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Rep. Derek Kilmer has confirmed that the GOP’s bogus “Sex Offender Notification” postcards were also sent in the 26th Legislative District.

The postcards were sent into our district as well. Most of the calls that I’ve received (at my home and at my office)have been from people who are angry about the cards — feeling that the Republicans were politicizing the issue of protecting our kids. We have had a couple of folks who called to ask if they could get the address of this sex offender — people who were concerned that it was an accurate portrayal.

My wife and I are expecting our first child in March. Nothing is more important to me than making sure our child — and all of the kids in our state — are safe. I’m offended by efforts to play politics with important issues.

Rep. Kilmer also forwarded me a copy of an op-ed he wrote with Rep. Patricia Lantz, outlining the bipartisan sex offender bills they are co-sponsoring, and explaining the circumstances regarding the Republicans first-day-of-session maneuver, and the “outrageous” smear campaign in its aftermath.

I don’t generally blog on the same topic three posts in a row, but I want to impress upon my friends in the media the seriousness of this incident. The state GOP leadership didn’t just lie about their Democratic opponents… they mailed out a fake “Sex Offender Notification” postcard to tens of thousands of households scattered throughout the state.

Imagine how many parents have been unnecessarily frightened and angered to find this official looking notice in the mail, apparently informing them that a man convicted of abducting and assaulting children has moved into their neighborhood?

This is not politics as usual. This is not just another political dirty trick. This is a new low — at least for WA state Republicans — and it is unforgivably despicable.

My friends in the press have an obligation to inform the public about the truth behind this deceitful campaign. Let the GOP slide under the radar on this one, and you send a clear message to political operatives around the state that anything goes.

UPDATE:
Just thought I’d nip this lame excuse in the bud: yes… these postcards are directly linked to the state GOP leadership.

The postcards acknowledge they are paid for by the Speaker’s Roundtable, which is indeed an “associated PAC” of the House Republican Organizing Committee. The Roundtable’s executive director Kevin Carns and communications director Jennifer Pierson are also the HROC’s political director and communications director, respectively. Both the HROC and the Roundtable rent office space from the BIAW… which is also a major source of its funding.

Both the first-day-of-session stunt and the smear campaign in its aftermath were planned, coordinated, and paid for by the House GOP leadership. There’s no way around that.

As if there aren’t enough real sex offenders in WA, the state GOP is apparently fictionalizing new ones.

Yesterday I did a quick hit on the state GOP’s vile “sex offender” mailing, not realizing that the image I used came from VanBlog, the new blog from Vancouver, WA’s Vanguard weekly newspaper. This oversight on my part is doubly disappointing, because I’ve been meaning to plug VanBlog and writer Jon DeVore, whose now defunct (and much missed) Columbian Watch was one of my favorite WA state blogs.

Jon is working on a piece about the scandal for Vanguard, and has provided updated information in my comment threads. And yes… I think it appropriate to start calling this disgusting misinformation campaign a “scandal.”

In my original post I said the Republican hit piece was “based on a lie,” an assertion perennial HA reader/GOP candidate Richard Pope objected, I had not backed up with facts. However, the lie to which I referred was the general lie of this whole campaign of lies… that the Democrats’ rejection of a procedural stunt on the first day of session was in any way a rejection of a particular policy or objective. I had actually assumed that the “sex offender” shown on the post card was an actual “sex offender” who actually lived in Rep. Deb Wallace’s 17th district. I mean… the Republicans wouldn’t be so stupid as to mock up a fake sex offender, would they?

Well… apparently… they might.

Jon explains in my comment thread that he has been trying to match the man pictured to known sex offenders, without any luck:

I did have someone sit down and go through ALL of the Clark County Level II and Level III sex offenders (the ones there are pictures for) on the state web site. (http://ml.waspc.org/) He found NOBODY that even remotely resembles the person in the mailer in Clark County.

I personally went through every photo of someone listed for “rape of a child” in Clark County myself today, with no matches.

