HorsesAss.Org

Many of us inhabitants of the liberal blogosphere like to say that we are part of the “reality-based community,” the implication being that our counterparts on the right are not. And yet, the right’s growing dominance over the past couple decades suggests that at least when it comes to electoral politics it is they who are more grounded in reality than us.

Conservatives now hold the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and a majority of governorships and state houses. And while 2006 is shaping up to be a year of political sea change, it has more to do with Republican arrogance, incompetence and corruption than with well planned and executed Democratic strategy.

Liberal Democrats simply aren’t as politically calculating as conservative Republicans, as ruthless or relentless, and certainly not as rigidly and blindly unified. Too bad.

For with the GOP teetering on the edge of the volcano, now is the time for progressives to practice a little realpolitik, join hands… and shove the bastards in! But no… we have to engage in our usual bullshit in-fighting over who is or is not ideologically pure enough… all the time losing sight of what should be our overriding objective: seizing power.

Case in point, Sen. Maria Cantwell and the constant chatter from WA’s angry left, bemoaning the fact that she doesn’t meet our unrealistic expectations… all this wailing and gnashing over her failure to stop a war she couldn’t stop or her refusal to join a filibuster that could not win. And then there’s The Stranger’s Cienna Madrid and her fellow environmentalists over on Slog, who just can’t hold back their contempt for the environmental record of one of the most reliably pro-environment members of the Senate.

Cantwell’s transgression? She “welcomed” Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne’s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior, telling the New York Times that he “understands the Northwest and a lot of Interior issues,” and has “stood up to the administration” over nuclear waste cleanup at a federal facility in Idaho.

Oh Cienna… get real.

Not only is it absurd to suggest that this one comment should negate a five-year environmental record that has made Cantwell’s reelection the number one priority of the League of Conservation Voters, but the ensuing comment thread brouhaha showed a total lack of understanding of exactly what it is we elect our senators to do.

Don’t get me wrong… I really like Cienna. She’s funny, she’s foul-mouthed, and she sure can string a handful of unrelated words together into a coherent and entertaining sentence. No wonder she has a horde of admirers in The Stranger’s forums: talent is a turn on.

(Too bad I’m way too old for her. Unless, of course, she has a thing for older men… in which case I’m only about ten years too old for her. Ah well.)

But while Cienna’s a great writer… she’s also young… and so her passion and prose sometimes gets ahead of her analysis. And in this particular case her ire was certainly disproportionate to the political reality.

See, the reality is that the GOP holds a 10-seat majority in the Senate, and that Gov. Kempthorne is not only a former senator, but one who was well-liked by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The reality is that, evil or not, Kempthorne is going to be the next Secretary of the Interior, and there is absolutely nothing that Cienna or me or even Cantwell can do to stop it.

Cienna and others are outraged that Cantwell would greet Kempthorne’s nomination with such a welcoming statement, but she did so — so aides tell me — not only because she genuinely believes that he is somebody she can work with on issues important to Northwest voters… but because she has no choice. The reality is, he will be confirmed, and thus she will have to work with him, whether she wants to or not.

Sure, Cantwell could have greeted Kempthorne’s nomination with a big, fat “fuck you” — and perhaps that would have given people like me and Cienna a bit of passing pleasure. But what would it accomplish? The first time Cantwell went to Kempthorne on some real life issue that effected real life people in Washington state, she likely would have gotten a big, fat “fuck you” in return.

See, that’s the way things work in Washington… the Washington Sen. Cantwell works in, not the Washington in which she campaigns for votes. No, she may not be the best politician in the world, but she’s a damn fine legislator, and it should be pretty clear to her critics by now that she’s not going to do or say anything that interferes with her ability to do her job. It should also be crystal clear that while she’s reliably progressive on most issues (Progressive Punch rates her at 88.93% compared to current progressive darling Russ Feingold’s 89.56%,) she’s never going to be a Paul Wellstone.

Now… would I personally like Cantwell and the rest of the Democratic party to be a lot more stridently progressive? Hell yes! But the reason we have a war in Iraq and a Supreme Court packed with right-wing justices — and a “weasely, incompetent chode” like Kempthorne running Interior — is not because Democratic senators like Cantwell fail to take bold, symbolic stands… it’s because they’re in the fucking minority!

