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I hadn’t read this New York Times piece on the GOP takeover of the Washington State Senate until today. It’s pretty much a standard recap, but I hadn’t heard Tim Sheldon’s view that Jay Inslee doesn’t represent the state.

“Seattle-centric,” said Senator Tim Sheldon, a two-decade veteran lawmaker and Democrat from a district west of Olympia, summing up the combination of forces that alienated him: safe seats in Seattle, campaign money raised in safe seats but spread around, and a caucus that rewards and reinforces the safe-seat equation with powerful leadership posts. “They’re not representative of the state,” he said.

The fact that Gov.-elect Jay Inslee, a former Democratic congressman, will take office in January having won majorities in only eight liberal counties* while losing in the other 31 only bolstered the case for change, said Mr. Sheldon, who said he voted for Mr. Inslee’s opponent, Rob McKenna, the state’s attorney general and a Republican.

He lost the counties 8 to 31, but we don’t vote by county. We have human beings vote. And the human beings pretty easily supported Inslee. To imply that Jay Inslee is less representative of Washington because he didn’t do as well in Adams or Mason counties is the height arrogance.

Those of us who live in Seattle, in addition to funding the schools in Tim Sheldon’s district, in addition to funding social services in his district, have the right to vote. If Tim Sheldon is out of step with the state as a whole when we vote for governor, well, maybe that’s because the state is more Seattle centric than he is.

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As I said in today’s Open Thread, McGinn announced the next step on the Missing Link. So it’s that Seattle will conduct an Environmental Impact Statement.

“We are eager to complete the Missing Link, and conducting a full EIS is the best way to break the legal log jam on this project,” said McGinn. “We are also moving ahead on safety improvements on the street that can be implemented quickly to help everyone share the road.”

“For over a decade the City has been working to complete the Burke-Gilman Trail. I am confident that with careful planning both bicyclists and freight and industrial traffic will be able to co-exist successfully in Ballard,” said Rasmussen, chair of the City Council’s Transportation Committee.

“The Burke-Gilman Trail is a busy, multi-use trail that provides an important connection to residents and businesses in Ballard. I’m glad to see that the City is moving ahead with its plans to close the Missing Link and with these other safety improvements,” said Davidya Kasperzyk, Founding Board Member of Friends of the Burke-Gilman Trail.

For the past decade and a half or so, I’ve been skeptical and excited about the next step on the missing link pretty much whatever the next step is. So hopefully the EIS will get done and we can finally go ahead on completing it. But who knows?

I’ve been thinking about what the state can do as far as gun control in the next session. Most sensible regulations will get caught up in Rodney Tom’s GOP Senate. And I’m not sure I’d want to test our state constitution or the current US Supreme Court, even now. But it seems to me that we could probably fine the gun manufacturers for every death by a gun in Washington.

I’m thinking something large enough that it would impact their bottom line, but not enough that it would put them out of business. So every murder, every suicide, every hunting accident, every police officer shooting that ends with a death gets, say, a $2000 fine for the manufacturer of that gun assessed at the end of each year. Doesn’t matter if it was legally purchased, stolen, or whatever — you made the gun, you pay a price.

We can use the money to go to gun safety programs if you like. Or victim compensation. I’d be fine with just putting it in the general fund, but I wouldn’t want the legislature to become dependent on it, since the goal is to have it not produce any money. In any event where the money goes isn’t as important as getting it in the first place.

A fee like that would encourage gun manufacturers to make their guns in a way that won’t be involved in killings any more. A problem with regulation is that the manufacturers will just do the minimum. Putting a direct cost on dead people will encourage them to make guns that won’t cause problems, and will let the market decide what’s the most effective way.

If the best way to prevent gun deaths is safety training, the manufacturers will invest in that. If it’s locks or fingerprint technology, the manufacturers will invest in that. If it’s designing guns that are fine for hunting, but bad for school shootings or street crime, they’ll do that. If it’s just not having super, super irresponsible ads,* they’ll do that. In any event, let’s put a price on dead people and make the people who manufactured the tool of death pay.