And the usually staunchly partisan Richard reports similar results from his own research, eventually concluding:

Looks like the GOP mailing will backfire and generate a bunch of negative publicity. I can’t believe they were so stupid as to make up an alleged offender out of whole cloth. I wonder whether any of the 62 REAL Level III sex offenders listed for Clark County are quite as bad of character as the fictional fellow’s history portrays him to be.

Unfortunately, lost in the Republican’s cruel, insensitive, and stunningly stupid misinformation campaign — what Seattle P-I columnist Thomas Shapley calls “a cheap and shameful political stunt” — is a rational public debate over our sex offender laws, and what can be done to strengthen them.

For example, one of the most controversial provisions of our current law offers shorter sentences to offenders who abuse family members, as opposed to strangers… what our friend Richard cynically denigrates as a “Friends and Family discount.” But as Shapley points out, there’s actually a rationale behind this provision.

Coursing though all those debates is the understanding that the toughest prison sentence can be irrelevant without a conviction. Especially when family members are accused, there are demonstrable links between the severity of the potential sentence and the child victim’s willingness to testify or even report the sexual abuse. Do you really want to send Daddy or Uncle Harry to prison? It’s just another facet in the victimization of the child, of course, but it is a factor.

The true predators take smarmy advantage of this conundrum, using their position of trust and affection to prey on children, only to have the relationship they have perverted to their own gratification serve as a shield against prosecution or as a get-out-of-jail-free card into deferred prosecution and treatment.

“What’s a little child sexual abuse between friends and family?” … one might assume that’s the Democratic platform according to the vile, Republican rhetoric we’ve been hearing. But in fact, our current law was crafted the way it is at the urging of prosecutors. It may make for good political demagoguery to call for harsher sentences, but if the result is that fewer offenders are convicted, we’ll only be putting young victims at even greater risk.

And that, of course, is the larger risk of exploiting emotional issues like this to vilify your opponents: it short-circuits an informed public debate, raising the potential of bad policy and unintended consequences.

The truth is, this postcard was never about urging Rep. Wallace to protect children, it was about defeating her in the November election. So instead of conjuring up a fictional child molester, why not just cut to the chase, and paste Rep. Wallace’s photo onto the postcard? After all, that’s the message Republican strategists are really trying to send to voters.

UPDATE:
Further evidence of the GOP’s fake “sex offender” comes from a diary on Daily Kos that shows the exact same postcard, but this time addressed to voters in Rep. Bill Grant’s 16th District.

The postcards boldly warn voters “This violent sex predator lives in your community.” I hadn’t realized that the GOP’s sense of community was so broad that it spanned multiple legislative districts.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
Collect them all! We now have images of postcards from the 16th and 17th districts. If anybody has a postcard from another district, please send me an image.

It is sick enough to exploit the victims of child sexual abuse for political gain, but to do so based on a lie is doubly unforgivable.

The conscienceless, grandstanding bastards at the state GOP have mailed out postcards like the one above in several districts across the state, targeting Democratic legislators. This is part of a well-funded, coordinated campaign from The Speaker’s Roundtable, that includes robo-calls and TV ads. And it is both offensively exploitive and incredibly dishonest.

As I previously reported, on the first day of session the Republicans set up a procedural motion to call for a vote on a 116-page legislative package that absolutely no one had read — not prosecutors, not police officers, not victim’s advocates, not the legislators themselves — knowing full well that the Democrats would reject such an irresponsible move.

But that’s what the GOP wanted; they had their mean-spirited advertising campaign in the can, just waiting for the Dems to give them an excuse to launch it.

If the Republicans really wanted to pass some legislation on this issue they would have sat down with the Democratic leadership — which supports much of their proposal in principle — and crafted a bipartisan package. But apparently, they couldn’t give a flying fuck about the victims of sexual predation beyond how they can cynically use them for political gain.

Yeah, politics is a tough game and all. But this is really disgusting.

It’s Friday night. I don’t feel like writing. It’s an open thread.

