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It really sucks that the New York Times has put its columnists behind a firewall, but for those of you with access to their “select” service, I hope you read today’s column by Frank Rich: “It’s Bush-Cheney, Not Rove-Libby.” As the headline implies, Rich once again gets to the heart of the Plamegate scandal, that this is much more than just the story of a strategic leak intended to payback a whistle blower… this is about an administration that lied the nation into a disastrous war.

Now, as always, what matters most in this case is not whether Mr. Rove and Lewis Libby engaged in a petty conspiracy to seek revenge on a whistle-blower, Joseph Wilson, by unmasking his wife, Valerie, a covert C.I.A. officer. What makes Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation compelling, whatever its outcome, is its illumination of a conspiracy that was not at all petty: the one that took us on false premises into a reckless and wasteful war in Iraq. That conspiracy was instigated by Mr. Rove’s boss, George W. Bush, and Mr. Libby’s boss, Dick Cheney.

Rich delves into the little known White House Iraq Group (WHIG), set up by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card in August of 2002, and whose members include Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Condoleeza Rice, Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin. Their mission: market a war in Iraq to the American people. Of course, WMDs were always the focus of the sales pitch, which explains the attempt to discredit Wilson and his debunking of the yellow cake uranium story.

And as usual, it’s the coverup that’s causing WHIG all it’s troubles.

It’s long been my hunch that the WHIG-ites were at their most brazen (and, in legal terms, reckless) during the many months that preceded the appointment of Mr. Fitzgerald as special counsel. When Mr. Rove was asked on camera by ABC News in September 2003 if he had any knowledge of the Valerie Wilson leak and said no, it was only hours before the Justice Department would open its first leak investigation. When Scott McClellan later declared that he had been personally assured by Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby that they were “not involved” with the leak, the case was still in the safe hands of the attorney general then, John Ashcroft, himself a three-time Rove client in past political campaigns. Though Mr. Rove may be known as “Bush’s brain,” he wasn’t smart enough to anticipate that Justice Department career employees would eventually pressure Mr. Ashcroft to recuse himself because of this conflict of interest, clearing the way for an outside prosecutor as independent as Mr. Fitzgerald.

“Bush’s Brain” is the title of James Moore and Wayne Slater’s definitive account of Mr. Rove’s political career. But Mr. Rove is less his boss’s brain than another alliterative organ (or organs), that which provides testosterone. As we learn in “Bush’s Brain,” bad things (usually character assassination) often happen to Bush foes, whether Ann Richards or John McCain. On such occasions, Mr. Bush stays compassionately above the fray while the ruthless Mr. Rove operates below the radar, always separated by “a layer of operatives” from any ill behavior that might implicate him. “There is no crime, just a victim,” Mr. Moore and Mr. Slater write of this repeated pattern.

THIS modus operandi was foolproof, shielding the president as well as Mr. Rove from culpability, as long as it was about winning an election. The attack on Mr. Wilson, by contrast, has left them and the Cheney-Libby tag team vulnerable because it’s about something far bigger: protecting the lies that took the country into what the Reagan administration National Security Agency director, Lt. Gen. William Odom, recently called “the greatest strategic disaster in United States history.”

Whether or not Mr. Fitzgerald uncovers an indictable crime, there is once again a victim, but that victim is not Mr. or Mrs. Wilson; it’s the nation. It is surely a joke of history that even as the White House sells this weekend’s constitutional referendum as yet another “victory” for democracy in Iraq, we still don’t know the whole story of how our own democracy was hijacked on the way to war.

The consensus in the other Washington is that there soon will be indictments in the Plamegate investigation, but either way, it will be nothing compared to the scandal that prompted the leak: President Bush led the nation into war, based on a lie. No coverup can hide that ugly truth.

UPDATE:
Reader Kevin points out that Truthout has posted the full text of Rich’s column here. Don’t know if it’s legal or not, so read it while you can.

Of course I’m generalizing, but when cynics ask me the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party — implying that there isn’t much of one — I like to point out that us Democrats actually believe in government, whereas Republicans… really don’t. Democrats believe that government of the people, by the people, for the people is a positive and necessary tool for improving the lives of all our citizens in a complex, modern society. Republicans believe that the government that governs least, governs best.

