by Goldy — ,
A leak and corrosion in a pipeline has forced BP to shut down it’s Prudhoe Bay oil field, forcing oil prices to surge today.
A leak in an oil pipeline? In Alaska? Why, that could never happen should we drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), because… well… the oil industry and the Bush administration would never do anything that might endanger such a fragile ecosystem. Um… right?
by Goldy — ,
Let’s just look at the numbers from my most recent national poll (July 21). Overall, only 36% of likely voters told us that they agree that the war in Iraq has been “worth the loss of American lives”, while 57% disagree. But the partisan splits are more revealing: only 16% of the Democrats polled said the war has been worth while 82% disagree and only 26% of Independents agree the war has been worth it while 72% disagree. On the Republican side, 64% said the war has been worth it, while 23% disagree. The war has been the principal cause of the nation’s polarization in the past three years. The polling evidence shows the degree to which Iraq has become a Republican war. And these latest numbers are also noteworthy in that they show that about one in four Republicans have now pretty much given up on the war.
There are a number of ways to look at this poll, though I wonder what percentage of the 64% of Republicans who still think the war was worth it interpret the poll to mean that 57% of their fellow citizens are cowards and traitors who hate America?
by Goldy — ,
Oh no! Mike!™ McGavick has become a victim of negative politics! Heaven forfend!
According to the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly:
Vilification of McGavick, the most talented Senate candidate recruited by Republicans in 2006, stands as a model for the bipartisan tactics of debasement infecting American politics.
I like and respect Joel, and often agree with his analysis, but this time… not so much.
First of all, I don’t believe that by contemporary standards Mike!™ has been all that vilified. (Yet.) We’ve called him a “lobbyist” — he was one. We’ve ridiculed him for prevaricating on several controversial issues — and he has. We’ve characterized the $28.3 million golden parachute he negotiated after announcing his resignation from SAFECO as “obscene” — I think many shareholders, policyholders and laid-off employees would agree that it is.
What we haven’t done is accused him of killing one of his best friends, or of being a coward and a traitor who hates America. We haven’t morphed him into a terrorist or accused him of caring more about sex offenders than about innocent children. We haven’t publicly debated the unusual shape of his penis.
What we haven’t done is lied. And we haven’t delved into his divorce or other areas of his personal life… not that it should necessarily be off limits. So I don’t quite understand Joel’s characterization of a handful of snarky press releases and a shareholder lawsuit as a “mean, low-down attack.” These are political attacks… which is exactly what you expect to see against a guy running for political office.
My second point of contention with Joel is the notion that in discussing the “debasement” of American politics he could possible talk about my blog in the same breath as he talks about the tactics of the US Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past half-decade (yes, hundreds of millions) running smear campaigns in local elections. In 2004 they spent $1.5 million torpedoing Deborah Senn’s run for Attorney General, and just this past week they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV ads thanking Dave Reichert for a bill that passed before he was elected to Congress.
Meanwhile, I’m just some local blogger with a couple thousand readers who can barely pay my own bills. Sure, when it comes to influencing politics I get more bang for my buck, but let’s keep this in perspective: I don’t have any bucks. If I manage to have more of an impact than the folks over on the right-wing blog, well that’s an accomplishment of which I’m pretty damn proud. But don’t lump me in with Karl Rove or the US Chamber. Even if I aspired to embrace the dark side I don’t have the resources or the opportunity to even begin to make the impact these Republican sleaze masters achieve with a simple wave of their hands.
My only contribution to the shareholder lawsuit was a brief post that helped hook up the attorney with the plaintiff, and hell… Craig’s List probably would have gotten a larger response. It was no different from a similar query over on (u)SP (other than the fact that I didn’t attempt to sneakily hide my tracks by deleting the original text,) and hardly a poisonous, Rovian tactic of political debasement.
Finally, I have to take issue with Joel for calling me out in his closing paragraphs:
On the horsesass.org Web site, which helped spawn the lawsuit, founder David Goldstein held forth last Thursday: “McGavick’s midlife conversion to ‘civility’ is a joke to anyone who remembers the vicious campaign he ran on behalf of Slade Gorton.”