I’m interested in recording a 1-hour, weekly podcast from Drinking Liberally… unfortunately, I don’t have any audio equipment, or in fact, any experience at all creating podcasts.

If one or more of my loyal readers would like to volunteer to serve as a producer and get this project rolling, I’d love to hear from you; please leave a comment or send me any email if you are interested. Or, if you think this is a really stupid idea, let me know that too.

And FYI… this coming Tuesday, Rep. Jay Inslee will be stopping by Drinking Liberally. Should be some good conversation.

Well, it’s confirmed… Rev. Ken Hutcherson is a liar. The Stranger’s Eli Sanders talked to AP correspondent Rachel La Corte this morning, regarding her report that Rev. Hutcherson planned to announce a major boycott on national radio. And….

“I stand by the reporting in my story,” La Corte told me.

She’s since talked to Rev. Hutcherson about all this and says: “He insists that I misunderstood him. I don’t feel that I misunderstood him.”

La Corte told me that before she spoke to Hutcherson on Monday, “He’d been trying to get ahold of me all weekend to let me know something he was going to do.” When they finally connected, he told her that he was going to be leading a national boycott of every single company (Microsoft, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Corbis, Vulcan, and RealNetworks) that signed a letter recently supporting Washington’s gay civil rights bill. She asked when he was going to make this announcement, and she says he replied:

“I’m going to be on the Focus on the Family show on Thursday.”

Sanders, who has been tracking down this story, also questions Rev. Hutcherson’s claim that his “boycott” has the support of several major national organizations — including the Family Research Council, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Focus on the Family — claims which neither Sanders nor La Corte have been able to verify. Hmm. I wonder why?

So here’s an interesting thought. Last spring, when The Stranger broke the story that Microsoft pulled its longtime support of anti-discrimination legislation after being threatened with a boycott by Rev. Hutcherson, Microsoft’s denials seemed disingenuous and transparent in light of Hutcherson’s loud and self-aggrandizing claims of credit.

But in light of Rev. Hutcherson’s proven record of lying to the media, um… perhaps Microsoft was telling the truth? Perhaps pressure from Hutcherson had little if anything to do with Microsoft’s decision? Perhaps Hutcherson just seized the opportunity to make headlines for himself? Perhaps he’s just been playing the media for fools all along?

And if so, then the joke’s on him, for whatever his actual influence, Rev. Hutcherson certainly played the lead role in generating the backlash that not only prompted Microsoft to quickly restore its support of the anti-discrimination bill, but to lobby for it harder than ever. Microsoft reportedly applied pressure to several key lawmakers, and while former state senate minority leader Bill Finkbeiner denies they influenced his decision to flip his vote, you can be sure that the largest employer in his district weighs heavily on all his deliberations… of conscience or otherwise.

So if Rev. Hutcherson lied about his role in pressuring Microsoft — just like he lied about this latest fictional boycott — then perhaps the credit he really deserves is for creating the media storm that will ultimately lead to the anti-discrimination bill’s passage after nearly twenty years of close defeats?

I think WA’s gay community owes Rev. Hutcherson a big, wet kiss, smack dab on his lovely, lying lips.

UPDATE:
The Stranger’s Eli Sanders continues to kick the legs out from under the Right Wrong Reverend Hutcherson, who claimed his boycott had support from the Family Research Council, the Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family.

Um… not according to the Family Research Council:

Amber Hildebrand, a spokeswoman for the conservative Family Research Council , tells me that FRC is not supporting Rev. Hutcherson’s boycott of companies that support Washington State’s gay civil rights bill.

“Hutcherson is a good friend of FRC,” Hildebrand told me. “FRC opposes laws protecting people based on the language of “sexual orientation.’ But FRC is not participating in the boycott . We don’t participate in any boycotts.”

And as for the Southern Baptist Convention?

Jill Martin, spokeswoman for the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, tells me that the SBC is not backing Rev. Hutcherson.

“We have no record of the SBC having a position on the boycott,” she says.

