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Five more Democratic challengers have officially signed on to the Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, including Alan Grayson (FL-08), Harry Taylor (NC-09), Leslie Byrne (VA-11), Bill O’Neill (OH-14), and Greg Fischer (KY-Senate). That brings the total number of endorsers to 25 from 16 states, with several more expected shortly.

On this week’s podcast, the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly explains that challengers are generally loathe to get out in front on issues like this because the safer strategy is to make the campaign less about themselves and more about the incumbent. So why are so many challengers willing to stick their necks out on the Responsible Plan? Well, it could just be that the Plan is surprisingly, well, responsible.

In a commentary posted to Democracy Arsenal, Moira Whelan of the National Security Network addresses the understandable skepticism with which “national security wonks” and other experts generally greet any candidate plan: “… you roll your eyes [and] you know it’s not wonky enough to meet your standards… right?” But, she continues, “Not so with this plan…”

Folks at NSN have become pretty familiar with this plan in the last few weeks. When we got a call asking us to meet with Darcy Burner, who drafted a plan, we thought of it as nothing new…after all, lots of candidates want to find the silver bullet to change things in Iraq, and often don’t have a feel for all of the moving pieces in Iraq and around the globe. Sometimes, candidates are more concerned with developing the plan that won’t get them in trouble, rather than the one that embodies their approach and forces real change. We were pleasantly surprised by Darcy.

Darcy laid in front of us 20 pages of a comprehensive approach to Iraq—a project that started after a conversation with General Paul Eaton. She’d done her research, and based her ideas on legislation already introduced in Congress. She went beyond the idea of troop deployments, and political stability to address more systemic problems with the US government that got us into this mess in the first place. The Responsible Plan for Ending the War in Iraq looks at things like media accountability, government transparency, torture, FISA and trade-offs on issues such as Afghanistan. She wrote the whole thing herself, and sought advice from “experts” as well as her fellow challengers. In other words…her plan is peer reviewed…and approved.

Two things make the plan especially compelling, and demonstrate a changing dynamic in elections that we’re surely going to see this cycle.

First, the people who drafted it—the 10 candidates who’ve attached their names to it so far—understand Iraq in very real ways. Burner’s brother served in Iraq. Donna Edwards is a military brat. Tom Periello worked in Iraq and Afghanistan doing development work. The list goes on and on. In other words, the idea that progressives “don’t get it” is completely blown out of the water based on those who are introducing it. Not only do they get it, they’ve embraced it and are now running for Congress to change the realities they see—that’s public service of which you can be proud. They’re actually walking the walk.

Second, voters and candidates care about Iraq and the rest of the world—in a detailed way. Contrary to what some political advisors are saying, these candidates started this strategy because “what are you going to do about Iraq?” is the top question they’re getting from their voters. It’s no longer sufficient for candidates to say they believe in ending the war, voters want to know how they’re going to do that. Voters are insisting on details because they know the details. In other words, our candidates and our voters are smarter on Iraq and the world we live in than we’ve seen in recent elections.

[…] A few months from now, people will look back on this crew with a “where it all started” approach. We’ll be counting this class as a new generation of leaders who are smarter and stronger on security than ever before. More will adopt their plan as a blueprint, and they’ll walk into the halls of Congress with a mission, with allies, and with knowledge.

Through his spokesman, Dave Reichert insists that he wants to bring our troops home from Iraq as well. The difference is, Darcy Burner is actually attempting to do something about it.

Another in our exciting lazy new series, The Best of Goldy: “Goldy responds to the Republican Governors Association.”

See, here in the other Washington, we have something we call “laws,” which are written by democratically elected legislators, not half-witted, cirrhotic PR hacks like you. And according to our laws, Christine Gregoire was duly elected governor. So rather than cynically laboring to undermine the electoral process of a state no Republican governor has called home for over twenty years, why don’t you just focus on something you’re good at… like helping your members devise new and exciting ways to deny poor children health care.

Read the whole thing. Or not.

Overheard at a DC restaurant, one Beltway insider to another on learning that Dino Rossi had once again hired GOP hatchet man Scott Howell to do his media:

“You think Dino Rossi knows that Gregoire isn’t a black man? Because that’s the only kind of race Scott wins lately.”

