HorsesAss.Org

Two weeks ago, after Newsweek bowed to pressure and retracted a story that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran in a toilet, White House press secretary Scott McClellan continued his offensive against the media, demanding that Newsweek attempt to “repair the damage” it caused to the reputation of the United States.

“I think Newsweek can do that by talking about the way they got this wrong, and pointing out what the policies and practices of the United States military are when it comes to the handling of the Holy Koran. The military put in place policies and procedures to make sure that the Koran was handled — or is handled with the utmost care and respect.”

So then I suppose McClellan would encourage Newsweek to accurately explain our military’s “policies and procedures”… by covering a Pentagon report quietly issued late Friday, that documents similar such desecration of the Islamic holy book.

The latest confirmed abuses are contained in a report put together by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba.

They include: splashing urine on a prisoner and his Qur’an, stepping on and kicking the Qur’an, throwing water on it, and scratching an obscenity on the inside cover.

Oh. So they didn’t actually desecrate a Koran in the toilet, but they did splash pee and water on it. Well that’s entirely different. Man those moslems are touchy.

Or maybe I’m just taking all this out of context. Better ask McClellan.

On Saturday, a day after the Pentagon described a series of cases of U.S. personnel mishandling the Qur’an, the White House downplayed the issue.

“It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few isolated incidents by a few individuals,” presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

Yeah. Um… eat me, Scott. I think former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart has you pegged on this one:

“I think on this issue, they fell into a trap,” Lockhart said. “They saw a way to push back on a damaging story by making it look like it was just out-of-control journalists, and now they’ve had to admit that it has happened.”

McClellan’s statements after the Newsweek report left an impression that no desecration at all had occurred at Guantanamo, Lockhart said.

“While the news organization got an example wrong, they got the practice right,” he said. “I think certainly the public is within their right, in this case, to believe they were misled.”

Misled by the White House, that is, not Newsweek.

In response to a request from the St. Petersburg Times, the Florida Department of Children and Families released 70 pages of documents in the Terri Schiavo case, that discredit Gov. Jeb Bush’s attempt to reinsert a feeding tube based on “new” allegations of abuse.

As the day approached in which Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was to be removed, Gov. Jeb Bush claimed there were new and compelling allegations of abuse or neglect that the state Department of Children and Families had to investigate.

That effort led to a dramatic showdown between the governor and the Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge who ordered Schiavo’s feeding tube removed on March 18. Bush and DCF continued to seek its reinsertion, claiming the 30 or so new complaints had to be probed.

But documents released by DCF Friday reveal few fresh allegations that Schiavo was abused or neglected. Investigators wrote that there were “no indicators” of abuse in any of the cases.

According to documents, the only new complaint involved a nursing assistant “abusing” Schiavo with aromatherapy.

Apparently, Jeb Bush is just as big an unprincipled liar as his brother, and there should be a price to pay for the way he and other Republicans attempted to exploit the Schiavo tragedy for partisan political gain.

After our last joint appearance on the John Carlson Show, our good friend Stefan graciously visited HA and contributed the following comment:

Please do put up the complete clip, David. [assuming you don’t edit out my actual words, as you did in your post]. My disappointment with having you speak on behalf of King County Elections is that you’re not an expert on their procedures and you’re not accountable for simply making stuff up, which you were doing today. I specifically told John that I’d prefer to confront an actual elections official. I only want to pick on someone who’s bigger than I am, not just some insignificant fool who doesn’t know what they’re talking about and just makes stuff up.

Well, I’m always happy to oblige such a polite request, and thanks to Andrew at Northwest Progressive Institute, you can listen to the entire audio clip here. Hmm. Listening to the interview, I’m beginning to think Stefan doesn’t respect me.

“This is frankly one of the problems with having David Goldstein on, because he can say, he can make up all kinds of stuff and is not accountable.”

(I think he may have been attempting to make another one of his puns on my last name, but I can’t really tell from the clip.)

As Stefan helpfully points out, I am not an expert on election procedures or the law. And you know what? Neither is he.

What Stefan really objects to is having an opponent who is actually willing and able to fight back. He’d rather talk to election officials, fearful for their jobs, barred from taking partisan positions, and unschooled in the art of rhetoric, because his arguments simply don’t hold up to vigorous debate.

