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I have a cousin who works in Washington DC. Yesterday he was having lunch at a popular diner near the White House, and who should sit down at the table next to him… but White House press secretary Scott McClellan. The following is a very revealing snippet of conversation my cousin overheard:

WAITRESS: What can I get you, hun?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked in response to my investigation of the menu, and the investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point and as I have previously stated while that investigation is ongoing, I am not going to comment on it.

WAITRESS: Uh… I was just asking if you were ready to order…

MCCLELLAN: Yes but this question is coming up in the context of this ongoing investigation of the menu, and that’s why I said that our policy is not to comment on an ongoing investigation from this table.

WAITRESS: So you need a few more minutes?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate the question, and I know you want to get to the bottom of this. No one wants to get to the bottom of this more than the President of the United States, and I think the way to be most helpful is not to be commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation. That’s why we’re continuing to be following that approach and that policy.

WAITRESS: The President? Will the President be joining you for lunch?

MCCLELLAN: No, that’s not a correct characterization, and I think you are well aware of that. We know each other very well, and we are not going to get into commenting on an ongoing investigation of the menu.

WAITRESS: But… you just said…

MCCLELLAN: I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation of the menu is complete, I’m just not going to do that. The appropriate time is when the investigation…

WAITRESS: This is ridiculous! If you need more time, I’ll just come back later…

MCCLELLAN: If you’ll let me finish…

WAITRESS: No, you’re not finishing. You’re not saying anything! Do you want to order or not?!

MCCLELLAN: Again, I’ve responded to the question.

My cousin reports that at this point the waitress dumped a pot of decaf in McClellan’s lap, and moved on to the next table.

From the New York Times:

Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House refused on Monday to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove’s role in the matter.

Um… that’s because, contrary to prior statements, Karl Rove leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer, but he hasn’t been fired. So what’s White House press secretary Scott McClellan supposed to say? “Gee sorry… I guess I lied.”

Actually, reading about yesterday’s White House press briefing just doesn’t do it justice… you’ve got to watch the video (courtesy of Crooks and Liars.) My god… what a weasel:

There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

And I’m guessing the time McClellan plans to talk about it will be a few years from now, during the book tour for his memoir.

It’s fun to watch the White House press corps finally getting a bit pissy after being lied to for all these years.

I was disappointed, though not entirely surprised, to see the anti-roads initiative, I-912, turn in 420,000 signatures on Friday. Barring historically massive signature fraud the measure will surely qualify for the November ballot. But I will not join the gloom-and-doom coming from some opponents, for its passage is no sure thing, and there is an attainable strategy towards defeating I-912: the media must simply do its job.

I don’t mean that it is the media’s job to defeat I-912… I mean that their job is telling voters the truth about what the transportation package means to their local communities. It will take a lot of work and a lot of research, but it’s their responsibility as journalists. And if voters across the state understand exactly what their communities will lose if the transportation package is repealed, then I-912 stands a reasonable chance of being defeated.

Understand first that despite the steady stream of propaganda coming from the initiative’s on-air sponsor KVI, I-912 is likely headed for a big defeat in King County… by an even larger margin than David Irons will be thumped in the race for King County Executive. Irons’ own polling shows I-912 losing by a 55% to 38% margin… 75% to 18% among Democrats. Even a third of KC Republicans oppose the initiative.

And this was a Republican poll designed to “push” some of the questions. Given steady, honest, thorough coverage in the local press, and sufficient paid media, the initiative should be defeated in King County by 10 to 20 points. I’m guessing a similar effort in Snohomish and Pierce, could make those counties a wash, while communities heavily dependent on ferry service will provide a modest margin of defeat.

But it’s Eastern Washington where the MSM really has to step up to the plate and explain the local impact of the transportation package to their local audiences. The package includes hundreds of improvement projects, many of which are intended to fix dangerous roads, intersections and interchanges… high accident areas where people have lost their lives. The package replaces crumbling bridges and other infrastructure, not just in Seattle, but throughout the state… structures whose collapse would not only present a physical danger, but would inflict great economic harm to local communities. The package includes many local projects that local community leaders have spent great time and effort working with their legislators to obtain, and to repeal this package would nix funding for the foreseeable future.

No, we shouldn’t stop trying to refute common misconceptions about the tax side of the equation… we need to repeat and repeat that even with this increase the state gas tax will be at historically average levels in real dollars, and that transportation revenues do indeed flow from the wealthiest, most populated counties towards the rest of the state. But as George Lakeoff argues, if the facts don’t fit the frame, the facts are discarded and the frame stands.