Howell is a notoriously vicious ad man who learned at the feet of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. His credits include the notoriously race-baiting ads against Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee’s 2006 US Senate race, and the infamous campaign against Sen. Max Cleland, who left both legs and an arm on the battlefield in Vietnam, only to see Howell run an ad morphing him into Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Howell also produced an ad for Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn that accused Democrat Brad Carson of being soft on welfare while showing two black hands counting cash, and ran an ad in Virginia claiming Gov. Tim Kaine wouldn’t have used the death penalty against Hitler.

As Max Blumenthal wrote on Huffington Post back in 2006:

If a political attack ad crosses boundaries of good taste, is emotionally manipulative, excessively ominous, twists facts, exploiting hot-button issues of race, sex and terror, and winds up being condemned by civil rights groups, the chances are that ad has been produced by Republican hitman Scott Howell.

Howell had a banner year in 2004, winning nearly every major race except Rossi’s. In 2006… not so much, the Tennessee race being his biggest victory. That Dino has hired Howell once again speaks volumes about Rossi and the the tone we can expect from his campaign.

UPDATE:
A source inside the Rossi campaign tells me that they have not in fact hired Howell: “I don’t want to get too deep into our negotiations, but we decided to go a different direction.”

Huh. I guess Rossi does know that Gregoire is not a black man. Good for him.

Nervous yet? The world’s central bankers certainly are, as the sudden collapse of Bear Stearns, the nation’s fifth largest investment firm, raises fears of a financial collapse unseen since the days of the Great Depression.

Bear Stearns Cos. reached an agreement to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., as worries grew that failing to find a buyer for the beleaguered investment bank could cause the crisis of confidence gripping Wall Street to worsen.

The deal calls for J.P. Morgan to pay $2 a share in a stock-swap transaction, with J.P. Morgan Chase exchanging 0.05473 share of its common stock for each Bear Stearns share. Both companies’ boards have approved the transaction, which values Bear Stearns at just $236 million based on the number of shares outstanding as of Feb. 16. At Friday’s close, Bear Stearns’s stock-market value was about $3.54 billion. It finished at $30 a share in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading Friday.

Wow. A 93% discount off of Friday’s close. Now that’s what I call a bargain, especially considering that Bear Stearns’ Manhattan office building is valued at around $1.2 billion, more the five times the price of the buyout. So… how much liability is J.P. Morgan assuming?

JPMorgan said that in addition to the loans extended to Bear on Friday, the Fed had agreed to fund up to $30bn of Bear’s less liquid assets – a move that will alleviate the need for a fire-sale of mortgage-backed securities.

That means you, dear taxpayer, are picking up the bulk of the risk, not J.P. Morgan. That’s the way things work in America: privatize the profits, socialize the losses.

Of course the Fed claims that Bear Stearns’ problems were unique, and that no other major US financial institution is on the verge of collapse, which I suppose is why they also cut interest rates a quarter point. On a Sunday. Ahead of an expected 1-point cut in the discount rate this Tuesday. And still, Asian markets and the dollar continue to fall… I wonder why?

As Bonddad wrote on Friday:

The only way to prevent this mess from happening again is to let some of the big banks fail. Then in the future when someone says, “let’s stop performing due diligence on borrowers” someone can respond with, “Bear Stearns tried that and they went belly up.” Now in 10 years, someone will say, “Let’s stop performing due diligence” someone will respond with “that’s a great idea. After the borrowers default, the Federal Reserve will bail us out.”

I guess that pull yourself up by your bootstraps, free market, rugged individualism stuff is only meant for us little guys.

UPDATE:

In Tokyo, the region’s largest stock exchange, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index was trading at an almost three-year low. By midday, the index dropped 4.2 percent to 11,726.99, falling below 12,000 for the first time since August 2005.

[…] The declines in Tokyo came even as the Japanese central bank, the Bank of Japan, moved to shore up financial markets by injecting $4.1 billion into short-term money markets.

Wow, talk about Rossi leaping into the conversation:

In a move stunning some of his conservative “family values” supporters, the former state senator Dino Rossi pledged this week that if elected governor he would use less expensive prostitutes than disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer, (D-NY).

“It’s just one more example of people in government spending the people’s hard earned tax money in an inefficient manner.”

Rossi declined to say if he would use prostitutes if elected governor, but said that if he did he wouldn’t spend as much “as that guy from New York.” He went on to blame Gov. Christine Gregoire for rising prices that have earned Washington state a reputation for having some of the most expensive hookers in the nation.