Not true, Goldie, and you didn’t even live here then.
No Joel, I didn’t live in the state back then, and even if I did I wouldn’t pretend to have the impressive institutional memory you possess. But you know me well enough to know that I am curious and inquisitive about my adopted state’s political history, and I’ve heard enough stories and read enough newspaper accounts to convince me that Mike!™ was no angel.
Civility isn’t a campaign theme. It’s an excuse. A shield. A feeble attempt to ward off all criticism or unfavorable analysis or probing questions as poisonous political debasement, all the while freeing his own surrogates to attack at will. But on this point I’m more than happy to agree to disagree.
See, I can forgive Joel for conflating unflattering facts and snark with character assassination. I can forgive Joel for lumping me in with some of the evil masters of the Republican attack machine. I can even forgive Joel for publicly accusing me of being wrong about Mike!™’s reputation as a political operative.
But there’s one final transgression for which I’m not quite sure I can ever forgive Joel.
It’s spelled “Goldy” with a “y.”
“Goldie” with an “ie” is the feminine spelling, and as a nom de guerre for an evil, political muckraker like me, that would just plain look silly.
by Goldy — ,
Are you feeling a bit dizzy from watching the hydroplanes spin round and round, or from craning your necks to catch a glimpse of the Blue Angels soaring by, or simply from a weekend of too much sun and too much beer? Then turn down the lights, turn up the radio and tune in to “The David Goldstein Show tonight on Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM.
7PM: Is centrism for suckers? That’s the opinion of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who wrote this week that, in this age of ruthless partisanship, the most important thing you need to know about a candidate is whether there’s a “D” or an “R” next to their name. And speaking of partisanship, I’m going to talk a little bit about my role in the shareholder lawsuit against Mike!™ McGavick, and why it says absolutely nothing at all about the merits of the case itself.
8PM: Hey… there are a couple congressional races East of the mountains too. Who knew? Spokane blogger Gerald Toompas of EWpolitics.com joins me to talk about some surprising poll numbers in the 5th CD race between incumbent Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris and Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark, while Tri-Cities blogger Jim McCabe of McCranium.org calls in to complain about his local media’s refusal to admit that Rep. “Do Nothin’ Doc” Hastings even has a Democratic challenger. Then in the second half of the hour I’ll be heading back west with long time (and disgruntled) conservative Republican activist Phil Spackman, who’s gonna tell us exactly what’s wrong with the WA state and King County GOP.
9PM: What’s the right-wing, Christian Evangelical extremist perspective on state and national politics? Gen. JC Christian, Patriot, joins me to discuss the most important issues of the day, including Intelligent Design, stem cell research, the Iraq war and of course… The Passion of the Mel Gibson. “The General” blogs at the nationally renowned Jesus’ General, which bills itself as “The Official Online Organ of the Glorious Conservative Christian Cultural Revolution.” And a very manly organ it is.
Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).
by Goldy — ,
Hey, Dave Reichert made it into The New Republic… though not exactly in a good way:
Dissing Bush can be trickier than it might seem at first. There is, after all, the little matter of fund-raising, where the president, despite his sagging popularity, is still the party heavyweight. The trick for vulnerable GOP candidates is to somehow get Bush money without being in any way associated with Bush or the other radioactive members of his administration–a predicament that is tying Republicans into pretzels from coast to coast.
[…]
For some, the best approach may be simply to ask Bush to stay away. When the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently unearthed the fact that Bush would be raising dough for David Reichert, who represents an increasingly Democratic district in Washington state, the news generated a wave of negative coverage about his coziness with the White House. When Reichert joined the pariah-in-chief at the event anyway, it seemed to do him more harm than good: The visit pumped anti-Bush money into the coffers of his opponent, who ended up out-raising him for the quarter. Indeed, the event provided so much fodder to tie Reichert to Bush that it’s widely seen as the reason Reichert reversed his position on stem-cell research last month.
Word on the street is that Reichert continues to struggle to raise money, particularly from individuals, a category of donors with whom challenger Darcy Burner has been going gangbusters.