Welcome to my reality-based community.

UPDATE:
Cienna responds.

The Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly got to sit down with Barak Obama after Saturday’s event, and came away impressed. The Stranger’s Eli Sanders didn’t get to sit down with Obama, and came away unimpressed. But… well… Eli’s wrong.

I like to belittle Tim Eyman as a “professional” initiative sponsor, but the truth is, he really isn’t all that professional. Case in point, the breaking news that his volunteers and paid signature gatherers have wasted the past month collecting signatures on an invalid petition.

Steve Zemke of Majority Rules reports:

Tim Eyman’s current Initiative 917 petitions for $30 license tabs are invalid and violate Washington state law. He has resent “redesigned” petitions to his supporters but lies and tells them that signatures on the old petitions are “valid”.

This directly contradicts an announcement issued by the Washington State Secretary of State on Feb. 19, 2006 and posted on their website.

I cannot begin to tell you what a major, logistical fuck-up this is… and to add to his embarrassment, it’s not the first time. Steve caught the true meaning of Timmy’s lying letter because it was a near carbon-copy of one he sent to supporters back in 2003, when he inexcusably printed the wrong initiative text on the back of the I-807 petition. The campaign never recovered, and Timmy failed to qualify an initiative for the ballot.

It’s still too early in the signature gathering season to determine whether Tim’s latest screw-up is fatal, but it certainly will prove costly. As of the end of February, the I-917 campaign had already spent at least $90,000 on paid signature gathering, and over $25,000 on printing and mailing… all of it on totally invalid petitions. That’s about a quarter of the budget of a typical signature drive.

But at least as devastating is the chaos and confusion this creates amongst signers. Those who have already signed the invalid petition won’t know that they now must sign the newly “redesigned,” “better” (i.e. valid) petition. And if signature gatherers make an aggressive effort to ask people to sign again, they will likely end up collecting a large number of duplicate signatures.

Anyway, here’s how Eyman screwed up. In 2005 the Legislature amended the controlling statutes to require that all petitions carry a declaration from the signature gatherer attesting that people signed willingly and without compensation, and acknowledging the penalties for forgery and inducement. The new requirement went into effect January 1, 2006, but Eyman — the “professional” — apparently didn’t notice.

Well, apparently somebody else did, because the Secretary of State issued the following advisory on February 9:

It is the interpretation of the Office of the Secretary of State that this declaration must not only be printed on the back side of petition sheet, but must also be signed by the signature gatherer, and the signature gatherer’s name must be printed in the appropriate location. To interpret the law as not requiring the oath to be completed would render the new law meaningless. It is also the interpretation of the Office of the Secretary of State that lack of a signature on the declaration will cause the petition sheet to be rejected pursuant to RCW 29A.72.170(1).

Pretty clear, huh? Petitions lacking a properly completed declaration will not be counted.

Well, not according Timmy. In a letter to supporters sent out last week, Eyman wrote:

“All the signatures, whether on the old petition or redesigned petition, are valid and will count so get them filled out and sent back to me as soon as possible. […] But we ask everyone to start using the new, redesigned petition because it’s better.”

What a lying, sack of shit. Though, yeah… sure… the “redesigned” petitions are indeed “better”… in the sense that these petitions will actually count.

I checked with the SOS and they assured me that their interpretation was written in consultation with the Attorney General’s office. Rep. Toby Nixon has formally asked the AG for an official opinion, but it’s hard to see how a statute requiring this declaration could possibly be read to um… not require this declaration. Eyman is screwed.

And, like I said… a liar.

For the life of me, I simply cannot understand why anybody still takes this guy seriously. Eyman is a serial prevaricator who was caught red handed stealing from contributors, and lying about it afterwards. He has absolutely no grassroots organization whatsoever, and now manages to raise less than $100,000/initiative from his once vaunted contributor list. He can only afford the paid signature gatherers that qualify his initiatives for the ballot through the underwriting of a single, multimillionaire contributor, Michael Dunmire of Woodenville… but to call Timmy a “professional” would be to ignore the inexcusably amateur way he runs his campaigns.