Again, this is a generalization; both parties have their contradictions and both represent a spectrum of ideology, but this hands on vs hands off philosophy is a convenient and useful metaphor. And I think Ron Sims’ announcement yesterday that he is proposing $20 million in next year’s county budget to buy land for greenbelts, open space and trail corridors is a great illustration of these two competing ideologies.

I’m not suggesting that many Republicans are going to come out against preserving open space, though I’m guessing some will object to the cost of the proposal. However, such proposals are really antithetical to the conservative ideology that professes a “free market” solution to nearly every problem. Take for example the proposal to buy the last remaining chunk of private land in the heart of Discovery Park:

The largest chunk of the county’s proposed funding — $2.7 million — would go toward helping the city of Seattle buy 24 acres of military housing in Discovery Park, which the Navy sold to a private developer last year.

Under a proposed $9 million deal, the city will buy the Capehart property that park advocates feared could have been turned into luxury homes or condos and permanently protect it as open space.

It is hard to argue that using taxpayer money to protect valuable land from private development is consistent with the Republicans’ “free market” ideology, yet our region would not boast the quality of life it does, if our forefathers had not shown the foresight to do exactly that. Public parks, greenbelts and trail corridors benefit all of us, but without an activist government to protect us from the tragedy of the commons, they simply would not exist.

It is convenient for Republicans statewide, and especially in King County, to complain that it is corrupt elections departments that prevent them from winning at the polls, for their real obstacles are much more daunting. Both the county and the state continue to trend Democratic, because more citizens agree with our ideology than with theirs. Voters want parks and greenbelts and trail corridors. Voters want better schools and libraries, and safer, more efficient roads and public transit. Voters want effective police, fire and EMS. Voters want the essential public services that only government can provide.

Democrats win because we share voters’ values.

Ick… what’s that smell? Oh… it’s open thread time.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid announced today that Washington Senator Maria Cantwell will lead the Senate Democrats’ efforts to achieve energy independence by 2020.

“I am thrilled that Senator Cantwell has agreed to lead the Democratic caucus in this crucial effort to make America energy independent by 2020,” said Reid. “Her experience fighting for consumers during the Enron scandal and Western energy crisis make her the right choice to continue our effort to break our dependence on foreign oil and put working families ahead of the special interests.”

Sen. Cantwell was an early champion and national co-chair of the Apollo Alliance, whose mission is to build towards a sustainable and clean energy economy that will create millions of jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. She has led congressional efforts to seek consumer relief in the wake of Enron’s fraudulent market manipulation schemes, and sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

“I look forward to tackling the task of making our country energy independent by 2020,” Cantwell said. “When the likes of Enron are allowed to gouge prices and manipulate markets, the only way to truly protect consumers from sky rocketing gas prices and jolting home heating bills is to diversify our energy sources.”

Sen. Cantwell has never been one of the most visible members of the Senate (hell… she’s not even the most visible Senator in WA state), but she has quietly earned a reputation amongst her peers as a leader on technical issues such as energy and the environment that have an enormous impact on the quality of life of the Northwest and the entire nation. The more voters know about Cantwell’s accomplishments in the Senate, the larger the margin they’ll give her in reelecting her for a second term.

Head on over to BetterDonkey.org to watch their new No on I-912 video… great concept, great script, great production values… great video. Really.

Just make sure to buy your viaduct tape at a true blue retailer like Costco.

Oh man… if this is the sharpest arrow in David Irons’ quiver, it’s gonna be an awfully boring election season.

Now that he and King County Executive Ron Sims have both come out on the same side of the two most contentious issues of the day, the Southwest proposal and I-912 (both candidates oppose them), Irons is reduced to following the lead of his paranoid delusional webmaster, Stefan Sharkansky, and his OCD-like focus on last year’s contested election for governor. Yesterday, both appeared as part of a press conference staged by Republicans on the KC Council, in which they held true to their party’s McCarthyite tradition, by waving before reporters lists of alleged illegal voters, without actually handing over any evidence to reporters or authorities.