The DCCC has made this race one of its top targets with a $1.5 million TV ad buy during the final three weeks of the campaign. Who wants to wager that some of those ads show Reichert standing arm in arm with the President at Boeing Field?
by Goldy — ,
It’s a beautiful summer day, so go outside and play.
Or you could sit at your computer and argue about stuff like… let’s see now… the fact that Mike!™ McGavick supports teaching all theories in publics schools, even really bogus, nonscientific ones like Intelligent Design. Or maybe that the Eastern Washington news media just absolutely refuses to cover Democratic congressional challengers. Or maybe that the oil industry is so desperate to create some grass roots buzz to counter Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” that Exxon actually invented an amateur filmmaker.
by Goldy — ,
It is times like this when I really curse the New York Times for putting it’s columnists behind a paid subscription firewall.
Paul Krugman’s latest column — “Centrism Is for Suckers” — is an absolute must read for those “moderates” in both parties who take issue with the aggressive, take no prisoners partisanship of HA and much of the liberal blogosphere. It is also an important lesson for those independent minded voters who believe they can still afford to pick and choose candidates regardless of party affiliation, at a time when our Republican controlled Congress steadfastly refuses to exercise its constitutional obligation to act as a check and balance on one of the most authoritarian and ruthless administrations in American history.
If you want to understand the state of America today, a good place to start is with the contrast between the political strategies of conservative business advocacy groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and those of more or less liberal advocacy groups like the Sierra Club.
The chamber recently got into trouble because of ads it ran praising Republican members of Congress who, it said, voted for the Medicare prescription drug program. It turned out that one of the congressmen praised in the ads actually voted against the program, while two others weren’t even in Congress when the vote took place.
Oops. But the bigger question is, aren’t business groups supposed to favor fiscal responsibility and reducing the size of government? So why is the chamber praising a program that substantially increases the size of government and has no visible means of financial support?
The answer is obvious: the Bush administration hopes to win some votes in the midterm elections from older Americans now receiving drug benefits, and the chamber, like many conservative organizations these days, believes that its interests are best served by helping Republicans win elections.
[…]
Now compare this with the behavior of advocacy groups like the Sierra Club, the environmental organization, and Naral, the abortion-rights group, both of which have endorsed Senator Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, for re-election. The Sierra Club’s executive director defended the Chafee endorsement by saying, “We choose people, not parties.” And it’s true that Mr. Chafee has usually voted with environmental groups.
But while this principle might once have made sense, it’s just naive today. Given both the radicalism of the majority party’s leadership and the ruthlessness with which it exercises its control of the Senate, Mr. Chafee’s personal environmentalism is nearly irrelevant when it comes to actual policy outcomes; the only thing that really matters for the issues the Sierra Club cares about is the “R” after his name.
Put it this way: If the Democrats gain only five rather than six Senate seats this November, Senator James Inhofe, who says that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” will remain in his current position as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And if that happens, the Sierra Club may well bear some of the responsibility.
Perhaps I’ve already blockquoted more than the Fair Use Doctrine allows, but it would be a worse transgression not to include Krugman’s final paragraph:
The fact is that in 1994, the year when radical Republicans took control both of Congress and of their own party, things fell apart, and the center did not hold. Now we’re living in an age of one-letter politics, in which a politician’s partisan affiliation is almost always far more important than his or her personal beliefs. And those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship.
I for one do not wish to be a “useful idiot” and that explains why I work so hard to elect Democrats — not because I have any particular allegiance to the Democratic Party, but because I understand it is the only way to enact progressive policies while fending off political attacks from the right. This is the political world we live in, and those who ignore the letter next to a candidate’s name on the ballot are ignoring political reality.
I’m not saying this is a good thing — it’s just the way things are.
by Goldy — ,
How scared are Dave Reichert’s folks about facing Democratic challenger Darcy Burner? Scared enough that they conducted extensive polling in June, yet didn’t leak a single drop of data to the media. Scared enough that even the NRCC publicly admits he’s vulnerable. And apparently, scared enough that they’re already running Karl Rove-style push-polls… a full three months before the election.