And quite frankly, I find his protestations rather cowardly. But listen to the clip and decide for yourself.

[NWPT48]Monday morning Judge Bridges will deliver a ruling denying Dino Rossi’s petition to set aside the results of the gubernatorial election. I say this with unwavering confidence, secure in the knowledge that both statute and case law are firmly on Governor Gregoire’s side.

The only real suspense is over the character of the editorial comments in which he will couch his decision. Will he admonish elections officials for sloppy work? Will he scold Rossi’s attorneys for making unsubstantiated claims? Will he defend his ruling by pleading he was handcuffed by the statute, or will he defend the legislative pragmatism, embodied in statute, that prefers finality over certainty?

Or will he merely apply the law to the evidence and leave the editorializing to editorialists like me?

I plan to do a more complete trial wrap-up, but jet-lagged and TVW-feed-addled, I’m afraid those thoughts will have to wait until later this weekend to find their words. In the meanwhile, I’d just like to express the sincere sentiment that whatever the ruling, I can’t wait for the day this goddamn election contest is over and done with. And unfortunately, I’m guessing Monday ain’t it.

Man… I can’t imagine what people might want to talk about. Go at it.

Yesterday was a bad day for Feisty, my petulant little puppy. We awoke at 6 am to empty her young bladder, but on our way to the backdoor she took a shortcut on the living room rug. Later, annoyed with me for paying more attention to Kirby Wilbur than to her, she made every effort to voice her opinion on the air. The difficult behavior continued. She chased the cat. She dug a hole in the backyard, caking herself with mud. And when not chewing on my hands, ankles and feet, she destructively masticated whatever piece of furniture or household object was most convenient.

Finally, at the end of this long, tiring day, I returned Feisty to the family from whom we had adopted her, locked her in the kennel with her last remaining litter mates, got back in the car, and drove off.

Assuming dogs have the ability to reason (and for rhetorical purposes we’ll leave that assumption unchallenged,) one could hardly blame her for having the impression that, angry and exasperated, I had abandoned her. That would be a logical conclusion… at least, for a dog.

Likewise, one can hardly blame ardent Dino Rossi supporters for believing that Democrats stole the gubernatorial election. After twenty years of Democratic governors, it looked like the GOP had finally found their champion. Rossi came out ahead in the first two counts, only to lose a heartbreaker of a hand recount by the tiniest of margins. And in the aftermath of the election it was revealed that there were hundreds of errors and illegal votes statewide, including felons voting, mishandled provisional ballots, uncounted valid ballots, and an inability to entirely reconcile ballots cast with voters credited.

To be honest, if the shoe were on the other foot, I’d be suspicious too. Just like poor, abandoned Feisty.

But what the unhappy puppy doesn’t realize, is that I had long planned to be out of town this weekend to attend my niece Ariel’s Bat Mitzvah, and had arranged to return Feisty for a few days as a condition of the adoption. Tuesday morning she will be back at home, happily peeing on the rug and chewing my limbs and furniture.

I think you all know where I’m going. My dog’s conclusion, however logical, was misguided. Likewise, so is the fervor of Rossi’s dogs of war. Whatever empathy I might have for them, their suspicions have simply not been proven by six months of investigations and two weeks of courtroom non-drama. There were errors. There were illegal votes. But there is absolutely no evidence that any of these advantaged one candidate or the other.

That the margin of victory was too far within the error rate to confidently determine the winner was never in doubt — that is true of all extremely close elections. What is lost in all the rhetoric is that the legal question at stake in this trial was never about whether errors occurred in King County or elsewhere… it is about whether these errors demonstrably changed the outcome. Dino Rossi lost the election by the rules in place… rules that anticipate that no election is perfect. And as in all elections, the winner was determined by the ballots counted, not the ballots cast.

That may strike some as unfair, but that is reality.

My guess is, that whatever her current state of mind (again, assuming she has one,) upon my return Feisty’s understandable suspicions will be quickly forgotten. And that, I’m afraid, is where my admittedly tortured analogy ends.

[NWPT48]Court is back in session, and the Democrats are expected to rest their case by noon. Yeah, I know… I wrote the exact same thing yesterday… but this time I mean it. Really. If you don’t believe me, check out the latest trial update from David Postman in The Seattle Times.