The Republicans claim that they have discovered duplicate registrations for over 2000 voters, the bulk of them being women who are registered under both their maiden and married names.

“It’s a sad day,” Irons said. “We’ve lost the trust of the people.”

Yes Dave, it certainly is, and you certainly have. But then, that’s the whole point isn’t it? You’re totally willing to undermine the public’s faith in government if you think that might get you into office.

Of course there are duplicate registrations. There are always going to be duplicate registrations, in every county and in every election, as Secretary of State Sam Reed pointed out in an interview on KIRO radio today:

This problem of dual registrations is one that all 39 counties have. I had when I was county auditor.

The elections office gets no automatic notice when somebody changes their name or address, and for the most part it’s up to voters to change their registration correctly. Elections departments periodically run database queries looking for such errors (KCRE corrected over 9,000 duplicate registrations earlier this year) but there will always be some duplicate registrations on the rolls. The GOP’s attempt to imply that duplicate registrations are the result of negligence on the part of Dean Logan or his staff, is dishonest, mean-spirited and manipulative. This is a well known issue, and as Reed points out, one which will be partially addressed by the statewide voter registration database that has long been scheduled to go online in January of 2006.

I think that it’s very important that we have a clean voter registration rolls and obviously if they do have information that there are dual registrations I do think that it’s important that they challenge them. That’s part of Washington State law. Now I’m not up in King County so I’m not part of the politics going on with the election right now and everything but certainly it’s a legitimate issue and one we’re working on. We’re going to have a statewide voter registration system in the Secretary of State’s Office beginning next year and we hope to be able to help the counties a lot to clean up their records and to try to void as many duplicate registrations as I say occur everywhere.

Everything about yesterday’s press conference reeked of a candidate so bereft of issues, ideas and qualifications, that his only desperate hope is to tear down the other side, at any cost. How else can you explain an effort to criminalize several thousand women who married and took their husband’s last name, or to level an accusation so paper thin that the Republican Secretary of State dismisses it with an audio shrug?

But perhaps the most embarrassing detail for Irons and his GOP comrades is that they seemed unembarrassed to stand there side by side with WA state’s most famous conspiracy theorist, our friend Stefan of (un)Sound Politics, whose tireless efforts to find patterns of fraud in KC’s voter databases borders on numerology, and whose aluminum-hat-analyses have earned him every last drop of incredulity he enjoys. Stefan actually had the temerity to stand before the assembled media throng and claim he was one of them, ignoring the fact that real journalists cover press conferences… they don’t conduct them.

This is what Irons and his fellow Republicans are reduced to… a bogus press conference on an over-blown none issue, with expert, objective analysis from the state’s best known partisan blogger… a man whose idea of reasoned debate is to compare Ron Sims to the brutal African dictator Robert Mugabe. At least I’ve always admitted I’m a propagandist, but Stefan doesn’t even have the honor to do that. And Irons clearly doesn’t have the sense to disassociate himself from a man who could be the inspiration for one of Aesop’s best known fables.

Are there thousands of duplicate registrations in KC and the state’s other 38 counties? No doubt. But after months of investigation and litigation election officials and GOP attorneys could only document a handful of double voters out of 3 million ballots cast.

“It’s a sad day that we’re here again talking about election flaws from this election and past elections,” Irons said.

It certainly is, Dave. But then again, apparently you have nothing else to talk to voters about.

A couple months back I questioned how David Irons could possibly provide effective leadership in King County when he refused to take a stand on the most important issue on the November ballot: Initiative 912. While he had declined to publicly state his position, sources told me that he had privately assured members of the pro-business Alki Foundation that he opposed the anti-roads initiative.

That post started a week-long vigil that ended when the Seattle P-I took up the fight and finally got Irons on the record opposing I-912. Sort of. Irons’ statement was a muddled equivocation that ineptly attempted to straddle both sides of a barbed-wire fence. And so a couple days ago the P-I once again took a poke at Irons, demanding that he show some of those vaunted leadership skills he likes to tout… and this time Irons finally spoke somewhat clearly.

