boehme served? Three years in prison for attempting to murder his third wife. That, after having been previously acquitted of attempting to murder his second wife. According to a Seattle Times article from July 11, 1986:
Boehme, 66, was a successful Kitsap County physician in 1961 when he was accused of trying to kill his second wife, Dorothy, by injecting poison into her arm with a syringe.
Boehme was acquitted of that charge in 1962. Three months after the trial, Dorothy Boehme, who had stood by her husband during the trial, died of staphylococcal meningitis.
But don’t you worry, Robert Boehme quickly rebounded from the tragedy.
In July 1963, Boehme married a former airline flight attendant who had been divorced from Boehme’s brother, a San Francisco physician. They are still married.
In September 1965, Boehme was charged with trying to kill that wife, Mary, by injecting her with a poison.
Oops. On TV they call that an M.O.
Robert Boehme was convicted in 1966, and served three years in prison.
So… here’s a self-proclaimed prophet who hears voices in his head and thinks Satan controls the public schools, and… well.. it just makes you wonder what curious personality quirks Boehme might have inherited from a father who infamously poisoned at least one, if not two of his three wives. (No word on what sad fate befell wife number one.)
But mostly, it makes you wonder how such a fringe candidate managed to win the Republican primary?
Hell freezes over: Times columnist comes out against estate tax repeal
To the best of my knowledge, Danny Westneat has now established himself as the only news or editorial columnist at the Seattle Times to come out against I-920, their boss’s estate tax repeal initiative.
The worst is Initiative 920, to repeal the state estate tax. Paid for by a handful of multimillionaires, it slashes taxes for a handful of multimillionaires. The kicker: It all comes out of the hide of education, just as schools are laying off librarians or cramming 30-plus kids in classes. If ever an initiative deserved a thrashing, this is it.
Of course, the most vocal of these millionaires is Times publisher Frank Blethen. Nobody could possibly believe that there is uniformity of opinion on this issue over at the Times, but until now, nobody has had the nerve to publicly break ranks.
Danny and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I’ve always respected his work. This reminds me why.
Final fundraising appeal
If you haven’t already contributed money to Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark, now is your absolutely, positively last chance to do it. The candidates will take a close look at their cash-on-hand this weekend, and book their final media buys. Today is your last and best chance to make a difference in these two very important races.
The Republicans are now spending millions of dollars on two seats they never thought they’d have to seriously defend, and it would be a shame if Darcy and Peter missed out on the Democratic wave because they were outspent during the final week of the campaign. (That’s exactly what happened to Dave Ross two years ago.) It is time to dig deep down into our pockets and give until it hurts.
So here’s our target, and I know it’s ambitious, but I also know that we can do it. 317 readers have already given $25,424.38 via HA’s Act Blue page. Over the next 24 hours, I want you to help us hit the $30,000 mark.
This is perhaps the most important congressional election in a generation, so I am asking all of you to give as much as you can. A single reader could bring us most of the way towards our target simply by making the maximum $2,100 donation to each candidate, and surely, at least a few of my readers can afford this. I myself have worked my way into debt over the past year, rejecting paying work so that I could devote myself fully towards political activism, and yet I have just put another $200.00 on my credit card, split between Darcy and Peter. My hope is that a dozen or more of you will follow my lead with donations of equal or greater value.
This will be looked back on as an historic election, the one in which netroots activists truly started to reshape the political landscape. Please join me in making history. Please give what you can today.
McGavick: the poor never had it so good
Why is Mike McGavick running for the US Senate? Well, if you believe Mike McGavick, it was Hurricane Katrina that steeled his resolve to run.
In a rather odd audio clip available from McGavick’s web site, the candidate talks about Katrina, and the “the one image that cements it for my wife and I of why to run for the United States Senate.” No, it’s not the desperate refugees at the Superdome or the bloated bodies floating in the streets, and it’s not New Orlean’s poor trapped in the muck of their flooded city for days without food or fresh water. It was the politicians on TV attempting to exploit the disaster for “partisan advantage” that he and his wife were “most offended by.”
“That is wrong as wrong can be,” McGavick angrily told his audience.
Hmm. Perhaps that anecdote was just unartfully phrased, but it seemed to lack a certain, gee, I dunno… compassion. Of all the things to be offended by while watching our federal government fail to adequately respond to the desperate plight of the poor and displaced, political partisanship did not top the list.
(Indeed, I would argue that when the party in power so totally fucks up as to put lives at risk, it would be negligent of the opposition not to seek partisan advantage in an effort to seize control. But no, I suppose McGavick would have preferred the nation to rally around the president during our time of crisis the way we did in the aftermath of 9/11… the same sort of blind following the blind that ultimately led to our disastrous war in Iraq. But I digress.)
So. What kind of man could watch the tragically bungled emergency response that resulted from the dismantling of FEMA under President Bush, and conclude that our most urgent problem was not the incompetence of the current administration, but rather the political partisanship of those complaining about the incompetence? Well, a man who has little or no empathy for the suffering of others, and who is totally out of touch with the plight of America’s underclass, I guess.
As harsh as that conclusion might be, it is further reinforced by a comment McGavick made on Wednesday before the Bellingham City Club, in which he talks about the “comfortable lifestyle” of America’s poor:
“While the spectrum of wealth, from the wealthiest to the non-wealthy has become wider, it’s not true that all boats aren’t being lifted. The fact is that it is still better to be poor in America than any other nation on Earth. Because the fact is that we are able to provide a comfortable lifestyle across that spectrum.”
Uh-huh. The poor never had it so good. And you know McGavick knows what he’s talking about because until recently, he spent most of his life being poor himself… that is, if your definition of being “poor” is not having $28 million.
Kind of reminds me of an equally clueless comment made by the President’s mother after surveying Katrina refugees in an emergency shelter set up at the Houston Astrodome:
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”
I guess those are the types of lessons people like McGavick take away from disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
UPDATE:
In the comment thread Darryl blows a hole in my theory, pointing out that Katrina couldn’t really have been McGavick’s primary motivation, as he announced his intention to quit Safeco and explore a run for Senate over a month before Katrina hit. But then, I guess that’s what I get for believing Mike McGavick.
If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going (to be water-boarded)
The Boeing Corporation is a Seattle icon, an integral part of the region’s economy and identity. So I found it a bit disturbing to read the following tidbit in the October 30 edition of the New Yorker, about Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen International Trip Planning, and its lucrative contract as the CIA’s torture travel agent:
Boeing does not mention, either on its Web site or in its annual report, that Jeppesen’s clients include the C.I.A., and that among the international trips that the company plans for the agency are secret “extraordinary rendition” flights for terrorism suspects. Most of the planes used in rendition flights are owned and operated by tiny charter airlines that function as C.I.A. front companies, but it is not widely known that the agency has turned to a division of Boeing, the publicly traded blue-chip behemoth, to handle many of the logistical and navigational details for these trips, including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements.
[…] A former Jeppesen employee, who asked not to be identified, said recently that he had been startled to learn, during an internal corporate meeting, about the company’s involvement with the rendition flights. At the meeting, he recalled, Bob Overby, the managing director of Jeppesen International Trip Planning, said, “We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights
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