All that said, I know that the legislature probably won’t do that with a GOP senate that has a pretty gun loving chair of the Law and Justice Committee. And depending on what the courts say it might need a 2/3 majority since it’s a fee; if that does happen, put it on the ballot.

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A week before Christmas seems like a not great time to announce you’re running for mayor. But fine whatever. Another ostensible liberal who zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. No I’m awake. Another candidate for mayor:

A former president of the Greenwood Community Council, who’s carved out a niche as an advocate for neighborhood organizing and education reform, Martin tells The Stranger that she’ll file paperwork this week to run for mayor. A Seattle resident since 1979, Martin runs her own design firm after getting a BA in landscape architecture at the State University of New York.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Oh what? No I’m awake. I’m awake. zzzzzzz

“I think I have a pretty nice menu of supporters… I take time to analyze issues and understand both side of the argument,” says Martin, eschewing the policy briefings she says her competitors rely on. “I think that people know that. I have a conscience. And I also have a spine.”

Oh great. Awesome eschewing of cliche. Neat. I’m zzzzzzzzzzz.

1 Corinthians 7:2-9
Each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband because of sexual immorality. The husband should meet his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should do the same for her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Don’t refuse to meet each other’s needs unless you both agree for a short period of time to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come back together again so that Satan might not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I’m saying this to give you permission; it’s not a command. I wish all people were like me, but each has a particular gift from God: one has this gift, and another has that one.

I’m telling those who are single and widows that it’s good for them to stay single like me. But if they can’t control themselves, they should get married, because it’s better to marry than to burn with passion.

Discuss.

Joel Connelly has the details on the public comment period for the coal train hearing next Thursday.

Previous “scoping sessions” in Whatcom, Skagit and Spokane Counties — held by the Washington Dept. of Ecology, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Whatcom County — have drawn overflow crowds.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, and other Northwest Washington mayors, have warned about the disruption of having a succession of mile-long coal trains, bound for Cherry Point, move along the waterfronts of their cities each day. McGinn worries that after waiting for one long train to go by, waterfront traffic lineups won’t be able to clear in time for the next train.

“Transportation impacts evolve into economic impacts,” McGinn said this week.

I’m opposed to the coal trains, but if they run them, I hope the city and the state have a plan to mitigate the traffic and coal dust. So come on out and make your voice heard.

The Dec. 13 meeting in Seattle will be held at the Washington State Convention Center, Ballroom 6f. The ballroom has a capacity of 3,500 people. Doors will open at 3:30 for people to find seats, and to put down their names for the upcoming drawings.

I hate to make promises about these things, especially because I haven’t done the proper inquiries about media, but I think I’m going to live blog it.

Rob McKenna’s wife is right about marriage equality (h/t).

In an email to The Seattle Times, Marilyn McKenna added that while she and her husband disagree on the subject, they respect each other’s opinions. “I believe that being pro-gay marriage is completely consistent with being a Republican too. It’s a matter of personal choice that the government has no right to interfere in,” she wrote.

She added in a second email: “Both the government and the Republican Party need to get the hell out of people’s bedrooms and get a life!”

Great. I mean sure. I’m glad to have Republicans on board the human decency train. Of course that’s easy enough to say after marriage equality passed, and when it’s a done deal. I hope this is part of a genuine reassessment on the part of the GOP, but I fear they’ll be just as backwards on whatever is the next issue of basic dignity in the state as they mostly were on this one.

Dear Senators,

Congratulation, assholes, for blocking the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities yesterday. You done “real good!”

Let’s see…you further narrowed your alarmingly narrow base:

If you thought the Republican Party only tries to appeal to well-off, married, white suburban and rural Christian men, boy are you wrong. The Republican Party tried to appeal only to well-off, white, suburban and rural able-bodied Christian men.

Nice!