“After reading your paper’s editorial,” Irons e-mailed us, “I obviously have not succeeded in reaching everyone on the importance of defeating I-912. Transportation is a cornerstone of my campaign and passing I-912 would be a tragedy to our community.”

In a subsequent telephone interview, Irons reiterated that he has been “consistent” on the issue. “I oppose I-912, for a litany of reasons,” said Irons. He also says he’s encountering more people who understand the negative implications of the initiative.

Uh-huh. Yeah Dave… there are a lot of things you haven’t succeeded at in life (businesses, family relations, etc.), but I think I can help you pin down why you failed to communicate your position on I-912. It’s got something to do with this technical thing us writers like to call “words.” For example, take a look at the statement you originally gave the P-I.

“In principle, I believe all major tax increases should go to a vote of the people. Personally I am voting no on Initiative 912. This is not the package that I would have put together. I believe it should have done more to reduce congestion. That’s why we need new leadership in King County that will advocate for more congestion relief.”

Great campaign “cornerstone” Dave… it’s a crappy transportation package, but you’re voting against the initiative that would repeal it, because… um… I guess it would be a “tragedy” to repeal such a crappy package. You call that “consistent”…? Consistently muddled.

But then consistency has never really been your strong suit. The gas tax should go to a vote of the people, but it’s repeal would be a tragedy. You campaign against the Critical Areas Ordinance, yet as a councilmember you push for stronger enforcement. And you mail out campaign literature promising to kill Southwest’s “ridiculous proposal”, while e-mailing a proponent of the deal that you are “open to this concept.” And how did you defend that last piece of flip-floppery?

Irons, a county councilman, said yesterday he has been consistent on the issue. He’s willing to consider a Southwest operation at Boeing Field, but only if it pays for road improvements

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Advocates of Initiative 912 like to claim that their campaign is about setting priorities and demanding greater accountability. And so as a public service to I-912 campaign contributors, I just thought I’d point out that of the $161,173.75 in cash expenditures through the end of August, $66,717.62 went to Madison Communications, a company owned and operated by campaign “spokesperson” (and lying piehole) Brett Bader.

Just thought you’d want to know.

When it comes to slot machines, the house always wins, a lesson initiative monger Tim Eyman learned last year, when he was taken to the cleaners over I-892, by far his most lopsided political defeat ever. I-892 would have put 19,000 slot machines into hundreds of bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and non-tribal casinos, scattered through nearly every community in the state. But voters overwhelming rejected the proposal by a 62% to 38% margin… a landslide by any measure.

Yet, as the Tacoma News Tribune editorial board points out, Gov. Christine Gregoire apparently wasn’t paying attention:

Washingtonians made it clear last November that they didn’t want their state inundated with Las Vegas-style machine gambling. They didn’t want it even if their rejection cost them a tax break, which is what I-892 offered the electorate in exchange for doubling the number of gaming machines in Washington state.

Yet Gregoire’s negotiators have now come up with a deal that would let the Spokane Tribe of Indians operate up to 7,500 gaming machines in exchange for giving the state a share of the revenues.

And the compact with the Spokanes would be the least of it. Nineteen other tribes operate casinos in Washington, and federal law gives them the right to virtually any gambling privilege any other tribe obtains from the state. If the Spokanes get 7,500 slot machines, the state would be more or less obligated to give 7,500 machines each to the Puyallups, the Muckleshoots, the Tulalips and so on, provided they accept the same revenue-sharing arrangement.

No question, the Spokane compact was negotiated under direct instructions from the Governor’s Office, and some may find it curious that I would now use this forum to attack the decisions of a governor I have spent the better part of a year stalwartly defending. But I have an obligation to use what little influence I have to promote sound public policy… and the Spokane compact simply ain’t it.

If Gov. Gregoire signs this compact, setting the state irreversibly down the road towards an absolutely massive expansion of gambling, she will be making a huge mistake that will disrupt local economies and cause untold suffering amongst a new wave of problem gamblers and their families. Problem gamblers are not just an unfortunate byproduct of the gambling industry, they are its best customers, accounting for forty to sixty percent of its profits. And slot machines are the most addictive form of gambling ever devised, scientifically designed to create compulsion.