“This is just more proof of the awful business climate she’s responsible for,” added Rossi. “Thousands of whores leave this state every year for states with lower taxes and less regulation. If I’m elected, hookers are going to get the respect they deserve.”

A spokesman for Gregoire couldn’t stop laughing long enough to comment.

With 24 hours left in the 2008 session, state Sen. Brian Weinstein has issued the following press release:

Today, I communicated to the Speaker’s staff that I’ll agree in principle to Speaker Chopp’s three-point proposal with some minor technical and substantive changes, if he’ll agree to allow a homebuyer to bring a legal action against a builder who has violated a building code after giving the builder notice and an opportunity to fix it.

A builder is already required to comply with building codes, but Washington law affords a homebuyer no rights to enforce the building code. This is a bare minimal right that all Washingtonians must agree a homebuyer should have.

I know the Speaker is a man of his word, and I would only do this with a good faith representation from him that he will work diligently to expand the right of access to the courts to aggrieved homebuyers in the next Legislative Session.

Really… is that so much to ask for? The right to sue a builder if they violate a building code, and refuse to fix it? I invite the pro-BIAW trolls in the comment thread to justify to me why homebuyers should not have this right?

I don’t normally reprint emails forwarded my way without asking permission, but since this email from Attorney Sandy Levy to Rep. Mark Ericks was CC’d to a number of journalists, I think it’s pretty much fair game.

Dear Rep. Ericks:

Boy, was I a sucker. I believed you were an interested, impartial and objective task force chairman, appointed by Speaker Chopp to investigate problems in the homebuilding industry and to report to the Speaker with recommendations. You told me when we met in August of last year that you would convene your committee, bring me in to speak, and bring in homeowners to hear first hand the problems they were having. Instead, you never convened that group, at least not with any homeowners or their representatives.

Now I find out the following article, published today:

While some accounts explain that Chopp (who killed Sen. Weinstein’s bill late last week at the behest of the Building Industry Association of Washington) crafted his alternative proposal (a study!!) with Democratic Rep. Mark Ericks (D-1, Bothell), they fail to report that Rep. Ericks was the guest of honor at last Tuesday’s BIAW fund raiser at the BIAW’s offices in Olympia.

Mark, it’s not as though there were no homeowner groups with real complaints, with visible problems you could have visited yourself. One of them is just a few minutes away from the Capitol, such as the 130 unit Cooper Crest subdivision in Olympia. Yet you and the Speaker misinformed the public that you were leading an independent task force and you were meeting with stakeholders. I don’t know who the stakeholders were, other than BIAW. I know your committee didn’t meet with me, as you had promised. I guess money talks doesn’t it? Homeowners just don’t have the fat wallet that BIAW does to line legislative pockets. From the same article as above comes this illuminating piece of information:

Killing Sen. Weinstein’s bill—which would have guaranteed a warranty for consumers when they buy a new home (allowing consumers to sue contractors for faulty or shoddy work)—was the BIAW’s top legislative priority this year. The powerful conservative lobby—which bankrolls the GOP—also maxed out to Democratic Rep. Ericks last election cycle.

Misleading the public and trying to manipulate public opinion should be grounds for dismissal as a public official. What you have done is a disgrace to democracy. And, my representatives have abetted this trampling of citizen rights. Where is the guiding principle that you disclose any appearance of impropriety, any appearance of a conflict of interest. How do you take money from BIAW, then say you are an independent fact finder on a task force charged with analysis of a problem? Doesn’t that strike you as shocking?

Sandy Levy

The emphasis is Mr. Levy’s.

My personal outrage has never focused solely on the bill itself; there isn’t a session that goes by in which I’m not disappointed by the death of bills that didn’t even get a hearing, let alone a floor vote. Rather, my outrage, like that expressed by Levy, stems from the manner in which this bill has been consistently blocked by the militia-funding orca-killers at the BIAW, without anybody on the Democratic side having the balls to acknowledge the truth. I expect to be disappointed by the Democratic majority either because they genuinely disagree with me on issues of policy or on political strategy; I just don’t expect them to be shills for the enemy. I’ve got nothing against builders or contractors or their industry, but the organization that represents them is viciously anti-Democratic, and politically amoral at best. The BIAW is an organization dedicated to legislating the labor movement out of existence, and opposing all and every environmental regulation. And they have given every indication that they will stop at nothing to achieve their agenda.