Let’s be honest. If Timmy had been hired to run the signature drive for I-917, and had screwed up big time like this… he would have been fired. And this from the most prolific initiative sponsor in state history… I mean, even my dog eventually learns simple tasks through repetition.

Without Dunmire’s money and the inexplicable attention the traditional media still lavishes on him, Eyman would be nothing but just another lying, angry, right-wing blowhard. Perhaps that’s qualification enough to earn him a spot blogging on (un)Sound Politics, but it certainly doesn’t warrant the guest-column-on-demand status he currently enjoys in our state’s major newspapers.

It is not uncommon to read editorial boards railing against Eyman’s stupid, ill-conceived initiatives. Well here’s a hint guys: stop giving this lying, incompetent, self-serving horse’s ass so much damned free press!

Yet another notch in the belt of the regional progressive blogosphere. Darryl at Hominid Views, whose original post led to national ridicule being heaped on Adele Fergusen’s ridiculous, pro-slavery column, reports that the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal has decided to discontinue her column. Way to go Darryl.

The Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly was happy just to be out of the house after weeks recuperating from hip replacement surgery… but he seemed especially pleased to be at Garfield High School Saturday afternoon, as Senators Maria Cantwell and Barak Obama prepared to speak in the jam-packed gymnasium. “This is a late New Hampshire primary crowd,” he told me, apparently remarking on both the size and the enthusiasm of the audience.

At this point in his long career I think it is fair to describe Connelly as a touch jaded, having comfortably settled into his role as the curmudgeonly deacon of Seattle’s political press corps. So while I could feel the excitement in the air… what do I know? I came away impressed that Connelly was impressed.

No doubt, Obama is a political superstar, and he draws superstar sized crowds, (the Seattle Times estimated the standing-room-only audience at 1,500,) but some of his aura seemed to rub off on Cantwell yesterday, who drew loud applause and a standing ovation from a very friendly crowd.

The two Senators had come to talk about education, and Garfield was the perfect setting. Cantwell, in her more wonkish, policy-focused fashion struck an “education = opportunity” theme, using her own life story as an example of how government programs can positively impact individual lives. Cantwell was the first in her working-class family to go to college, but couldn’t have done it without the support of federal Pell grants.

Obama for his part hit on some larger themes, admitting that there is a “values component” to education, that it’s not just a function of money and government. Parents have to be involved in their children’s education, he exhorted the crowd, they have to turn off the TV set and help their kids with their homework.

But it is also important that government fulfill its promises, he told the audience… that our schools need both more reform and more money. “Every child is special…” Obama poignantly stated, “but our budgets do not reflect that.”

In fact, I have long been disgusted at our decades-old debate over education reform, for as the recipient of an excellent public education myself, I can bluntly tell you that there is no mystery as to what makes a good public school good. Yes, there are many factors, but way above all others are money and parental involvement… and because of the unjust way we finance education, the two tend to go hand in hand.

The best schools are generally those with the best funding and the most family and community participation. Natural ability aside, the best students are generally those whose parents are most involved in their children’s education. Really… no education reform is worth a damn if you don’t properly fund it and the kids do not receive the support they need at home and in the classroom.

The fact is, we know how to make public schools better — there are good public schools all around us. Smaller class size, special needs tutoring, enrichment programs like art, music, physical education, foreign languages… all of these things cost money. We just don’t want to spend this kind of money educating other people’s children.

And the fact is, due to their own financial or personal circumstances — or due to their own crappy education — there are many parents who simply lack the time, the resources, the skill sets, or yes, the values to help their kids succeed academically. These are the families who need the most intervention and counseling… these are the kids who cost the most to educate… and again, we as a society simply refuse to pay for it.

“The basic notion that we have a mutual obligation to each other has been lost,” Obama lamented. And until we restore that notion, I personally don’t think we have a snowball’s chance of truly reforming public education.

Garfield High was not only the perfect place for the Senators to talk about education… as the symbolic center of Seattle’s black community it was also the perfect place to showcase Cantwell’s support from our nation’s highest profile black elected official, as well as local community leaders themselves.