But the Spokane compact and its inevitable impact statewide would not only be a policy disaster, I predict it will be a political disaster for Gov. Gregoire herself. We’re talking about an explosion of slot machines — exactly what voters rejected in 1995, 1996 and again in 2004 — and the governor simply cannot afford to so blatantly ignore the will of voters who, however unfairly, already question her legitimacy. The people have spoken on the issue of slot machines, again and again and again, and signing this compact would be perceived as a slap in the face of the voting public.

Gov. Gregoire doesn’t have to take my word for it… she should go to the tribes who spent over $5 million opposing I-892 and ask to see their polling data. Opposition to gambling expansion cuts across demographic and party lines, and has been unchanged for at least a decade. Indeed, not a dime of the No campaign’s money was spent convincing voters that more slot machines would be bad for WA’s communities… all the tribes had to do was educate voters that I-892 would expand the number of slot machines, and that was enough to send the initiative to an overwhelming defeat.

If voters would resoundingly reject a slot machine measure that would have put money back into their pockets, why would they accept a similar compact that puts the revenues into government coffers instead? The people wisely decided that the tax revenues from these slot machines simply is not worth the impact on their communities, and Gov. Gregoire would be advised to heed their wisdom.

Dismiss me as a loudmouthed, political neophyte if you want, but Gov. Gregoire, I urge you to listen to voters. The citizens of this state simply cannot afford the Spokane compact. And neither can you.

King County Executive Ron Sims has rejected proposals by Southwest and Alaska Airlines to fly passenger service out of Boeing Field. Sims had originally been enthusiastic about exploring the Southwest proposal, arguing that consumers would ultimately benefit from cheaper airfares. But when evaluating the Southwest and Alaska proposals together, it quickly became apparent that the county airport could not support the higher traffic while meeting the impact criteria he had set forth.

“I have said all along that I would not endorse any proposal from any airline if it led to significant traffic and noise impacts,” Sims said.

Sims had also promised that he would never approve a deal that required taxpayer subsidies. According to Sims spokesperson Sandeep Kaushik, a preliminary analysis had suggested that Southwest might be able to operate up to 85 flights a day while meeting FAA noise regulations, and with little or no road improvements in the area. But once the Alaska proposal came in on September 30, the calculus changed. The two proposals combined would have operated 185 daily flights from 16 gates, requiring substantial road improvements and generating significantly more noise.

After receiving legal advice that the county must give both proposals equal consideration, county transportation staff concluded last Friday that it was impossible to open Boeing Field to passenger traffic while meeting Sims’ criteria. Sims was formally briefed at a meeting yesterday, in which staff stepped him through the analysis, and laid out the costs that would be required to proceed with due diligence… including an Economic Impact Analysis and a half-million dollar Environmental Impact Study. Sims decided that it was pointless to proceed with the time and expense of continuing to study the proposals when it seemed exceedingly unlikely that either would be approved in the end.

And so today, Sims announced that he had rejected both proposals.

Personally, I’m glad Sims nixed the deals. I live near Boeing Field, and for purely selfish NIMBY reasons I didn’t relish the thought of increased traffic. I am also relieved to eliminate this issue from the current election debate, as it seemed likely that it might hurt Sims at the polls.

But I think it is important to reiterate in the wake of the issue’s demise, that Sims had never endorsed the Southwest proposal… he had merely expressed enthusiasm about studying it. As I reported last week, even in the midst of a wonkish policy debate at Drinking Liberally, Sims repeated his mantra:

The gist of Sims argument is that the Southwest deal would be good for consumers, while adding jobs to South Seattle. He wants to study the proposal, but would only approve it if noise abatement and traffic concerns can be adequately addressed with no public subsidy.

And the gist of Sims decision to reject the proposal was his conclusion that noise abatement and traffic concerns cannot be adequately addressed without public subsidy.

Now I’m guessing that the more cynical amongst you might dismiss the background information I provided, and accuse Sims of merely bowing to political pressure, and to that I say… so what? No doubt Sims heard from many constituents who were unhappy or even angry about the potential impact increased flight traffic would have on their Seattle neighborhoods. I know for a fact that he heard from me and other unabashed Democrats last week at DL. If public opposition helped influence his decision, that’s a good thing, right? We want our elected officials to listen to voters.