The AP’s Rachel La Corte is a good reporter. There’s no way she could have gotten all this wrong unless Hutcherson intended for her to get all this wrong. He lied. He dissed her.

And when you diss one reporter like this, you diss all reporters. I hope my friends in the media remember this the next time Rev. Hutcherson tries to grab some free press for himself.

I’m pretty open about the fact that I view my success as a blogger mostly in terms of how well I influence the mainstream media. My goal is to inform, inspire, cajole, even manipulate my friends in the press corps. Nothing wrong with that. That’s what PR is all about.

But one thing I never do is lie or trick journalists into reporting something I know to be false. That would not only be rude and inconsiderate, it would destroy my credibility. “Traditional journalists” are suspicious of us bloggers, and rightly so; the first time I dupe a reporter into making a fool out of himself, is the last time that reporter will ever take me seriously.

For a good example of the Fool Me Once Doctrine in action, just witness our friends at (un)Sound Politics and their declining impact on political coverage. But I wonder if the same harsh standard by which reporters and editorialists judge us bloggers will also be applied to other prominent media manipulators, like say… a certain gay-bashing, Redmond reverend?

On Monday, Rev. Ken “The Jews Killed Christ” Hutcherson celebrated MLK Day by announcing plans to use an appearance today on Dr. James Dobson’s nationally syndicated radio show, Focus on the Family, to call for a boycott of Microsoft, Boeing and other companies that oppose discrimination of gays and lesbians. Despite the inherent absurdity of a consumer boycott of commercial aircraft and Microsoft Windows, Rev. Hutcherson managed to generate an Associated Press headline out of his carefully staged bit of grandstanding.

Well, The Stranger’s Eli Sanders was curious to see how our local Rev. Hutcherson might take advantage of his moment on the national stage, and so he tuned in today and listened. And listened. And listened. And listened… but no Rev. Hutcherson. So he called Focus on the Family’s headquarters, and you know what? Rev. Hutcherson was never scheduled to appear on the national program.

So… Sanders asks the question the AP and the dozens of newspapers who carried the original story should now be asking of themselves:

Does this “national boycott” actually exist? Or did Rev. Hutcherson trick the press into splashing his name nationally when he knew even his buddy Dobson wasn’t going to?

Rev. Hutcherson now claims he never said he was going to announce a boycott today, and I suppose that AP reporter Rachel La Corte could have gotten it wrong. But if she didn’t, my question for her and the rest of the press corps is: “Are you ever going to trust Rev. Hutcherson again?”

Prefixing one’s name with “Reverend” or “Rabbi” or some other title of ordination should not amount to instant credibility. If La Corte had been a tad less trusting she might have called Focus on the Family herself to follow up on Rev. Hutcherson’s claims… and in so doing, either would have corrected a misunderstanding, or stumbled upon an even larger story… that of a self-righteous, moralizing local minister who blatantly lies to reporters.

Eli Sanders of The Stranger explores the dilemma gay right’s activists face should the WA State Supreme Court toss out our state Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and instruct the Legislature to enact “appropriate remedies.”

Last week, the chief justice of the Washington State supreme court, Gerry Alexander, took the unusual step of setting a timetable for the court’s highly anticipated (and politically explosive) decision on same-sex marriage. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Alexander said the court was aware of the public’s eagerness for a ruling and hoped to decide the marriage case before early March, when this year’s legislative session ends.

The comment immediately set off intense speculation: What did this rare public comment by the chief justice mean? Why would the court be pushing to decide before the end of the legislative session? Does the court’s desire to do so signal a plan by the justices to declare the state’s ban on gay unions unconstitutional and then direct the legislature to come up with an appropriate remedy before the session ends?

That last possibility is one that worries gay rights activists. Like their conservative opponents, they have been spending a lot of time these days thinking about possible decision scenarios and plotting their best political moves given various hypothetical outcomes. And the trickiest outcome is the one in which the Democrat-controlled legislature is told by the court to come up with a law recognizing gay unions. Would legislators have the courage to endorse full equality

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Hmm. Apparently, it wasn’t my fault after all….