And speaking of Postman
I found this little comment in Postman’s first update of the day, particularly telling:

The courtroom crowd is as sparse as it’s been. No final day surge in attendance, except for a small increase in the press section.

I’m sure a few more people will wander into the courtroom this afternoon for the closing arguments, but the drop in attendance is indicative of the fact that after the Republicans failed to present any evidence of fraud or ballot stuffing, few now expect the trial to produce anything dramatic… you know, like setting aside the election.

Courtroom fireworks! (9:55 am)
Hah-hah… made you look! Actually, all they’re doing right now is admitting evidence. To give you an idea how boring this entire case is, they are up to exhibit number 12,013.

Apparently, when they’re done with this, the Republicans have a couple more rebuttal witnesses. Closing arguments are scheduled for after lunch.

Damn. Postman scoops me (11:42 am)
One of the “rebuttal witnesses” didn’t go so well for Dino Rossi. But since David Postman already reported everything I was going to report, I might as well just blockquote his update:

Deputy state elections director John Pearson, on the stand as a rebuttal witness for Republicans, said that Republican allegations of election fraud and wrongdoing upset members of the “election community” in the state, including himself.

“I certainly shared the frustration and frankly the anger,” Pearson said.

Pearson said specifically that he, as a former military voter, objected to Republican claims that military ballots were not being sent to overseas voters because he knew that was false.

He also cited Republican claims that ballot accounting problems indicated fraud, saying, “We knew there were good reasons why those numbers did not balance.”

‘Nuff said.

Short lunch break (12:15 pm)
Court has recessed until 1:00 pm, half the usual allotted time. Judge Bridges has stated that they would definitely get to closing statements today.

It is interesting to note that contrary to his pattern of the past two weeks, Judge Bridges has routinely sustained Democratic objections during the GOP’s questioning of their rebuttal witnesses. This could be because he’s just getting testy with the Republicans… or it could be that seeing as lenient as he has been, the GOP attorneys have been pushing their luck.

It kind of makes sense for the press to testify (1:27 pm)
Democratic attorney Hamilton has threatened to call David Postman to stand. Man this is getting meta.

Vance, lies and video tape (1:38 pm)
The Democrats just introduced a video of GOPolitburo Chair Chris Vance, in which he vouched for the integrity of elections in King County and Washington state. The tape was from a November 9, 2004 interview on TVW, in which Vance touted his intimate knowledge of KC Elections, having twice served on the canvassing board while a council member. On the subject of election fraud, Vance definitively states:

“I know that there is no fraud going on, nothing nefarious in Washington state. […] I’ve been as close to it as you can be, and there is no truth to it, at least not here.”

This statement of support was made at a time when it looked like Dino Rossi would win by about three thousand votes. Of course, once it became apparent that Christine Gregoire won, his opinion changed.

John Carlson at 3:15 (2:30 pm)
The GOP finished there rebuttal (finally,) and the court has recessed for 10 minutes. When we come back, closing arguments will commence. Of course, I’ll probably miss a chunk of the closing arguments, while I’m arguing with Stefan on the John Carlson Show, KVI-570, at 3:15.

It’s almost over (2:58 pm)
Closing arguments are underway. Republican attorney Harry Korrell sounds much more subdued in his closing than Dale Foreman was in his opener. He expects to go about 30 minutes.

KVI is covering the arguments live, so Stefan and I won’t be coming on the Carlson Show until after they’ve finished… I’m guessing closer to 5 pm.

Republicans close (3:28 pm)
The Republicans have finished their closing arguments.

I know I’m biased (hey… I’ve always been up front about that,) but I found Korrell’s summation to be disappointing in both form, content and delivery. To borrow Stefan’s paraphrasing schtick: “It’s all King County’s fault… it’s unfair to the rest of the state… and if you don’t set this election aside King County will never mend their ways.”

The GOP has always argued that with more errors than the margin of victory, the court is compelled to set aside the election… which I suppose might be a good argument if the Judge hasn’t repeatedly disagreed with them on this point of law. One of the more curious arguments is that surely, the legislature couldn’t have intended to allow an election like this stand… yet they’ve never gone back to the history of the statutes to argue legislative intent. I can only assume that is because the record wouldn’t support their interpretation.

Jenny Durkan is now giving the Democrats closing arguments.