In rejecting the treaty, you spit in the face of both former Sen. Bob Dole and former President George H.W. Bush—you know, the guy who signed the American With Disabilities Act, that serves as model law for signatory states. Oh…and George W. Bush, whose administration negotiated the treaty in the first place, and who first signed the treaty.

Really, nice work!

Instead you cast your lot with the fringe extremists of your party—the American Taliban, if you will. And the American Taliban’s top General is Senator Rick Santorum, who convinced you to reject the treaty because:

…parents and caregivers care most deeply and are best equipped to care for the disabled. Not international bureaucrats.

Except that the treaty does not put “international bureaucrats” in charge of children with disabilities. The very idea completely contradicts the words and spirit of the treaty (try reading it, ya nutjobbers!), which is almost entirely about countries agreeing to pass laws ensuring people with disabilities receive the same opportunities that are enjoyed by persons without disabilities.

Santorum’s overt lie misinformation about the treaty is strikingly similar to, and as absurd as, Sarah Palin’s 2009 lie-of-the-year award winning, repeatedly debunked “Obama’s Death Panels” crazy talk.

Santorum also frets:

Another example of this U.N. overreach is the treaty’s “best interests of the child” standard, which states in full: “In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”

But here is what the treaty says:

Article 7 – Children with disabilities

• States Parties shall take all necessary measures to ensure the full enjoyment by children with disabilities of all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with other children.
• In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

Wow…I can see how considering the best interests of the child in passing laws to ensure equality of “full human rights and fundamental freedoms” might threaten the fuck out of you. The little rugrats might try to vote!

And it isn’t just General Santorum. Some of you bought the bullshit of General Tony Perkins:

“The global community could force America to sanction sterilization or abortion for the disabled–at taxpayer expense,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Actually, what the treaty says is:

Article 23 – Respect for home and the family

1. States Parties shall take effective and appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against persons with disabilities in all matters relating to marriage, family, parenthood and relationships, on an equal basis with others, so as to ensure that:

a. The right of all persons with disabilities who are of marriageable age to marry and to found a family on the basis of free and full consent of the intending spouses is recognized;

b. The rights of persons with disabilities to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to age-appropriate information, reproductive and family planning education are recognized, and the means necessary to enable them to exercise these rights are provided;

c. Persons with disabilities, including children, retain their fertility on an equal basis with others.

Literally, the treaty encourages countries to provide the same reproductive options to persons with disabilities as are available to persons without disabilities. But Tony Perkins is a well known lying sack of shit uninformed dissembling nutjob. So…”good job” there.

And that’s not all. You:

…bought the bogus argument that to vote for the U.N. treaty would mean that the U.N. committee overseeing the ban on discrimination against the disabled, including children, could violate the rights of American parents who decide to home school their disabled children.

Nuh-huh. What the treaty does do is ensure that children with disabilities have the same rights to schooling, including home schooling that children without disabilities have.

This “home schooling” concern can only be considered the rantings of lunatics who have not read the fucking treaty. That likely includes YOU and up to 37 of your esteemed, lunatic colleagues!

That’s not the craziest thing of all. The stupefyingly crazy thing comes from a whole other collection of wackjobs: The “U.N. sovereignty over the U.S.” conspiracy theorists. Santorum, of course, hinted at this.

Since the treaty is really designed to get countries to pass laws essentially modeled after the American With Disabilities Act, ratification of the treaty by the U.S. would really only subject the U.S. to a quadrennial reporting requirement. So, thank you, Senators, for saving us from the tyranny of writing the Easiest. Report. Ever. every four years.

Now that you have saved us from the autocracy of U.N. bureaucrats performing abortions and forced sterilization on home-schooled babies with disabilities, it’s time to move on the other important things.

You know…like outing high ranking government officials who are members of the New World Order (or the Muslim Brotherhood). Or revealing the truth about aliens and Area 51. And, for Pete’s sake, finally nailing Bill and Hillary Clinton for the death of Vince Foster!

Get to it!

Verily,
Darryl
Horsesass.org

– ACORN are still scary.

– Back to marrying couples for the first time since 2004.