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown on Wednesday accepted a greater share of the blame for the government’s failures after Hurricane Katrina, saying he fell short in conveying the magnitude of the disaster and calling for help.

“I should have asked for the military sooner. I should have demanded the military sooner,” Brown told a gathering of meteorologists at a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada.

“It was beyond the capacity of the state and local governments, and it was beyond the capacity of FEMA,” said Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Whew… that’s a relief. The past few months have been a living hell, as I’ve had to struggle with the guilt of having been personally responsible for hundreds of deaths and untold human suffering in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least, that’s what Brownie implied in his congressional testimony last September, when he blamed me not only for his fall from power, but for FEMA’s inability to respond to the disaster:

While FEMA was trying to respond to probably the largest natural disaster in the history of this country, a catastrophic disaster that the president has described covering an area the size of Great Britain

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If you’re ever lucky enough to score an invitation to the home of 39th District Dems chair Steve Galea and his wife Carol… go. I first visited the geodesic dome house they built on a hillside somewhere in rural Snohomish County (I’ve been there twice, and I’m still not exactly sure where it is) as a guest of my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who had won a dinner and wine tasting in a silent auction for the Snohomish County Democrats.

Carol is a superb cook and Steve is a skilled vintner, making wonderful wines from some of the best vineyards in Eastern WA, as well as a few homegrown varieties. They are also both incredibly gracious hosts. So when Steve invited me to a barrel tasting this Sunday, I jumped at the chance.

There were, however, ulterior motives, for in addition to tasting Steve’s wine and Carol’s food, it was also presented as an opportunity meet and talk with Snohomish County Democrat chair Mark Hintz, who is also a candidate for state Democratic chair.

Not being very hip to inside party politics, I suggested bringing a couple of other bloggers with me, and Steve graciously extended the invitation to Brian Moran of WashBlog and Lynn Allen of Evergreen Politics. (I might have invited Jon Stahl too, but I was afraid he’d bring his damn bell.) Joining us was Bill Phillips and Greg Rodriguez, two form state chair candidates who are now backing Hintz.

As I’ve stated before, I’m not going to take a position in this contest, because a) my endorsement would be absolutely meaningless, and b) I don’t feel particularly qualified to choose a new state chair. But I did come away from the evening absolutely comfortable with the prospect of Hintz leading the state Dems into the 21st Century.

I haven’t paid close attention to the race, and perhaps other candidates have staked out a similar position, but Hintz seems intent on running as an agent of change, with a goal of making the party less autocratic, and more responsive and supportive of local party organizations. I’m guessing there are a lot of party regulars who would really like that.

Hintz also talked about the need for new infrastructure… not just the obvious technology advances we need to implement within the party, but also the need to develop local think tanks, and support the growing blogosphere… both issues that are near and dear to my heart.

But what I found most appealing was the simple fact that Hintz reached out to me and my fellow bloggers in the first place. There was no attempt at a hard sell, and the conversation meandered across a number of topics. In fact, Brian, Lynn and I spent more time sharing our thoughts with him than the other way around. (Well… at least I did. What can I say… I’m a better talker than I am a listener.)

A lot has changed in the ten years since Paul Berendt took the reigns of the party, and not all the party leaders seem to realize this. New technology has revolutionized the way the party organizes volunteers, raises money, and directly communicates with voters… at least it would revolutionize these things if the party would adopt it. And of course, the blogosphere has started to change some of the rules about how the party and candidates interact with the media.

What I want from the new party chair, whoever it is, a willingness to embrace new ideas and technologies, and the openness to seek input from both rank and file Democrats, and relative outsiders like me. I don’t want somebody who just wants to run the party. I want somebody who wants to change it.

UPDATE:
Just to be clear, this is not anything remotely approaching an endorsement. For the record, I have previously communicated with Dwight Pelz and he has said that as chair, he would look forward to meeting with me and other bloggers to discuss new media and other issues.