The only way to defeat I-912 is to soften the Yes vote by making voters understand the very real, local transportation projects that they are being asked to repeal. And the only way to achieve this effectively and believably is if voters hear it from their own local media. They need to hear the personal stories of neighbors who lost friends and family on dangerous roads, or of local farmers and other businesses who depend on the roads for the efficient flow of goods to port and market. They need to hear from local business and civic leaders as to how these projects benefit their community.

If this initiative is simply about repealing a tax, then of course it will pass. Nobody likes to pay taxes. But if this initiative is about the local projects that this tax buys, then the transportation package has the opportunity to survive a repeal based on its merits, rather than just anti-government rhetoric.

So to my friends in the media I say it is all up to you. Instead of just covering the politics behind I-912, dig into the package and explain to your audiences the local impact of repeal. I’ll stick my neck out and predict that if you do your job, the initiative will fail. Here is your opportunity to prove me wrong.

I spend an awful lot of time entertaining and informing my loyal readers, and I don’t ask much in return: a little beer money, the occasional fawning e-mail… and of course, your blind obedience in voting the following categories in the Seattle Weekly’s “Best of Seattle” poll:

3. Best local talk radio host: David Goldstein
8. Best local website: Pacific Northwest Portal
9. Best local blog: HorsesAss.org
11. Best activist/hell raiser: David Goldstein
14. Best scandal: Dino Rossi’s meritless election contest
15. Best local cause: ending homelessness
16. Best reform we need: a state income tax
42. Best fish market: Tim Eyman

The deadline is today, at 5 PM, so if you haven’t already done so… cast your ballot now.

Yeah, I know I’ve already asked you once before, and this shameless act of self-promotion is incredibly childish and petty… but then, I never claimed not to be childish and petty. The folks at (un)Sound Politics asked their readers to vote a slate, and frankly I just don’t want to give them the satisfaction of winning. Do you?

Of course you’re always free to vote your conscience, but could you really live with yourself if that lying sack of shit (u)SP won best blog?

One thing that’s pretty clear about WA’s 2006 US Senate campaign, is that whoever the Republican’s dig up to oppose Maria Cantwell, the challenger is almost certain to get the Seattle Times’ endorsement.

Why? Because Times’ publisher Frank Blethen is not only mortal, he’s also a mortal enemy of the death estate tax… and Sen. Cantwell opposes Republican efforts to eliminate the federal estate tax entirely. That’s why, according to the the NY Times, the GOP and its surrogates are already spending money targeting Sen. Cantwell on this issue:

Advocates of repeal have begun showing commercials criticizing senators who oppose repeal, like Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington. Many of the criticisms focus on a supposed threat to family farms.

Which is, of course, incredibly dishonest, considering that a Congressional Budget Office report released last week shows that only 300 farms nationwide were subject to the federal estate tax last year, and of these, all but 27 farmers had left enough liquid assets to pay the taxes owed… although the report “hinted that the actual number might be zero.”

And it gets even better for farm heirs.

Next year, when the threshold rises to $2 million per person, just 123 farms will be subject to the estate tax, the study found. And in 2009, when it rises to $3.5 million, only 65 of the nation’s 2.2 million farms will be affected, the study said.

The federal estate tax raised $23.4 billion last year, and repeal would shift burden off the fortunes left by the richest 1 percent of Americans, to the rest of us, either through higher taxes, reduced services, or more borrowing (thus burdening future generations.) Repealing the estate tax would only benefit the super-rich… and to claim that such a move is intended to help family farmers is an out and out lie.

Neil E. Harl, an economics professor at Iowa State University whose expertise in estate tax planning for farmers has made him a household name in the grain belt, said many Americans had a false impression that the estate tax was destroying family farming.

He said the Congressional study “adds to the weight of the evidence that this is a myth that has been well spun.”

“Farms, in particular,” Mr. Harl said, “are not in jeopardy because of estate taxes.”

Michael J. Graetz, a professor at Yale Law School who was a tax policy official in the administration of President George Bush, said repeal was primarily a benefit to people with large estates held in stocks and other securities, not to farmers.

You can argue if you want about the wisdom of giving tax breaks to the very wealthy while our nation suffers from record budget deficits, but math is math.

President Bush and others have repeatedly asserted that the estate tax is destroying family farms, yet have failed to cite a single case of a farm being lost to estate taxes… “although in June 2001 Mr. Bush said he had talked to such farmers.” Yeah… but then, Bush is a liar.