I’ve heard from three constituents who are just absolutely pissed off about being subjected to a telephone ad campaign masquerading as a political survey… a push-poll clearly designed to pump up Reichert while spreading misinformation about Burner. Push-polling is dirty politics at its worst, but the only thing surprising about Reichert’s efforts is that it comes so early — normally we don’t see these sort of dirty tricks until the final weeks of the campaign.
The caller starts by asking to speak to the “male, voting, head of household,” though the three respondents I’ve heard from are all women. It starts innocently enough with “right direction/wrong direction” questions and stuff like that, but after the respondents say they intend to support Burner, the “ifs” start coming out.
“If you knew that Darcy Burner had voted in only 11 of 22 elections, would you be more or less likely to vote for her?”
“If you knew that Darcy Burner held stock options, including stocks in oil companies and Enron, would you be more or less likely to vote for her?”
“If you knew that Darcy Burner supported using aborted fetuses for medical research, would you be more or less likely to vote for her?”
“If you knew that Darcy Burner wanted to penalize the middle class by raising taxes, would you be more or less likely to vote for her?”
I probably have the specific phrasing off, as the respondents weren’t taking notes, but all three came away with the clear impression that this was an intentional “smear job” designed to mislead voters about Burners stance on the issues. In fact, one so-called “pollster” was openly apologetic about the biased nature of the questions, whispering into the phone: “I’m just trying to earn a living.”
The firm conducting the push-poll is obviously from out of state — one caller couldn’t pronounce “Issaquah” or even “Reichert”, while another admitted she was calling Texas the day before and another southern state the day before that. No doubt other Democratic challengers are being equally smeared in other districts nationwide by a Republican Party increasingly fearful of the coming purge, and willing to stoop to any level to cling to power.
Unfortunately, one of the things that makes push-polls so popular is that journalists tend to be reluctant to write about them, because there’s rarely a recording to verify the details.
So here’s want I want all of you to do: be prepared. If you think you’re in the process of being push-polled, take detailed notes, or better yet, record the conversation. And if you’ve already been push-polled, drop me an email and let me know so we can corroborate the details as much as possible.
We all expect the Republicans to stoop to dirty tricks in defense of Reichert. But let’s not allow them to get away with it without consequences.
by Goldy — ,
Last night the Senate passed an amendment introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell and Joe Biden, that prohibits the US Government from establishing permanent military bases in Iraq, and from exercising control over Iraq’s oil resources.
Actions speak louder than words. But Sen. Cantwell’s words speak pretty loud too:
“I do not support having a permanent military presence in Iraq,” said Cantwell. “I want our troops home as soon as possible. We need to encourage the Iraqis to take complete control of their own security as soon as possible so U.S. troops can come home. Building permanent bases in Iraq would not get us closer to this goal and it would send the wrong message to the Iraqi people, our allies, and the world.”
Hmm. I wonder if Mike!™ would have voted for this amendment? (I just sent an email off to the campaign asking; let’s see if I get a straight answer.)
by Goldy — ,
by Goldy — ,
I’ve spent a lot of time hyping up the Burner/Reichert race in the WA’s 8th Congressional District, which is steadily sliding towards the toss-up category as the election approaches. But as it turns out, Dave Reichert isn’t our only Republican incumbent who should be looking over his shoulders.
Over in the 5th CD (the Eastern half of Eastern WA) Rep. Cathy McMorris is proving to be a lot more vulnerable than her friends in the local media seem ready to admit. Indeed, the latest round of internal polling conducted by Lake Research Partners suggests that this is a winnable seat for Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark… given the financial resources to communicate his message.
Here are the survey’s main conclusions:
- In the initial ballot, incumbent McMorris receives less than a majority of the vote against Goldmark despite a vast name recognition advantage. After both candidates get their messages out, Goldmark pulls into a virtual tie with McMorris
by Goldy — ,
I know there are history buffs who question if Meriwether Lewis actually died by his own hand as the record contends, but after visiting some of the landmarks along the final stage of his epic journey of discovery, I’m not one of them. From Dismal Nitch to Point Distress to Cape Disappointment, I was constantly struck by the depressing names Captain Lewis assigned to places of such natural splendor.