If Rep. Ericks has a reply to Mr. Levy, in which amongst other things, he can defend his appearance as a “guest of honor” at a BIAW fundraiser, I’d be happy to post it here. But for the life of me, I can’t imagine what that defense might be.

“We Wuz Robbed” seems like an incredibly bankrupt campaign strategy to me. But bankruptcy hasn’t stopped Dino Rossi, who is still perpetuating the idea that he was cheated out of being Governor:

Residents heard from Attorney General Rob McKenna, who’s seeking re-election, and Dino Rossi, who’s back on the campaign trail as a candidate for governor, jokingly telling people he’s seeking re-election as well, after an extremely close vote the last time he ran.

The Sore Loser Express™ is currently steaming through Eastern Washington saying things like this:

“It’s a different campaign, completely different,” said Rossi. “Last time when I decided I was going to run for governor, I only had 12 percent name ID statewide. Almost everybody in this county thought Dino Rossi was some sort of wine.”

Of course, another difference is that, recently, Washington state has been rated one of the best managed states, and as having one of the best business climates in the country. He continues:

“If people want to, they can control every single election,” said Rossi. “If they get their aunt, who doesn’t think their vote counts anymore to vote, get their 18-year-olds registered to vote. Just get everybody out to vote. If you exercise the vote that you’re given, you can control every election.”

Yeah…that’s it, Dino. Get Aunt Matilda to go out and vote. You’d better just hope that Aunt Millie doesn’t remember the cries of election fraud that were found to be without merit by a Judge in one of the most conservative county in Washington. And hope that she doesn’t remember your un-statesmanlike slamming the Washington state Supreme Court when you begrudgingly ended the contest:

“With today’s decision, and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I am ending the election contest

Because, even Aunt Millie knows a sore loser when she sees one!

Lots of people, myself included, thought that Gov. Gregoire would oppose Sound Transit going back to voters in ’08 if the Roads and Transit measure failed. We didn’t think Democrats would want to share the ballot with a big transportation measure.

Turns out I was wrong.

Gregoire has signaled that a ballot measure this fall has her OK, even if she has reservations about the area interest groups’ willingness to “saddle-up” for another campaign. Sound Transit chair Greg Nickels isn’t standing in the way, either. He’s cajoling his fellow board member to vote for a revised ST2 package, one that ditches light rail to Tacoma and puts that money into going east and north. It’s the kind of package that is aimed at the areas that vote “yes” on transit. It’s a good rebound package, something that could pass, on it’s own, this fall. Just when transit fans are stepping on the gas, some are riding the brake.

Namely, Ron Sims.

Yeah, that Ron Sims, the same Ron Sims who pledged, in ’07, that he’d fight to put a better transit-only package on the ballot this fall:

Is he willing to lead the fight and come back next year with a revised light rail package?

The answer was an unequivocal yes. “I’m into that. I’m back. I’m fully engaged. No question,” he said. “I don’t believe in letting waters stagnate. I want to come back with a package that reduces our impact on global warming that is less expensive. Yes. Light rail is a big part of that package. I will spend a lot of time and political capital on that.”

But Ron is willing to let the waters stagnate.

The most depressing thing is that he used to be one of Sound Transit’s biggest defenders. But ever since Sims left the post of Sound Transit chair, he’s shown his disdain for any public transportation investment that isn’t controlled by his office. Instead of light rail, Sims advocated for buses (or bus rapid transit). He even preempted Sound Transit’s bid for the ballot with a measure of his own.

“Transit Now,” an expansion of bus service paid for by a sales tax hike, took the place of light rail on the 2006 ballot. Like the dumbass liberal that I am, I voted for it, all the time thinking that this was just Sims’ opening salvo of transportation investment. It wasn’t, which makes Sims’ ’07 comments on light rail all the more vexing.

**********

The local blogosphere cut it’s teeth on the 2004 election battle, and a year later Goldy used the new medium to destroy the candidacy of Ron Sims’ opponent. I remember sitting in the audience as Ron debated Ken Hutcherson on the issue of gay marriage, and I was amazed at how Sims took him apart in a most dignified manner. When Sims, the bloggers, and the Stranger writers all went out for drinks afterwards, Ron put his arm around me and recalled specific blog posts I had written. The guy cared, and he impressed me in a way other local pols didn’t.