Sen. Cantwell deserves our support for courageously opposing the lie, knowing it will cost her the support of the most powerful newspaper in the state.

UPDATE:
It has been suggested to me by a journalist I respect, that perhaps I have been a touch unfair. The Times did print an editorial stating they “can live with” a federal estate tax with a top rate of 15%, and they have in the past endorsed other candidates who oppose repeal. So I just want to set the record straight.

According to David Corn, Sunday’s not going to be a very good day for Karl Rove:

Tonight I received this as-solid-as-it-gets tip: on Sunday Newsweek is posting a story that nails Rove. The newsmagazine has obtained documentary evidence that Rove was indeed a key source for Time magazine’s Matt Cooper and that Rove– prior to the publication of the Bob Novak column that first publicly disclosed Valerie Wilson/Plame as a CIA official–told Cooper that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife apparently worked at the CIA and was involved in Joseph Wilson’s now-controversial trip to Niger.

Whether or not Rove committed perjury, or knew Plame was an undercover agent when he outed her, and thus violated the law, is really just gravy. He exposed the cover of a CIA agent in order to pursue a White House vendetta against Ambassador Wilson.

And for that, Rove should be fired.

UPDATE:
The Newsweek article is online. It includes excerpts from an email between Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper and his editor, that describes a conversation with Karl Rove that took place before Robert Novak’s column exposing Plame’s cover.

“Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation …” Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]”

Rove has still not publicly admitted to talking with reporters about Plame….

But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did

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One of the more reaffirming internet stories of the past year was that of the way the online community rallied to the aid of Seattle voting rights activist Andy Stephenson, raising $50,000 in 11 days to pay for surgery to treat his pancreatic cancer. One of the more disturbing internet stories of the past year was the way some vile righties deflated the feel-good story — and successfully slowed both donations and Andy’s treatment — by launching a vicious, heartless smear campaign charging that Andy scammed his donors by faking his illness.

Well, I suppose Andy has once again proven his detractors wrong. He died Thursday at the age of 43.

I never met Andy, and was only peripherally aware of him and his activities. From all accounts he was a great guy, and a tireless activist. I share my sincere condolences with his family and friends.

But I also share their anger, as Andy’s illness and the right-wing response is a vivid example of how dirty politics can have potentially deadly results. In a post to Democratic Underground entitled “Say hello to a bottomless rage,” William Pitt displays what I believe is an appropriate response to right-wing tactics that delayed Andy’s treatment, and possibly cost him his life.

Throwing sand into the gears of the PayPal donations blew Andy off the surgery rotation, causing him to have to wait a lot longer for his operation.

Spewing the claim time and again that the whole sickness was a fraud, very publicly and on as many blogs and boards as you could find, robbed Andy of the hope and will he needed to overcome this thing.

I think you fuckers should be forced to dig his grave. I think you should be buried with him.

I kept my mouth shut about you these last weeks because every time I said something about you or to you, you got a stiffy from the attention and ramped up your viciousness again. That’s over with now.

I am going to make you famous in all the worst kinds of ways. I know your names, I know your addresses, I know your IP numbers, I have screen shots and copies of every vile statement and threat you ever made. I know everything I need to know. Get ready for the ram.

Frankly, I hope William can follow through on his threats.

A memorial service for Andy will be held at Town Hall in Seattle at 1119 Eighth Ave., on Saturday, July 16, at 2 p.m.

Enjoy your sandbox.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Florida Governor Jeb Bush showed exactly what kind of vindictive, mean-spirited, conscienceless prick he really is, when he responded to Terri Schiavo’s autopsy by asking a state prosecutor to launch a criminal investigation of whether her husband Michael called 911 promptly. This was harassment, pure and simple.

Of course, there was nothing to the allegations, so….

Gov. Jeb Bush has declared an end to the state’s inquiry into Terri Schiavo’s collapse 15 years ago, after Florida’s state attorney said there was no evidence that criminal activity was involved.
…
“Based on your conclusions, I will follow your recommendation that the inquiry by the state be closed,” Bush said in a two-sentence letter.

Hmmm. I wonder if the other sentence included an apology for wasting the state attorney’s time on a personal vendetta? I kinda doubt it.

I spend way too much time blogging, and when asked how I can afford it, I usually rationalize away the financial hardship by saying I am investing in my future. At some point I hope to make a living in politics or media — or in that nether-world that lies in between — and to that end I have made no secret of my desire to pursue a career in talk radio, a medium to which I am ideally suited for all the right and wrong reasons.