This was clearly not a happy fella. I kept imagining the expedition struggling down the mighty Columbia, rounding a jagged outcropping they believed to be the final obstacle before the Pacific, only to discover that they were still miles away from their goal. Named on the spur of the moment, that place of utter beauty would forever be known as Point Sonofabitch.
Anyway, I’m back from my own epic journey of discovery and I want to extend a big thanks to Darryl of Hominid Views for keeping HA going in my absence. It’s nice to know that if I ever commit suicide by, say… shooting myself first in the head and then in the chest, before cutting up my body with razor blades, HA — like Lewis’ diaries — might survive me.
by Darryl — ,
Maria Cantwell is now a blogger!
Check this out at the Northwest Progressive Institute’s Official Blog.
I cannot support what amounts to a minimum wage penalty for over 122,000 Washington minimum wage earners. Why would the federal government work to lower the maximum wage rather than setting a minimum protection?
I am not buying this cynical Republican ploy.
And blogging with an edge!
by Goldy — ,
In my absence there has been some speculation over my role in the shareholder lawsuit challenging former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick’s golden parachute. I suppose I should have clarified things the day the story broke, but my dog and daughter and I have been chasing birds in Long Beach the past couple days, mostly out of cell phone range, and entirely without Internet access but for brief morning visits to a local WiFi hotspot. (Long Beach Coffee has great java by the way… but rather spotty Internet service.)
Besides, there’s not really much to clarify, as Robert Mak pretty much got the sequence of events right in his Tuesday night report.
Here’s what I happened. A couple months ago I was talking to Knoll Lowney about his lawsuit overturning Initiative 747 when he mentioned the shareholder lawsuit he was working on. From the sounds of it he was fairly far along, and rather confident that he had a strong case that at least some of McGavick’s compensation package was illegal, which all sounded pretty good to me. I offered to help him find plaintiffs, and about a week later put up a short post on HA looking for pissed off SAFECO shareholders.
I got one firm response, Ashley Bullitt, and after a brief email exchange I passed her contact information on to Knoll. Her daughter Emma Schwartzman ultimately became the lead plaintiff in the case. Essentially, if not for me, Knoll likely would have ended up with a different plaintiff. (It’s not like pissed off SAFECO shareholders are all that scarce in Seattle.)
That’s pretty much the extent of my involvement. In fact, considering how little Internet access I’ve had the past few days, most of you probably know more about the details of this case than I do. I’d love to take more credit than I have, but truth be told, if Knoll had posted a notice on Craig’s List, he’d probably have gotten a bigger response than I did on HA.
Now, I understand that the McGavick campaign is trying to dismiss this lawsuit as nothing but dirty, partisan politics, and that my good friend Stefan over at (un)Sound Politics is pointing to my bit part as confirmation. But, well… unfortunately for the R’s, reality tends to be a tad more nuanced.
Was my role in this case politically motivated? Of course it was. Nearly everything I do is political. Hell, when I take a dump I wipe my ass with Dave Reichert’s franked mail. (It has less literary value than toilet paper, and is twice as plentiful.)
I’d have to be an idiot not to see the partisan, political value in what Knoll was doing, and that’s why I offered to help. Duh-uh.
But to conclude from that, as (u)SP’s Eric Earling does, that the entire lawsuit is baseless… well, that either shows a lack of critical thinking on his part… or a total lack of respect for his reader’s intelligence.
The facts of this scenario speak for themselves in showing not only is the lawsuit entirely political, but that it doesn’t have any merit even as simply a shareholder complaint.
Uh-huh. What a brilliant legal analysis. But then, that’s typical of (u)SP’s oeuvre, lazily hawking dismissiveness rather than relying on inconvenient things like facts or, um… thinking.
“The facts of this scenario” don’t speak to the merit of the lawsuit at all. In fact — and I know this might be a difficult concept for some of my rightie trolls to wrap their minds around without their heads exploding — it is absolutely possible for this lawsuit to be both politically motivated and entirely with legal merit.