But one thing I’m confident Sims didn’t do was bow to political pressure from the Port Commission or Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines lobbyist (and former Sims’ staffer) Tim Hatley. Josh Feit in The Stranger tries to make a big deal over Sims reaction to being questioned about Hatley during his meeting before the editorial board, but this is just a load of something about nothing.

First of all, say what you want about Ron Sims, but I have never seen anybody seriously allege that he has ever used his office to line the pockets of himself, his friends or his family. Disagree with him on policy, criticize him on execution, despise him on ideology… but this is a man who entered public life for all the right reasons. If Sims took offense at efforts to insinuate Hatley’s lobbying into something sleazy, well… he had every reason. (Oh… and Josh… Hatley was hired to lobby reluctant members of the County Council, not Sims. Think about it… why spend your money lobbying the one guy who has expressed enthusiasm about considering the proposal?)

Second, while Sims was not at liberty to comment because he had yet to be formally briefed by staff, he was already aware that they had concluded the proposals could not meet his criteria… before he went before the editorial board last Friday. So I think that puts Sims’ reaction in its proper context… he was essentially accused of being unduly influenced by a lobbyist in favor of a deal that he knew he would likely soon kill.

Personally, I buy the story I previously laid out — that Sims found it pointless to pursue an expensive study of a proposal that clearly wasn’t viable — but whatever the motive I applaud his decision. Southwest came to him with a deal that promised to benefit both consumers and the county, and Sims enthusiastically proceeded to conduct due diligence. In the end, the numbers just didn’t work out, and so he rejected the proposal, based on the criteria that he set forth when the news first broke.

No scandal, no backtracking, no shady dealmaking. Just the sort of tough decision a county executive must make every day, regardless of the political consequences.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Join me for some hoppy ale and hopped up conversation.

No special guests are scheduled for tonight, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a couple of candidates dropped by for a round or two.

One of the great things about being a blogger — as opposed to being a real journalist — is that when I see a political operative unloading a stinking pile of bullshit on the public, I not only get to call it what is… I get to scoop it up and fling it right back in their face. For example, this morning I’m aiming my manure laden shovel directly at the lying piehole of I-912 spokesman Brett Bader.

As reported today in the Seattle P-I, Bader is complaining about WSDOT signs at road projects around the state, proclaiming “It’s Your Nickel, Watch It Work.” These are projects financed by the 5 cent gas tax hike passed in 2003, a fact that Bader would prefer motorists not know, arguing that it “violates the use of public funds for a political campaign.”

Uh-huh. Bader also objects to WSDOT providing detailed information about road projects on its website.

“Listing a bunch of pie-in-the-sky projects with no balance in the commentary is clearly a statement in favor of the tax and opposition of I-912.”

Hey Brett… eat me.

How many times have we heard Bader spew his lying bullshit about I-912 being about accountability and priorities… that WSDOT needs to prove it can spend the nickel increase responsibly before voters give it more money? And yet, accountability is exactly the last thing Bader really wants, for he knows that if voters understood exactly what their gas tax money was being spent on, and how many of these projects are coming in on time and under budget, I-912 would fail at the polls.

What Bader objects to is the public actually being told the truth.

State Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald chuckled at the apparent irony he said he saw in Bader’s protests.

“We are supposed to be accountable to the public and tell them what is happening to their dollars, but we are not supposed to spend the cost of a sheet of plywood to put up a sign saying this is the project that the money is building — go figure,” MacDonald said.

He said there is an entire campaign based on the notion that “WashDOT is not accountable, nobody knows where the money goes and it’s probably all wasted and they don’t tell us what they are doing with the money.”

How far is Bader willing to go with his bullshit argument?

Bader, the I-912 spokesman, said MacDonald himself has “crossed the line repeatedly,” Bader said. “He’s debated me twice on KIRO radio.”

Our Democracy is crumbling! The State Transportation Secretary actually went on the radio to explain how his department spends its money!