If I need a lawyer, I’m hiring Jenny Durkan (4:13 pm)
She was great in cross-exam, and she’s great in summation. Yes, I’m biased, but she is in the process of tearing apart the Republican case. She makes Harry Korrell look like an amateur.

The most noticeable difference is that Durkan has spent much more time addressing both statute and case law (not to mention logic.) This is because both statute and case law — as well as Judge Bridges’ previous rulings — support the Democrats’ arguments. Korrell on the other hand, spent much of his time rehashing the litany of errors and illegal votes, adding little analysis to the evidence already admitted.

More later…

Secretary of State refuses to take sides (5:18 pm)
Arguing on behalf of the Secretary of State, attorney Thomas Ahearne refused to take sides and recommend a ruling to the court. However, much to the dismay of the Korrell, he did take issue with many of the Republicans’ mischaracterizations of the election, including the issues of military ballots, duplication and enhancement, and ballot security.

You get what you pay for, and the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) certainly bought themselves a nifty gift in Attorney General Rob McKenna. The other day I posted excerpts from a McKenna speech praising the BIAW’s efforts to overturn the gubernatorial election… an episode of partisan ass-licking made even more stunning by the fact that the AG is supposedly charged with defending the Secretary of State from Dino Rossi’s BIAW-backed lawsuit.

Well McKenna is the type of AG who backs up his words with actions… at least when it comes to pandering to his financial and political patrons. The BIAW spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on independent expenditures supporting McKenna’s election, and as partial payback he’s hired BIAW attorney (and former Sound Politics commentator) Tim Ford to a high-level position in the Solicitor General’s office… a position, by the way, for which it is not at all clear he is qualified.

According to the AG’s Communications Director Greg Lane:

The Solicitor General Team was created within the AGO in 1993 to provide the following services:

• Coordinate cases at the appellate levels in both state and federal courts, and conduct appellate assistance and review programs for the Attorney General’s Office;
• Coordinate the office’s involvement with cases in the U. S. Supreme Court;
• Be primarily responsible for the preparation of formal Attorney General Opinions;
• Coordinate the office’s involvement with amicus curiae “Friend of the Court” briefs in all courts;
• Carry out the Attorney General’s duties with respect to the preparation of ballot titles and explanatory statements, and represent the state in litigation involving the powers of initiative and referendum;
• Coordinate legal advice on issues of statewide significance;
• Chair the Ethics Committee, the office’s primary resource on matters of professional responsibility;
• Serve as the office’s liaison to the state bar association; and
• Serve as legal counsel to the Secretary of State, Lieutenant Governor, and the Administrator for the Courts.

Of course it’s the last bullet point that I find particularly troublesome, as McKenna has hired Tim Ford, an attorney for one the major forces behind Rossi’s lawsuit, to join Assistant AG Jeff Evan on the “team” responsible for defending the Secretary of State from the very same lawsuit. This is also the “team” that is charged with conducting cases at the appellate level, and thus will inevitably follow the election contest to the Supreme Court.

Now I doubt even McKenna would be so blatant as to assign Ford to this particular case. And my understanding is that with little or no appellate experience he is not really qualified to handle appellate cases at either the state or federal level, so he’ll probably just end up writing AGO’s and ballot titles. But it is both disturbing and telling that the AG would be so insensitive to the appearance of a conflict of interest, considering the extremely high profile of this election contest.

Make no mistake… McKenna is an unabashedly partisan politician with surprisingly bold ambitions. That he would pay back his patrons by hiring a BIAW attorney and Sound Politics commentator with dubious qualifications, is a clear indication of how he plans to use his office to advance his own political career.

[NWPT48]Court is back in session, and the Democrats are expected to rest their case by noon. Against my better judgment I’ll be tuning in once again, and updating this post with news and observations. As always, I encourage you to check out the latest trial update from David Postman in The Seattle Times.

Thank you, Kirby
I ended up doing an entire hour on The Kirby Wilbur Show (KVI-570) this morning, fielding questions from callers. I don’t particularly like KVI, and I disagree with Kirby on virtually every political issue, but he has been a gracious host, and I appreciate him giving me the opportunity to present opposing viewpoints to his audience.