**********

As quoted in Erica’s great article about the board’s deliberations, several members are still undecided:

Opinion on the Eastside is reportedly more divided, with several representatives waiting to make up their minds. Redmond Mayor John Marchione, who took his seat on the Sound Transit board just two weeks ago, says he’s been busy “talking to other board members and constituents” about their concerns with the proposal. “I’m very cognizant of the economy and what it might do this year—bad economies don’t produce positive votes on tax increases.” Marchione says he’s “disappointed that light rail doesn’t reach all the way to Microsoft,” but adds, “it might be a political necessity. People want to build this system in smaller bites and they want to see some success” before moving forward. Fred Butler, the deputy council president of Issaquah, meanwhile, says he’s “not really prepared to say one way or another,” although if pressured, “I’d probably say I lean just a little bit more toward 2008. But I have certainly not made up my mind and probably will not do so until I have to, in late March.”

No plan is perfect. In fact, one board member’s perfect plan is somebody else’s nightmare. Light rail won’t get to Redmond without getting across the lake first. Light rail won’t get to Everett without going to Northgate (and 145th St) first. I understand guys like Marchione and Butler. They’re looking out for their constituents, but Sound Transit has a regional mission.

Larry Phillips, from the Stranger’s story:

The only outliers among the King County delegation are reportedly King County Council Member Julia Patterson (who did not return a call for comment) and King County Executive Ron Sims, who has not been attending Sound Transit meetings. “He’s waiting for the perfect plan,” Phillips says derisively. Sims did not return a call for comment.

It was Ron himself who once said:

“You cannot tell people sitting in congestion that we’ll have another year of planning”

Time will tell if this is one more thing Ron has changed his mind about.

While Dino Rossi and his fellow Republicans travel the state bemoaning our hostile business climate and out-of-control government, Gov. Christine Gregoire’s administration keeps racking up top grades from impartial national observers. First Forbes Magazine (hardly a bastion of liberal propaganda) lauds Washington as “the big story” of its annual Top States for Business survey, documenting our rise from 12th to 5th place under Gov. Gregoire’s leadership, and now the Pew Center on the States grades Washington an A- for performance in its 2008 State Management Report Card… the top score awarded this year, shared by only Virginia and Utah. (Hat tip Andrew.)

How are those campaign themes working out for you, Dino?

Washington receives an A- or higher in three of four categories; only in Infrastructure does our state drop to a B+, and that less than stellar mark is largely due to a decades long deficit in public investment that the Gregoire administration is only beginning to turn around. And like the Forbes survey, the Pew report not only shows top performance, but progress under the current administration, with Washington improving from a B+ the last time the survey was conducted back in 2005:

Washington has been a consistent leader in results-based governance. It was ahead of nearly all other states in controlling spending by keeping track of where investments were and were not paying off. Under Governor Christine Gregoire, Washington’s government has, if anything, moved further ahead on this front.

Of course, Rossi’s dire warnings of administrative mismanagement and looming crisis are just the usual political bluster; after three years of ducking questions on nearly every contentious issue that has confronted our state, Rossi has little option but to attack Gov. Gregoire’s leadership. But as empty and misleading as the Republicans’ anti-Gregoire rhetoric has been, we can’t assume it won’t ultimately resonate with voters, for I’m guessing the governor’s top grades likely come as a surprise even to some of her most ardent supporters.

No doubt a lot of the blame for this public perception gap falls on the governor herself, for as good an administrator and negotiator as she’s proven to be, she’s not always been the best communicator. (Recent communications staff changes look awfully promising, but Gov. Gregoire could still learn some lessons in self-promotion from Attorney General Rob McKenna.) Whenever I have the opportunity to speak to top Democratic elected and party officials I always tell them that if the public doesn’t understand their accomplishments — if voters don’t appreciate the value they’re getting for their tax dollars — it’s because these officials are doing a crappy job of telling their story. 99 percent of political life is exceedingly dull, and the bureaucratic process is duller still, so crafting a narrative that reaches beyond the occasional crisis or partisan food fight yet still manages to shape the public debate, requires both creativity and relentlessness on the part of public officials and their staff.