Eat me, Brett.

When Bader objects to the signs, the website and the radio appearances, what he really objects to is the truth. Instead, he’d rather voters make up their minds based on bullshit slogans, misleading myths and cynically fomented resentment towards all things government. The I-912 campaign is about a lot of things, but clearly, an informed debate over transportation policy, priorities and accountability ain’t one of them.

I generally don’t like to outright insult media outlets, because I might need their coverage some day, but I just have to say that I’m watching Q13 Fox News right now… and man does it suck.

Not only does it suck… it blows. It sucks and it blows… both at the same time. And that’s some trick. (Go ahead… try it.)

I mean, there’s all these important stories they could be covering, like how I-912 would endanger motorists by defunding hundreds of transportation improvement projects statewide, or the cynical battle between doctors insurance companies and trial lawyers over I-330 and I-336, or gee… I dunno… maybe an in depth piece on the tragic earthquake in Pakistan. But instead, I just spent four minutes watching a segment about how police are looking for some guy who likes women’s feet.

It’s not like he cuts off their feet and takes them home in a bloody sack; I suppose that would be news. He just asks politely, and women take off their shoes for him. Sometimes, they let him fondle their feet. And I know this (as well as the fact that a python ate a cat, and the low-carb craze is apparently over), because for some inexplicable reason, I just wasted the last four minutes of my life watching Q13 Fox News.

And man did it suck.

Think U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Clueless) is going to clip this one for his scrapbook? The New York Times editorializes:

One of Washington’s more amusingly titled institutions – the House ethics committee – is at it again, which is to say not at it again. The panel is a stunning still-life study in Capitol casuistry and partisan standoff. It is dedicatedly not shining a light on complaints pending against a half-dozen members, resolutely holding just one meeting for this entire year, and wallowing in the stagnation that Tom DeLay, the indicted, deposed majority leader, engineered when he purged the committee’s chairman and watered down its rules.

Mr. DeLay now faces criminal charges in Texas for allegedly violating campaign laws, but taxpayers should still not expect much of a stir by the House’s moral arbiters. The new committee chairman, Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington State, made that clear last week when he stoutly defended the innocence of Mr. DeLay, his political mentor, while insisting that the House ethics committee would continue to shy from its own inquiry. “We don’t have the resources,” Mr. Hastings told The Yakima Herald-Republic, even though the committee received a 40 percent budget increase this year.

The Republican majority is in dire need of a sense of shame. Speaker Dennis Hastert should prod something better from Mr. Hastings. The committee also needs a nonpartisan staff with credible bipartisan rules and an agenda that dares to come to life.

What are the people’s lawmakers afraid of finding out about themselves?

To describe Hastings career up until now as “low profile” would be charitable. During his decade in the House, Hastings has earned a well-deserved reputation as the quietest member of our state’s congressional delegation… a do-nothing attitude that probably plays well with some of his “small government” supporters in WA’s largely rural 4th District. But as Ethics Chair, the chronic torpor that rendered him relatively harmless as just another congressman, totally undermines what little institutional integrity and effectiveness the committee has left. Which of course, is exactly why DeLay gave him the job in the first place: what better way to assure that ethics investigations grind to a halt than to mire the committee with a chair who is not only reliably partisan, but who favors a parliamentary style that borders on the inert?

The Ethics Committee’s year-long dormancy under Hastings’ putative leadership, combined with his ill-considered public statements in defense of DeLay, is not only an embarrassment to Congress, but to the voters of WA’s 4th District. The Yakima Herald-Republic also chimes in with an editorial today, and while I don’t quite understand their assertion that Hastings has acquitted himself by clarifying his position on DeLay (unless by “clarify” they mean “contradict”… am I missing the sarcasm?), they are clearly sending a message that they will hold Hastings responsible should he fail to follow through on his responsibilities.

DeLay will get his day in Texas courts. That’s proper because an indictment is not a conviction.

But once that process is finished, he must then get his due before the Ethics Committee. If you buy into the old saying that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” in DeLay’s case we should be thinking Five-Alarm.