And so with this career goal in mind, it was with some ambivalence that I approached the controversy over KVI’s shameless promotion of I-912, the anti-road maintenance initiative. On the one hand, I was one of the first “media watchdogs” to publicly express outrage over how blatantly John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur used their shows to actively advertise, organize and fundraise for I-912; without them, the initiative campaign simply would not exist. On the other hand, I’m no dummy — when I get my own radio show I plan to take a page from the KVI playbook and be just as active in promoting progressive initiatives, causes and candidates. It’s not only good politics, it’s damn good for business.

Last week Kirby and I discussed this issue on the air, and I admitted that I had great empathy for his situation, and certainly wouldn’t want the hassle myself of filing PDC reports based on my on-air activities. And before Judge Christopher Wickham ruled last week that KVI would indeed have to report their efforts on I-912’s behalf as an in-kind contribution, I expressed strong reservations to a fellow activist, that such regulation would skate dangerously close to violating the First Amendment.

That said, I think today’s editorial in the Seattle Times defending John and Kirby totally misses the point… perhaps intentionally. [“In support of free speech, and KVI“]

Two years ago, when the federal campaign-finance law reached the U.S. Supreme Court, dissenting justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas warned that something like this would happen. We doubted it; it seemed clear to us that the law applied to ads, not editorial content. We thought Thomas was over the top when he said campaign-finance law was leading toward “outright regulation of the press.”

Judge Wickham has made a step toward just that. It is a dangerous, unconstitutional ruling. The losers need to appeal it and the appellate courts need to reverse it.

But this case is not simply about freedom of the press, for two reasons. First, John and Kirby are neither journalists nor editorialists… they are partisan political operatives who just happen to have their own radio shows. And second, it appears to reasonable people (like an elected, Thurston County judge) that in so blatantly promoting I-912, John and Kirby crossed the line from editorializing — or even advocacy — to advertising.

John and Kirby actively organized the I-912 campaign, using the public airwaves to raise the money and sign up the volunteers needed to get the initiative onto the ballot. In so doing they turned long segments of their radio shows into little more than extended, political infomercials. Now that’s their right. But the people also have a right to demand full disclosure of political advertising, as required by the Public Disclosure Act… which was enacted by initiative with an overwhelming electoral majority.

To uniformly deride Judge Wickham’s decision, as the Times does, as “outright regulation of the press,” is to argue that corporations or wealthy individuals should be exempt from our campaign finance and public disclosure laws, by virtue of owning a TV or radio station… or even a “family newspaper.” Which may explain why the Times is so vociferous in their defense of KVI.

Disturbed by the financial implications of his own mortality, Times publisher Frank Blethen is one of the nation’s most vocal and angry opponents of the death tax estate tax… every time Frank sneezes, his snot shows up on the op/ed page in the form of an editorial demanding the tax’s repeal. Now we learn that a conservative business group is planning an initiative for the 2006 season to repeal Washington’s estate tax. (Or so the Times wants us to believe.)

As it is, the Times editorializes monthly for the tax’s repeal, and there isn’t a reporter or editor on staff who doesn’t know that the quickest way to the boss’s heart is to pander to his pet political project. So we can only imagine what kind of support an estate-tax-repeal initiative might garner from Frank and his minions.

Should such an initiative receive a disproportionate amount of flattering, biased coverage, well, that wouldn’t be all that unusual for a newspaper of the Times’ stature. And of course, a steady stream of anti-estate-tax editorials is already the status quo.

But where might the Times be tempted to cross the line in support of an actual initiative? Frequent sidebars instructing and encouraging readers to contribute time and money, or informing them of the locations where petitions can be signed or picked up? A daily tally of the campaign’s fundraising target or signature gathering totals, with a call to action? Actually printing a copy of the petition on the op/ed page itself?

While I admit that the line between advocacy and advertising is blurry, and that I am uncomfortable at the thought of a bureaucrat or even a judge having the power to determine when this line is crossed, there is no question that the line exists, and to ignore it is to open our system to inevitable abuse. If media outlets can use their enormous power to run political campaigns outside the established regulatory framework, they will.

And in fact… KVI has. John and Kirby crossed the line, and to make matters worse, they used the public airwaves to do it. The people of Washington have a right to know the true value of KVI’s in-kind contribution to the I-912 campaign. Filing these reports may be a hassle, but then, so is democracy.

UPDATE:
Initiative 912 has apparently qualified for the ballot with over 420,000 signatures, which just goes to show the political power and influence a station like KVI can have. This is just another example of why progressives need their own local talk radio hosts who are willing to be just as entertaining, just as partisan, and just as politically strategic as John and Kirby. It’s time to even the playing field.