I’ve never met the other candidates. But I’d be more than happy to meet with any of them… no barrel tasting required.

Well… not exactly. But he has apparently teamed up with Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who has proposed sending a fleet of single-hulled tankers into Puget Sound in retaliation for Sen. Maria Cantwell leading the fight to stop drilling in ANWR.

Beltway mites say Elliott Bundy, who worked in Alaska for Lisa in her U.S. Senate race and took a job in her office, has resigned. He’s headed to Seattle to work on Mike McGavick’s campaign to wrest U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s seat away from her in November. Maria is the Washington senator who made Ted Stevens’ head explode during the ANWR debate, the one he swore to drive out of office by going to her state and campaigning against her.

So here’s Ear’s only question: Is Ted paying Elliott’s salary?

The arrival of Bundy — a former Stevens aide — apparently signals the kickoff of the Stevens/McGavick campaign… a team I just don’t believe WA voters will find all that attractive come November. Democratic Party spokesman Christian Sinderman sums it up well:

“We don’t know much about Mike McGavick’s positions on most critical issues, but we do know that he wants to drill in the Arctic. Perhaps Stevens himself will join McGavick later this year and make the case for oil supertankers in the Puget Sound as well.”

One can only hope.

Yesterday, the Rev. Ken Hutcherson celebrated MLK Day by threatening to boycott companies that oppose discrimination. As it turns out, this spirit of inclusiveness, tolerance, and sensitivity to minority communities is entirely in character.

In a radio interview with the Australian Broadcast Corporation back in February of 2004, Rev. Hutcherson spoke effusively about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, describing how it “totally impacted my whole faith….”

“I think it’s going to be controversial to those believers who don’t want to admit the suffering that Christ had to go through to pay for our sins. I think it’s going to be controversial to the whole view of the Jewish nation. The truth is that they did push to have Christ crucified. That’s just plain truth… that’s Biblical truth.”

So… the Jews killed Christ, huh? That’s the type of preaching we can expect from Rev. Hutcherson?

Hmm. From my reading of the New Testament, I kinda came away with the impression that it was the Romans who nailed Jesus to the cross. But even if you want to pass the blame by arguing that Jews “did push to have Christ crucified,” one should at least make the distinction that it was some Jews, not the Jews or all Jews, or even most Jews. And certainly not any Jews I’ve ever met.

See… it’s not a literal reading of Scripture that Jews like me object to, but rather that self-righteous blowhards like Rev. Hutcherson have chosen to pound it into their congregant’s heads for the past 2000 fucking years! Surely, some parishioners, constantly reminded that it was The Jews who murdered their savior, can’t help but feel a little pissed at all us Golds and Steins walking around denying their faith.

And what is it with this “the Jewish nation” crap, anyway? Exactly what “Jewish nation” is Rev. Hutcherson talking about? Israel?

I don’t think so. In the context of this interview, I believe Rev. Hutcherson is talking about the international nation of Jews that lives amongst us (well… amongst you,) but is never really, truly a part of us (well… you.) By referring to “the Jewish nation,” I think that Rev. Hutcherson is making a clear distinction between real Americans (you know, Christians) and us Christ-killing, Messiah-denying, hell-bound nonbelievers who also happen to live here too.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into this?

What I do know is that for Rev. Hutcherson to fight so hard to maintain the legal right to discriminate in housing, employment, and insurance against a minority group that practices a lifestyle contrary to the teachings of his faith, shows a total lack of tolerance for anybody who might stray from his interpretation of the Good Book. As I’ve written before on the subject (“Am I the Antichrist?“), if Christians like Rev. Hutcherson so fervently believe that my sins have surely doomed me to suffer the eternal fires of damnation in the next world, how can I expect them to respect my rights as an American in this world?