As we said in this column before, DeLay is at least an ethical embarrassment and has come to epitomize everything that’s wrong with politics and many politicians. His brand of hardball, sleazy politics doesn’t belong in Congress, certainly not as a leader.
[…]
Once he’s settled with Texas courts, and if he’s still a member of Congress, DeLay’s case should be brought before the ethics panel headed by Hastings, who has now assured the public that he has “absolutely no predisposition” concerning this case.

However it happens, let’s hope that the final solution is DeLay’s exit from Congress.

And if Hastings fails to live up to his obligations and public proclamations, then I can only assume that the Herald Republic will endorse Hastings exit from Congress as well.

Indeed, if not for the fact that Democrats have such a weak bench in Eastern WA — they hold only 6 of 63 county commissioner seats — Hastings would be vulnerable to the corruption and incompetence fueled political storm surge that threatens to deluge Republicans in 2006. As of now the Democrats have no strong candidate to challenge Hastings, but that could change. Somewhere out in Eastern WA there must be a maverick Democrat in the mold of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer… a rancher or farmer or small business owner with the real life experience and force of personality to appeal to voters leery of the culture of corruption that has captured the other Washington under Republican control.

Such a candidate could put Hastings out of a job, where once again his do-nothing attitude would do no harm.

Because Harriet Miers was on nobody’s Supreme Court short list, her surprise nomination to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Conner set off a mad rush to pigeonhole her politics and judicial philosophy. So when an offer came my way to talk to a longtime friend and colleague, I jumped at the chance, visions dancing in my head of scooping the MSM on the intimate details of Miers’ views on Roe v. Wade and other issues of the day.

Yeah… dream on.

Instead, what I got from attorney Tom Fitzpatrick was a heartfelt endorsement of Miers that is not likely to satisfy activists on either side of the political spectrum.

Fitzpatrick describes Miers as a “smart, cautious and capable lawyer” who will bring much needed “real life experience” to the bench. He pointed out that many of our finest Justices had never served as judges, and that Miers experience in local government and as a practicing attorney would likely temper her decisions: “Harriet understands the impact that judicial decisions have on people, businesses and local governments.”

But Fitzpatrick was most impressed by Miers’ personal and ongoing commitment to performing pro bono work, and her “stalwart leadership” in both the Dallas and Texas State Bar Associations in providing access to justice for the poor. In fact, the only remotely negative comment I could get out of Fitzpatrick was a fit of laughter at reports that Miers’ allegedly described President Bush as the most brilliant man she had ever met. Fitzpatrick says he does not share Miers’ opinion of the President’s intellect.

Neither do they share political philosophies. While Fitzpatrick describes Miers as a “traditional, conservative Republican,” he labels himself a “liberal Democrat.”

After 22 years in private practice, and five years as one of the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office’s top civil attorneys, Fitzpatrick was recently appointed Executive Director by Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon. He has served on the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors, representing the Northwest region, and as the WA State Bar Association’s representative to the ABA’s House of Delegates. It was there that he met and worked with Miers, with whom he has remained friends for over a decade.

Of course, the question everybody is itching to ask is where does Miers stand on Roe v. Wade… and alas, she and Fitzpatrick never directly discussed the issue. As has been widely reported, after the ABA House of Delegates voted to formally adopt a resolution in support of Roe, Miers led an unsuccessful effort to send the issue directly to members via a referendum. But Fitzpatrick points out that Miers’ campaign was conducted on behalf of the Texas State Bar Association, and that she objected to the resolution on grounds that it was not germane to the purposes of the ABA. While he seems to suspect that Miers is personally pro-life, Fitzpatrick believes that she is a “blank slate” on the legal issues surrounding abortion, and that her actions in the ABA or on behalf of corporate clients simply do not tell us one thing or another about her judicial philosophy.

While many wags on both the right and the left have ridiculed Miers’ qualifications, Fitzpatrick is confident that she’ll make an excellent justice… well… for a Republican. If this were a Democratic administration Fitzpatrick would expect and prefer a more liberal nominee, but he thinks Democrats are damn lucky to get somebody like Miers from a Bush appointment.

Looking back at the short list that Miers wasn’t on, it could have been worse. Much worse.