Yet I couldn’t touch on this topic without also blaming our local press, for it is, in the end, their job to inform and educate the public on what is really happening in Olympia and the impact it has on families throughout the state, an assignment they routinely fail when it comes to reporting on our government’s successes. Oh, I’m not blaming the rank and file political reporters; I think they generally do a pretty good job with what limited resources they have… and it’s not their fault that “State Government Program Operates Smoothly” doesn’t exactly make for a compelling headline. Their job is to tell a story too, and crisis, corruption and mismanagement, when it occurs, makes for a helluva a better read than a tedious tale of government doing what, in fact, it is supposed to do.

No, I blame the editorial boards, for not only failing to place our government’s flaws in their proper context, but for occasionally, maliciously doing the exact opposite. Of course the op/ed pages are the place for publishers and editors to express their opinions, but the gatekeepers of the Fourth Estate have public obligations that should run deeper than those of a mere blogger. As purveyors of a journalistic paradigm that aspires toward impartiality and objectivity, editorial writers and columnists have a unique responsibility to reassert a sense of proportion unavoidably lost in the daily rush of headlines. I don’t expect newspapers to attempt to balance the bad news with good news — that would be pointless and boring — but if they are to strenuously avoid editorializing within their news reporting, then they have an obligation to balance the news on their editorial pages by providing a little context. At least, they should have this obligation if they expect to be taken seriously.

Take for example Kate Riley’s column today in the Seattle Times, “When it comes to open government, a sledgehammer is sorely needed“, a dire headline if there ever was one. According to Riley our public disclosure laws have “utterly eroded,” and much of the blame falls on Gov. Gregoire who has allegedly “slapped open-government advocates in the face.” Uh-huh. And what does the Pew report say on this subject in comparing Washington to the 49 other states?

Bottom line: No state in the nation is better at developing and sharing information than Washington.

I don’t disagree with Riley that the Legislature needs to act to address the potentially frivolous use of attorney-client privilege as an end-run around our public disclosure laws (though her column might have been more useful had it come before this session’s legislative cut-offs,) but the tone and tenor of her piece suggest a system that has fallen into complete disrepair at the hands of a secretive governor. It is, through its utter lack of context, a mean spirited and misleading column, perhaps appropriate to the pages of a partisan blog, but unworthy of the weight of credibility assumed the pages of our state’s largest newspaper. The Times will run few articles trumpeting the everyday successes of our public disclosure laws, and understandably so. But the least they can do when criticizing our government’s failures on their op/ed page is to present those failures within the proper context of its established record of success.

That the majority of Washingtonians don’t understand how well managed our state government is compared to other states is a failure of our local press. But grading on a national curve, I guess I have to bump their report card up to a C.

Lebanon

The Saudi Arabian embassy in Beirut has called on its nationals to leave Lebanon a day after a US warship was positioned off the country’s coast.

The embassy on Saturday sent SMS messages to Saudis living in Lebanon urging them to leave the country as soon as possible, Al Jazeera’s correspondent said.

Gaza

Israel vowed to press its campaign against militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday despite an international outcry over the deadly onslaught that prompted even the moderate Palestinian leadership to cut off all peace talks.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to continue the ground and air operation that has killed 71 Palestinians since Saturday following the death of one Israeli civilian last week and earned the Jewish state international condemnation for disproportionate use of force.

Iraq

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said in Baghdad on Sunday that the “Iranian and Iraqi nations will always stand by each other.”

In a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani, Ahmadinejad called his landmark visit to Iraq “a new page in the history of the relations between the two countries and cooperation in the region.”

The Iranian president arrived in Baghdad on Sunday morning and was received by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie.

Talabani, who grinned broadly and eagerly shook Ahmadinejad’s hand, called the visit “historic”, AFP reported.

Throughout this decade, we’ve been led to believe that the first two stories are examples of freedom being on the march, while the third example is a setback. In reality, they’re all setbacks, with the third story being the indication of the failure of the approach used in the first two.

Dino Rossi wasn’t a very good legislator:

In 1997-98 – He sponsored 19 bills and he got 1 passed.

In 1999-2000 – He sponsored 14 bills and got 2 passed.

The 2 he got passed? Senate Resolution 8683 which “applauded the dedication and work of all SCORE (Service Corp of Retired Executives) members.”

And the other was Resolution 8720, which recognized the “We the People Program.”