The truth is… I can’t.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

Michael Hood of blatherWatch will be bringing along his new best friend, longtime talk radio host Allan Prell. After a brief tenure in the morning slot on 710-KIRO, Prell was suddenly fired, much to the dismay of his growing audience. Back when Prell was substituting for Dave Ross during the summer of 2004, I had the pleasure of debating Tim Eyman on his show, and man did he stick it to Timmy for not answering the questions. It was loads of fun.

I’ll be bringing a special guest too, who insists on making an early evening of it (out by 9 PM,) so I hope Prell shows up in a timely fashion.

Redmond Rev. Ken Hutcherson celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by promoting discrimination of gays, announcing that he would use an appearance Thursday on the national theo-con talk show, Focus on the Family, to call for a boycott of Microsoft, Boeing and other companies who support gay rights legislation.

“We’re tired of sitting around thinking that morals can be ignored in our country,” he said. “This is not a threat, this is a promise.”

Yeah… sure it is, Ken. In fact, I betcha that not a single member of your Antioch Bible Church will buy a Boeing jetliner this year. That’s gotta be bad for business.

As for Microsoft, well… asking people to boycott Microsoft is pretty much like asking people to boycott oxygen.

But good luck there too Ken. I’ve seen a better than 1000 percent return on my Apple Computer stock over the past few years, and I’m all for anything that bumps it even higher. (Though once your parishioners dump their Windows boxes and buy Macs, I’m wondering what word processor or spreadsheet they’re gonna use?)

One question though…

Hutcherson said he’s not telling companies to change their own internal policies on gay rights. He just doesn’t want them influencing lawmakers with their support.

“Don’t step in our world, we won’t step in yours,” he said.

Um… so… your world, Ken, is influencing lawmakers? And I always thought church had something to do with, you know… religion.

Former Vice President Al Gore, gave a major speech today before the American Constitution Society and the Liberty Coalition, in which he compared the current wiretapping scandal to the secret surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. that partially prompted the FISA legislation President Bush has ignored. Gore also called for the appointment of a special counsel to conduct a thorough investigation. A complete transcript is available at Raw Story, but here are a few excerpts that particularly struck me.

At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA’s domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution – our system of checks and balances – was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: “The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.”

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution – an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

…

The President and I agree on one thing. The threat from terrorism is all too real. There is simply no question that we continue to face new challenges in the wake of the attack on September 11th and that we must be ever-vigilant in protecting our citizens from harm.

Where we disagree is that we have to break the law or sacrifice our system of government to protect Americans from terrorism. In fact, doing so makes us weaker and more vulnerable.

Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws.

…

Moreover, if the pattern of practice begun by this Administration is not challenged, it may well become a permanent part of the American system. Many conservatives have pointed out that granting unchecked power to this President means that the next President will have unchecked power as well. And the next President may be someone whose values and belief you do not trust. And this is why Republicans as well as Democrats should be concerned with what this President has done. If this President’s attempt to dramatically expand executive power goes unquestioned, our constitutional design of checks and balances will be lost. And the next President or some future President will be able, in the name of national security, to restrict our liberties in a way the framers never would have thought possible.

…

But the most serious damage has been done to the legislative branch. The sharp decline of congressional power and autonomy in recent years has been almost as shocking as the efforts by the Executive Branch to attain a massive expansion of its power.
…
The Congress we have today is unrecognizable compared to the one in which my father served. There are many distinguished Senators and Congressmen serving today. I am honored that some of them are here in this hall. But the legislative branch of government under its current leadership now operates as if it is entirely subservient to the Executive Branch.
…
It is the pitiful state of our legislative branch which primarily explains the failure of our vaunted checks and balances to prevent the dangerous overreach by our Executive Branch which now threatens a radical transformation of the American system.

I call upon Democratic and Republican members of Congress today to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of government you’re supposed to be.

Al Gore has transformed himself into one of the few, true statesmen we have on the political scene today. This is an important speech that will most likely be ignored by the mainstream media. So please, read it for yourself.

UPDATE:
Crooks and Liars has video clips of some rousing excerpts. Man… I hope Gore runs for president in 2008.