Seattle has been very lucky to have Foolproof’s American Voices series bringing some of the nation’s top progressive speakers to local audiences, including President Bill Clinton, Bill Moyers, Gov. Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Dr. Cornel West and most recently George Lakoff. But as critically successful as the series has been, ticket sales cover only 70 percent of the costs.

Now Foolproof needs your help to keep these great speakers coming to Seattle audiences. A core group of American Voices supporters has made a challenge… they will match dollar for dollar all individual contributions made by July 30, up to $50,000. I urge you to go to Foolproof’s donations page, and give what you can. And with a donation of $100 or more, you may choose to receive a CD of a recent American Voices presentation: Bill Moyers, Michael Eric Dyson, Robert Reich, Arianna Huffington, Paul Rusesabagina or Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

And a reminder… Congressman Barney Frank will speak on Aug. 3 at Benaroya Hall as special benefit for American Voices. Tickets are on sale now.

Earlier today I raised the question of whether our “War on Terror” had actually made us safer, and if perhaps it might be time to start discussing some other strategies. The response from some of my righty readers was that we should not discuss other strategies, and that they wouldn’t mind seeing me die in a terrorist attack, just for raising the issue.

Yeah… well screw you, too.

In addressing my questions, I thought it might be useful to point out that the number of major terrorist attacks worldwide have actually tripled between 2003 and 2004.

The number of “significant” international terrorist attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides briefed Monday on the numbers by U.S. State Department and intelligence officials.

650 is an awful lot of terrorist attacks, but according to the Financial Times, it’s not quite as large a number as 3,200.

In April the US State Department had said there were 651 “international” terrorism incidents last year. But using a broader definition to include attacks that “deliberately hit civilians or non-combatants” the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) on Tuesday raised that number to 3,192. The incidents resulted in the deaths, injury or kidnapping of almost 28,500 people.

Of course the number of terrorist attacks in the US was nearly zilch, a number the Bush administration claims represents the success of their anti-terrorism policies. But apart from the occasional abortion clinic bombing or animal rights nutcase (yes, the left has a few crazies of its own), terrorist attacks on US soil are exceedingly rare, and almost always of domestic origin. Eight years passed between the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the devastation of 9/11, and for the life of me, I can’t think of another attack on the homeland by foreign terrorists.

But the “War on Terrorism” is a world war… a war we are openly fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and covertly fighting throughout the world. So the best measure of the war’s progress is the number of terrorist attacks worldwide. And the trends just don’t look so good for our current policies.

The chart above was created by BTC News using the Terrorism Knowledge Base. And what it clearly shows is that the number of terrorist attacks declined throughout the Clinton years, and have increased year by year since Bush took office.

And so again, I think it is fair to ask: has the Iraq war made the world a safer place? And isn’t it time we have a reasonable discussion over whether military might alone is enough to defeat international terrorism?

From Kos:

The big DC rumor is that Rehnquist will announce his retirement tomorrow between 10-11 a.m. ET.

If that happens, would Bush split the difference — Gonzales and some winger to pacify the Dobson brigades?

And if so, which one would be nominated as Chief Justice?

I will be on the John Carlson Show this afternoon at 4:30 pm, KVI-570. I believe we will be discussing the London bombings.

At least 33 people have died and hundreds were injured, as four explosions ripped through London’s Underground and a double-decker bus. Al-Qaeda has reportedly claimed responsibility in a statement posted to an Islamist website.

The terrorist attacks were likely timed to coincide with the G8 Summit currently taking place in Scotland.

London is perhaps my favorite city. I have walked those streets and ridden those trains and busses and have enjoyed the hospitality and friendship of Londoners… the images of death and destruction are as painfully real to me as those from New York City, where I lived for four years. So I don’t want to appear to be cynically exploiting this terrible tragedy, but, I think it is fair to ask, nearly four years after 9/11… how is the “War on Terror” going? Has the enormous amount of blood and treasure we have spent in Iraq really made us any safer? Are American cities any less vulnerable to this kind of horror than London, or any less likely to be a target? Are we seeking vengeance abroad at the expense of providing real security to our citizens at home?

Can we really defeat an international, jihadist, terrorist movement with brute force alone, or is it time reasonable people can start talking about supplementing our conventional arms with unconventional strategies — diplomacy, aid, economic development, etc. — without instantly being attacked as cowards, appeasers or traitors?

Just thought I’d ask.