“We’d love to be perfect” (10:14 am)
So says King County elections operation supervisor Linda Sanchez, who has been on the stand all morning, talking about her efforts to reconcile poll place discrepancies. Of course, this election wasn’t perfect. But then, no election is.

Again, nothing new was learned.

Evidence (11:16 am)
Linda Sanchez has been excused, and the attorneys are now arguing over the admissibility of Democrats evidence. The Republicans have taken the curious position that they don’t object to admitting evidence of ballots that should have been counted, they just object to the evidence being used.

Democrats are now presenting evidence of offsetting felon votes. Apparently the Dems had a team of 20 researchers working for 6 weeks. (No word as to whether the BIAW helped out.)

Court to rule Monday (12:09 pm)
The Republicans just announced that they have four rebuttal witnesses to present, so closing arguments won’t come before tomorrow afternoon. That said, Judge Bridges has announced that he plans to deliver a ruling from the bench on Monday morning.

So… I guess, Monday afternoon we start talking about the Supreme Court appeal.

Me, John & Stefan (2:09 pm)
Stefan and I will be back on the John Carlson Show (KVI-570) at 3:15 pm, talking about the day’s non-events. In fact, the only real news that I can see coming out of today’s proceedings thus far is that Judge Bridges plans to rule on Monday.

Dueling Experts (3:06 pm)
The Democrats last witness, Prof. Handcock, is back on the stand, and he is really destroying the Republicans’ case for proportional analysis. I wish I could listen to more of it, but I’ve got to prepare for Carlson.

Good radio (3:41 pm)
Stefan apparently thinks there’s a “problem” with putting people like me on the air, and we ended up getting into a bit of shouting match. I know he prefers the comfort of (u)SP, where he posts mean spirited suppostion to a chorus of “nice job, Stefan”, but I thought this afternoon’s discussion was good radio.

We’ll get a clip online soon.

When all else fails, be dismissive (4:01 pm)
Unable to refute Prof. Handcock’s deconstruction of Katz and Gil, the Republicans have taken the tact of trying to discredit Handcock as a witness. I know, I know… lawyers are supposed to be assholes in these situations.

Kudos to David Postman of the Seattle Times for interviewing Kenny Foulkes, of Foulkes v. Hays fame, the Supreme Court case that Rossi relies upon to argue that the gubernatorial election should be set aside.

In a 1974 Adams County Commissioner race, the court determined that a number of ballots had been fraudulently altered between counts. The election was set aside due to fraud, even though the number of known, altered ballots was less than the margin of victory. The court wrote, “the irregularity was such that the actual result of the voting could not be ascertained.”

Democrats argue that Rossi’s attorneys have failed to provide any evidence of fraud, making the Foulkes standard irrelevant. And apparently, Foulkes himself agrees.

Foulkes wishes his case would make the difference. He’s a Rossi supporter, but thinks his precedent may not help.

“It’s a tough one to prove because they may not be able to prove fraud like me,” Foulkes said.

Yup… fraud is a helluva lot tougher to prove than it is to allege.

[NWPT48]Day 7, and I’m running out of snide headlines. I’ll be following along (when not disciplining my puppy) and updating this post with observations as they occur to me, but in case I miss anything, you can always check out the latest trial update from David Postman in The Seattle Times.

Logan’s run-on sentence
The proceedings have opened with Dean Logan on the stand. I’ve talked to Dean, and he strikes me as a dedicated, administrative wonk… but not the best communicator in the world. Expect some very long, drawn out, detailed answers.

BREAKING NEWS: Logan repeats stuff we’ve already heard! (11:29 am)
For the life of me, I just can’t think of anything to write about. There’s been absolutely no news coming out of Dean Logan’s testimony… and every answer — to both Democratic and Republican attorneys — has been delivered in the same, calm, monotone.

So instead I’ll just report on what Stefan is reporting. Permit me to paraphrase:

“Dean Logan is a liar.”
“Dean Logan has perjured himself.”
“Dean Logan lies.”
“Dean Logan is dishonest.”
“Dean Logan is a lying, dishonest perjurer.”

Yeah, and more stuff like that.

And that’s exactly my point (1:41 pm)
Dean Logan was just asked if it would be possible to count the absentee envelopes, and he said:

Yes.

So… um… if the Republicans suspect there were more ballots than voters, why didn’t the make a public records request for the envelopes?