In yesterday’s Seattle P-I, columnist Robert Jamieson criticized Cantwell’s appearance as political opportunism.

Cantwell’s rare visit to the community feels like a slap in the face to Aaron Dixon, who just announced that he would run against her as a Green Party candidate.

But it was Jamieson whose face got slapped, and by none other than longtime Mount Zion Baptist Church minister and Seattle icon, the Rev. Samuel McKinney. Rev. McKinney made a point of refuting Jamieson’s criticism, insisting that Cantwell was no stranger to the black community, and highlighting the work she’s done on its behalf. In a ringing endorsement of Cantwell’s reelection, McKinney instructed the crowd: “When you are ahead, you don’t change.”

All in all, it was a great program. From the teen rapper who warmed up the crowd, to the presenters introducing educational programs that have had an impact on the community, to the featured speakers themselves… it was an entertaining and informative afternoon.

Having never been there myself, I took Connelly’s word that the event had the feel of a New Hampshire primary, and I walked away wondering if in the current political climate there was any national GOP figure who could generate a similar crowd for Mike McGavick?

Perhaps President Bush could do it… and I certainly hope he comes and tries. For while Obama may only be a first term senator, I’d much rather have his enthusiastic endorsement than that of a lame duck president with 33% approval ratings.

More Coverage:
Will, Carl and Andrew have their own take on yesterday’s event.

I’m off to Obama-a-rama. Will report later. In the meanwhile, talk amongst yourselves.

Hmm. I don’t think The Stranger’s Cienna Madrid much cares for President Bush’s new choice for Secretary of the Interior:

I’m from Idaho and I hate Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne. I hated him when he was Senator Kempthorne. I hated him when he was Mayor Kempthorne. And I am resentfully preparing myself to hate him as Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne:
[…]
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The environment is fucked.
[…]
I bagged his groceries once in the Boise Co-op when I was 16, and that night my parents told me they were getting divorced. Coincidence?
[…]
Every time I have seen Kempthorne “in the flesh”, dogs have been barking at him. Because he stinks of evil.

If I wasn’t straight, Cienna… I think I’d be ladydazzled.

The US Senate narrowly passed a budget bill last night that included funding for drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge… and personally, I blame Mike McGavick. I mean… the guy claims he can make Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens pull bills, so certainly, he could have used his super-human powers on ANWR. But he didn’t. What a disappointment.

It’s a Stranger kind of day. Josh Feit reports on Slog that Okanogan County rancher Peter Goldmark is back in the race against first term GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris in the 5th Congressional District… and a whole bunch of sources confirm that it is true.

Goldmark’s got a great bio for the district, and while I’ve never met him, those who have assure me that he’ll be a great candidate. This is a guy with stature, and it would be a huge mistake for McMorris to take his challenge lightly.

As Rep. Jay Insee points out in The Stranger’s feature story on Darcy Burner, Republicans could be facing a very tough election… even in solidly red Eastern Washington:

“There’s no way to predict anything in politics, but right now it does look like there’s the potential for a tsunami like the one we experienced in 1994,” Inslee told me. “The conditions that existed then, I believe, exist now. The country is outraged at the ineptitude and incompetence of this administration.”

Inslee says he’s “very impressed” with Burner, but adds that if the electorate is demanding change, it may be enough for her to simply not be Reichert. “Once a tide like that begins to run,” he says, “it doesn’t matter what kind of swimmer you are, you can be swept out.”

The political climate is such that upsets can happen… but in order to win an upset election, you have to have a candidate running. With Goldmark the Democrats have found a very credible challenger who could turn this into a very interesting race.

I’ll be on the John Carlson Show, 570-KVI today at 3:05 PM, talking about whether we should apply campaign finance laws to bloggers. Um… I think I’ll say “no.”

UPDATE:
Stayed on for a couple calls. Man… I seem to make these guys angry. Is it something I’ve said?

I think Eli Sanders may be in love, but too bad for him, Darcy Burner is happily married. Not that I blame him. A lot of people are falling in love with Burner… well, at least her candidacy anyway.