I can’t speak for either Knoll or Emma, but it would surprise me if their involvement was entirely unmotivated by partisan politics. They’re suing a candidate for U.S. Senate for chrisakes. They’re not dumb; they know they’re shoving some bad publicity McGavick’s way. But I also believe that their outrage over McGavick’s golden parachute is as absolutely genuine as my own.
Legal or not, the fact is that McGavick’s golden parachute is an absolute disgrace, and at the very least presents the kind of perception of impropriety that simply should not be acceptable from our highest elected officials. And no, the fact that other executives have been similarly overcompensated at customer, employee and shareholder expense is not an excuse.
Further adding to the outrage is the fact that McGavick had already made millions at SAFECO, and had a generous termination package in place. By rewriting his termination agreement after he announced his voluntary retirement, handing McGavick many millions more than he was contractually due, SAFECO has potentially performed an end-run around our campaign finance laws, indirectly dumping truckloads of cash into this Senate race via McGavick’s own unlimited, personal contributions.
This is just plain wrong, and deserves public attention for moral and ethical reasons alone. But Knoll believes it is also illegal, and considering his legal track record, Knoll’s opinion is good enough for me. Yes, Knoll has a reputation for working on behalf of liberal causes, but remember, both he and Steve Berman are sinking their own money and resources into this case, and they don’t make a dime unless they win. Bloggers like me may be foolish enough to work for free, but lawyering is a business.
As for Emma, anybody who simply dismisses her as a political hack isn’t paying close attention. Her involvement isn’t just about politics, and it certainly isn’t about the money. It’s about respect for an institution in which generations of Bullitts obviously take great pride.
Emma inherited fewer than 50 shares of SAFECO stock, but as she makes a point of stating, these are “original” shares, passed down through generations from her great, great grandfather, a SAFECO founder. Monetarily, the shares are a pittance. But to Emma and her relatives they are a family heirloom… a proud connection to their family’s role in building Seattle into the great city it is today.
That Emma views SAFECO as something more than the sum of its market valuation might be hard for some people to understand, but she is clearly proud to be part of a family that has played a historic role in Seattle’s business and philanthropic community. Emma may not have inherited Bullitt family millions, but she’s certainly inherited her family’s acute sense of social justice.
But that said, all this speculation over the motivations of Knoll or Emma or myself misses the point. McGavick’s golden parachute was improper, if not downright illegal, and since none of the facts in the case are really in dispute, responsible reporting would focus on getting some expert legal opinion to analyze the points of law in dispute. Who cares if my primary motivation was to stick it to McGavick if in fact he and SAFECO broke the law or in some other way violated the trust of shareholders?
McGavick is, after all, running for U.S. Senate, and thus voters have a right to know if he is beyond reproach, or merely straddling its edge. And unlike the state Dems, Knoll didn’t just issue a hotly worded press release… he laid out all the facts and arguments in a legal document that will win or lose on its own merits. Indeed, if there is to be a shareholder lawsuit, the time for it to be filed is now, before the election, so that voters can learn the truth. In that sense, political motivation is a good thing.
Oh, and one final comment on the R’s feigned outrage over this lawsuit: gimme a fucking break.
McGavick’s midlife conversion to “civility” is a joke to anybody who remembers the vicious campaign he ran on behalf of Slade Gorton, and absolutely absurd coming from the party of Karl Rove. Accusations of dirty politics? This coming from the party that swift-boats war heros and slanders multiple amputee veterans as traitors and cowards?
This isn’t dirty. This is just a lawsuit. And whatever its motivation, the facts do indeed speak for themselves.
by Darryl — ,
The Seattle media is All Goldy All the Time this week!
This time Goldy writes for The Stranger about the real reason for his failed marriage:
All this time I thought my marriage had dissolved due to selfishness or immaturity or a failure to communicate, but now I no longer blame myself. I blame the gays for gnawing away at the institution of marriage and tearing asunder my daughter’s once-happy home.
But mostly, I blame Dan Savage.
Read the whole thing here.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!