That was it? (2:00 pm)
After months of vilifying Dean Logan as a liar and a thief… after Bob Williams of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation demanded that Logan should be put behind bars… Logan finished his half day on the stand with neither a whimper or a bang. He just calmly, wonkishly answered the questions put before them, telling us absolutely nothing new. The Rossi folk cast the wrong guy in the role of super villain.

Logan has been excused, and Democratic expert Chris Adolph is now on the stand.

Radio Days (2:37 pm)
I’ll be on the John Carlson Show again today at 3:15 pm, KVI-570, the Victoria Taft Show tonight at 7:35 pm, 860-KPAM (Portland), and the Kirby Wilbur Show tomorrow morning at 7:30 am, KVI-570.

Statistical tie (5:01 pm)
Before completing his cross-examination, GOP attorney Mark Braden got Democrat expert witness Chris Adolph to agree that from the aggregate data we could not determine which candidate got the most legal votes. Well, I could have told you that. In fact, I did, way back on 12/02/04:

Republicans scoff at Gregoire calling this election a tie, but statistically speaking, it is. This election is so far within the margin of error, that there is no practical way to accurately determine the winner.

Thus, the results of the third count

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I suppose there might have been a legal strategy to Rossi attorney Dale Foreman’s hostile treatment of state Elections Director Nick Handy. Desperate to find more “illegal” votes to throw into their dubious proportional deduction calculations, the Republicans may be hoping to have the alleged 875-vote discrepancy in King County’s absentee ballots ruled as illegal votes.

But I see two problems with this strategy. 1) the Judge has already ruled that voter crediting could not be used as evidence, and 2) one could always verify whether there really is a discrepancy by counting the fucking envelopes.

The Republicans would prefer that the court set aside the election based on a statistical analysis of a supposition derived from a faulty crediting process. But if we really wanted to know if there really is a discrepancy we could always count the fucking envelopes.

It’s hard to see how the GOP argument flies.

Once again anti-business Democratic legislation is pushing jobs and businesses out of state:

Now that Washington state lawmakers have restricted over-the-counter sales of the ingredients used to make the illicit drug, some officials are worried that Idaho will see an increase in meth-related crimes.

“I feel very sorry for you (Idaho) because you will feel the aftermath of it now,” said Washington Rep. Tom Campbell, D-Roy. “Boise will become the preferred shopping mall of meth cooks in the area.”

Pseudoephedrine now accounts for as much as 7% of total revenues at some rural Washington Wal-Marts (second only to amonium nitrate,) while meth labs have become the state’s fastest growing industry. So it’s no wonder business groups are concerned about this overreaching legislation.

Jan Teague, president of the Washington Retailers Association, said businesses are worried about the cost of complying with the new laws and possibly losing customers who see the log as an invasion of privacy.

If you ask me Jan, I think you may have the makings of a voter revolt. You better contact John and Kirby over at KVI and see if they can help you get an initiative on the ballot.

It’s all over the news wires… one of the most intriguing political mysteries of the last half century may have finally been solved:

A former FBI official claims he was “Deep Throat,” the long-anonymous source who leaked secrets about President Nixon’s Watergate coverup to The Washington Post, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday.

W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Post reporter Bob Woodward’s source, the magazine said.

“I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat,” he told lawyer John D. O’Connor, the author of the Vanity Fair article, the magazine said in a news release.

Still waiting for confirmation from Woodward and Bernstein.

UPDATE:
The Washington Post has confirmed that Felt is indeed Deep Throat.

[NWPT48]It’s week-two of Dino Rossi’s quixotic election contest trial, and I’m much more looking forward to this week’s proceedings than last week’s proceedings… mostly because this week is only four days long. That said, I’m guessing the Democrats’ testimony will be even more boring than the Republicans’, since at least the latter offered the tiniest prospect of dramatically producing a smoking gun.

Anyway, I’ll be following the proceedings live, and updating this post with tidbits and observations as they happen; if you are a connoisseur of tedium you can follow along on TVW. And as always I recommend you occasionally check out David Postman’s trial updates in The Seattle Times.

If wishes were horses, then Stefan would ride
On Saturday, our good friend Stefan over at (u)SP predicted that Dino Rossi would prevail, and the election would be set aside. So here’s my prediction: Stefan is delusional. (Some might argue that’s not so much a prediction, as a statement of fact.)