In 2001-2002 – He was 2/18. Rossi introduced 18 bills got 1 passed. One of those bills was another recognition for the “We the People Program.”

In 2003-2004 – He was 5/32. But two of those bills that passed had to do with the operating budget… you know, when he was “Following The Governor’s Lead”? So really he was 3 for 32 that year.

So in total what is Rossi’s legislative success rate? What does he have to show for seven years in Olympia? What track record to we have to go on when he says he is going to shake things up? Eighty-three bills introduced and seven that passed.

That is an 8% success rate. Pretty good for the football coach at the “Secondary School for Hemophiliacs,” but not so great for a legislator.

I’m filling in for Dave Ross this morning (and for the next 9 days) on News/Talk 710-KIRO. Here’s the show as it’s shaping up:

9AM: Does God hate “soft” men?
If so, I’m in trouble. Valerie Tarico, a Seattle psychologist and former fundamentalist Christian will join us by phone to tell what kind of preaching she’s heard in her survey of local churches. We’ve got a call out to Rev. Ken Hutcherson, hoping he can come on the show and explain to us his controversial take on gender roles: “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.” Because… um… Jesus loves you.

10AM: Is a “virtual” fence a real solution?
A $20 million, 28-mile, Boeing built “virtual fence” is ready for service along the US/Mexico border near Nogales, Arizona, and the Minutemen outraged, saying “virtual fencing is virtually useless. Minuteman National Executive Director Al Garza joins me by phone to make his argument for a double-layered physical barrier along our entire Southern border.

11AM: Ralph Nader is running! (Who cares?)
Ralph Nader announced yesterday that he is running for president, surprising absolutely nobody. The man credit by some with playing spoiler and throwing the election George W. Bush, claims that he is to “shift the power from the few to the many,” but netroots activists like me remain dubious. 100,000 Washington voters cast their ballot for Ralph Nader back in 2000, and one of them was former Seattle City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck; he joins us to give us his current opinion of Nader and his candidacy.

Tune in this morning (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

Over on Slog, Josh writes about outgoing state Sen. Brian Weinstein and his quest to pass his Home Buyer’s Bill of Rights before he retires at the end on this session. Some had suggested Sen. Weinstein was using his Senate committee to hold hostage a condo conversion bill recently passed by the House; Sen. Weinstein, a consumer protection champion, denies the two are related, telling Josh “I expect to pass it.”

He also said he had a good meeting with House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43, Capitol Hill) about the homeowners’ rights bill. Last year, Weinstein accused Chopp of caving to the BIAW by snuffing Weinstein’s homeowner bill.

He didn’t say Chopp promised to move the bill forward, but he did say: “It was a good discussion. He asked good questions and it was a good meeting. Last year at this time, the bill was dead.”

Oh to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. Sen. Weinstein has a well deserved reputation as a tough negotiator, but what kind of leverage can a retiring senator hold over our famously risk-averse House Speaker?

Well, the buzz amongst the consumer protection community is that Sen. Weinstein has been quietly talking about possibly unretiring should his bill fail to get through the Legislature this session… potentially creating a very messy Democratic primary battle between an incumbent senator and newly minted Democrat, Rep. Fred Jarrett.

Did Sen. Weinstein make this threat to Speaker Chopp? I’ve got no idea, but it certainly would be a doozy. Sen. Weinstein, for all his merits, can be a bit abrasive, and I’ve heard that our amiable Speaker doesn’t like him all that much — so buying Weinstein a one-way ticket out of Olympia might be well worth the price of the bill to both Chopp and the BIAW. And the last thing Speaker Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown want at this late stage in the game is to have their neatly arranged 41st LD races thrown into disarray. The Democrat seeking to replace Jarrett in the House, Renton’s Marcie Maxwell, is no sure thing, and a Godzilla versus Mothra battle for the Senate seat would surely draw money and resources out of the House race.

The easiest way to avoid this mess is to pass Sen. Weinstein’s bill, which merely gives buyers of new construction a minimum legal warranty on the biggest purchase they’ll ever make in their lives. (Two years on materials and workmanship, ten years on structural defects.) And what’s so wrong about that?

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

I won’t be there tonight, but Open Left’s Matt Stoller apparently will, so there will be more than enough blogger mojo to make up for my absence.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s thirteen Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.