Burner is running against first-term Republican Dave Reichert in Washington’s 8th Congressional District, and Sanders’ feature in this week’s Stranger (“Fighting Mood“) is a great introduction to both the electoral dynamics and the candidate herself.

Darcy Burner is a military brat, computer geek, and former Microsoft executive. Howard Dean believes she can help the Democrats take Washington State’s 8th Congressional District and the U.S. Congress

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Pew pegs Bush’s approval at 33 percent. SurveyUSA has Bush above 50 percent in only three states: Utah, Wyoming and Alabama. No wonder Republicans are switching parties.

Gee, I sure hope longtime Kitsap Peninsula columnist Adele Fergusen is suffering from senile dementia… because I’d hate to think such wrong-headed sentiments could come from somebody in their right mind.

The pony hidden in slavery is the fact that it was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it. A harsh life, to be sure, but many immigrants suffered hardships and indignations as indentured servants. Their descendants rose above it. You don’t hear them bemoaning their forebears’ life the way some blacks can’t rise above the fact theirs were slaves.

Ironically, these shockingly unselfconscious comments come from a column intended to persuade African Americans to join Fergusen in voting Republican. “Why do blacks continue to support Democrats?” she boldly asks.

Well… um… maybe Fergie, because angry, old, shriveled-up Republicans like you are a bunch of fucking racists?

Of course Fergusen has always been an alter kaker, so given her advanced age, perhaps she can be forgiven her Douglas Wilson moment. But you’ve got to wonder… what were the supposedly sane editors at the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal thinking?

UPDATE:
Thanks to Darryl at Hominid Views, via The General, Fergusen’s column has gotten national attention. So the KPBJ has of course done the responsible thing… mysteriously pulled the column from their website, without comment.

Fortunately, I just so happened to print a copy as a PDF.

Human Events, a “national conservative weekly,” wants to set the record straight about former FEMA Director Michael Brown. So who did they choose to write their “exclusive” expose “Media Maelstrom Over Michael Brown“…? None other than Brownie’s longtime attorney and personal friend, Andy Lester.

In a section entitled “Distorting the Truth” Lester once again accuses me of lying:

The sharks smelled blood. It was time to dig up dirt. The blogosphere came to the rescue.

Suddenly, a swirl of stories appeared that Brown had been forced out of his last job. Who broke the story? Not the major media. It was a website, aptly named HorsesAss.org. The story was false. But the media picked it up, ran with it, and kept repeating it.

Hmm. Only problem is, the story was true. Invective aside, let’s take a look at what I wrote in that original post:

Yes, that’s right… the man responsible for directing federal relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sharpened his emergency management skills as the “Judges and Stewards Commissioner” for the International Arabian Horses Association… a position from which he was forced to resign in the face of mounting litigation and financial disarray.

Both Brown and Lester apparently believe that my post played a significant role in his downfall, but they entirely miss the significance of what I wrote. Forget for a moment the question of whether Brown resigned under pressure in the face of mounting and costly litigation… although this was well documented in industry newsletters at the time, and corroborated by reporters following up on my post.

The story I broke — the story that turned Brown into the butt of jokes about Bush administration cronyism — was simply that Brown’s work experience immediately prior to joining FEMA was a decade serving as Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the IAHA… an indisputable fact. In the context of FEMA’s disastrous performance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Brown’s utter lack of emergency management experience became a big story.

Lester argues that his friend Brown was the victim of an unscrupulous blogger and an irresponsible press corps, a critique as familiar as it is disingenuous. Indeed, even the title of his expose includes a calculated lie, in the claim that it is an “exclusive.” In fact, most of the piece was lifted word for word from a guest column Lester wrote back in September, 2005 for the ironically named Accuracy in Media.

Whatever the extenuating circumstances of the federal government’s failed response to Katrina (and there is plenty of blame to go around) there remains little doubt that Brownie brought to FEMA a resume with absolutely no qualifications to recommend him for the job. Lester can offhandedly malign HA all he wants, but it doesn’t change the facts.

Clearly, there’s nothing more threatening to homeland security than pacifists.