Okay… maybe Stefan’s not delusional. Perhaps he fully understands Rossi has lost, and his bold prediction is part of some propagandistic strategy that I’m just not clever enough to fathom. Or perhaps Stefan isn’t nearly as smart as I’ve given him credit for. He could just be wrong. Hey… people make mistakes… there’s no shame in that.

But I think it is just wishful thinking.

Nixon goes to Chelan (10:40 am)
State Elections Director Nixon “Nick” Handy is on the stand, talking about the challenges all the counties faced in conducting November’s election. Under questioning from Democrat attorney Jenny Durkan, Handy is outlining errors throughout the state, and after each example, he agrees that there is no evidence of fraud. The goal apparently is to show that there was nothing unusual or nefarious about the problems in King County.

At this moment, Handy is explaining that voter crediting is “administrative housekeeping,” and not generally a record of the number of people who cast votes:

“Many if not most auditors opted to go back and credit voters after the election was certified.”

He emphatically insists that comparing the number of people credited with voting and the number of ballots counted is not a measure of the authenticity of the election.

Handy not “appalled” (10:53 am)
Sec. of State Sam Reed had been quoted in the press as saying he found some of the mistakes in King County Elections to be “appalling.” Durkan asked Handy if he agreed with his boss’s assessment, and he bluntly said “No.” He described the problems as “inadvertent mistakes and errors of human beings who are working their hearts out,” and insisted there was no evidence of an attempt to sway the election or affect votes in one way or another.

On the topic of felon votes, Handy stated that voter registration is based on “the honor system” and that it simply would not be possible to do background checks on all registrants.

Durkan has finished her questioning, and the Republicans will cross after a 15 minute recess.

Rah rah sis koom bah (11:32 am)
Republican attorney Dale Forman called Handy a “cheerleader.”

Liberal blogger David Goldstein called Forman an “asshole.”

Rossi PR “unfair and inaccurate” (12:06 pm)
Forman doesn’t like Handy’s answers. So now he’s getting mad at him, accusing him of deliberately trying to undermine Rossi’s case. (Um… Dale… you are suing the SoS… you expect them to make your case for you?) In response, Handy made clear his own opinion about the GOP’s dishonest misrepresentation of this election, stating that their “public affairs campaign” was:

“…undermining the trust and confidence of the average voter in the election system, in a way that is unfair and inaccurate. I believe that.”

Court is in recess until 1:15 pm.

TVW fraudulently goes down (1:58 pm)
The court is back in session, but apparently TVW is not. About 10 minutes in, the stream went down, and I now I can’t even get to their website. So since I have no idea what is happening, I’ll just pretend I’m one Rossi’s attorneys, and make stuff up.

Attorney Dale Foreman shifted tact after lunch by telling state Elections Director Nick Handy that he had “pretty eyes.” When Handy responded that Foreman had liquor on his breath, Foreman angrily attacked Handy for being non-responsive, and insisted that he answer the question. Democrat Attorney Jenny Durkan objected on the point that Foreman had not actually asked a question. After some discussion, Foreman rephrased his question: “Nick… do I have pretty eyes?” Handy said that he didn’t really know, prompting Foreman to tearfully object to his own question. At this point, counsel approached the bench, and the Judge ruled that Foreman did have pretty eyes, but that the evidence was not admissible.

Oh… the TVW feed is back on. Damn it.

John Carlson (3:00 pm)
Ooops… almost forgot… Stefan and I will be on the John Carlson Show again today at 3:15 pm, KVI-570. And again, the rest of the week.

Perjury (3:58 pm)
Nothing breaks the tedium of following this godawful boring trial, quite like arguing with John and Stefan on KVI. It’s especially fun when Stefan shows his true neo-McCarthyite self, like this afternoon when he essentially accused Dean Logan of perjury. Well… he insisted that was my word, not his… but that’s the legal definition of lying on the witness stand.

Ah well, nothing riles up the right like veiled threats of imprisoning public officials.

Oh boy… recess! (4:39 pm)
Court has recessed for the day. We’ll come back bright and early with Dean Logan, who Stefan has accused of perjury, which is a convenient way of saying that anything he says that might hurt Rossi’s case is a lie, whereas anything he says that might help him is a grudging admission.