– We’ve seen remarkable reductions in pedestrian collisions since the start of the Center City Holiday Pedestrian Safety Campaign four years ago – down on average 34 percent – but even one collision is too many.

– As a Hillary Clinton partisan in 2008, and probably one again if she runs, Joan Walsh’s note of skepticism is pretty much correct.

– It will surprise nobody that Patty Murray’s priorities for the debt negotiations are better than many of her colleagues.

– Lynwood missing link.

– Fuck you Boston and San Francisco.

In my last job, I was a software test manager for a company that did most of its work out of Omaha. As a result, I developed some good friendships with the engineers there, and even after that job came to an end, I’ve been able to keep in touch with them over Facebook. About a month before the election, I saw a photo of one of my ex-co-workers, with a bunch of his buddies, sitting around the couch getting ready to watch the Cornhuskers take on Ohio State. There’s nothing unusual about that for someone living in Omaha, but what struck me was that he was born and raised in India, and the nearly 10 people in his living room were Indian-Americans as well.

It’s not news to anyone that America’s demographics continue to change. But when we talk about it in terms of politics, this trend can be hidden. Asian-Americans are now a significant voting bloc in this country, and they’ve been voting more and more Democratic in the past two decades.

Goldy posted recently about the post-mortem on Rob McKenna’s failed campaign. Republicans blame a lack of support from the national GOP, but Goldy points out that McKenna still had more money to work with. Jay Inslee just put his money towards more effective GOTV efforts rather than the silly ads that polluted the airwaves in October.

A lot of variables go into an electoral outcome, and Goldy’s certainly right that the Democrats in this state have a strong edge in GOTV and ground game. But I’m growing more and more convinced that the most significant event in this campaign was the incident in July involving a staff member with an anti-Asian tweet in her Twitter feed.

For a Republican like Rob McKenna to win in this state, he has to be completely invulnerable to being seen as a typical GOP extremist. For the most part, McKenna has always been very good at this. But finding out that a staffer had sent an offensive tweet and then taking a few days before forcing her resignation was his biggest blunder on that front.

This incident tied McKenna to one of the ugliest traits of the GOP in recent years – xenophobia – and it certainly resonated with the large Asian-American population in this state. Looking at the polling for this year, you can see that the polls abruptly shifted in Inslee’s direction right at the time that this incident occurred (week of July 16-20) and never went back.

Recently, Josh Marshall at TPM has been discussing this topic and received this note from an Indian-American in Iowa:

And as time went on, it became clear in other polling that PPP early on was on to more than just snarky telephone survey replies, there really is a disturbingly large percentage of Republicans who are openly hostile to Obama specifically because of his race, his national origin, and his partial religious ancestry. That GOP electeds from Boehner to McConnell to all the GOP Presidential candidates were unwilling to call out any of it just reinforced the point, since it established they were afraid because these people were a very large part of the GOP base. You don’t worry about calling out your own party’s cranks in public if they’re marginal figures whose votes you don’t need and don’t think you’ll lose because they have no other options…Republican candidates and electeds know that they can lose primaries for openly challenging racial and other bigoted hostility toward Obama. And all this is very personal to me. When I was a small child in Ames, Iowa, in my immigrant family, neighborhood teenagers assaulted our home regularly, pelting fruit and whatever else at our house. Several times my dad had the police come and lecture this group of kids. It was all about race, and these kids’ parents did nothing. So when Mitt Romney in a Michigan stump speech snarks that no one asked him for his birth certificate, and his GOP allies defend the racism as “just a joke,” when so many GOP federal and state electeds endorse or tacitly condone questioning of Obama’s citizenry and engage in other dog whistle racism, these are always personal attacks equally on me…if Obama is not an American and does not legitimately belong, then they’re saying the same about me. I imagine I’m not alone, that people of color across the board see what I see, and the election results confirm this.

There’s nothing more damaging to the GOP right now that the (well-earned) reputation that they’re beholden to an intolerant base, one that still defines American-ness through skin color, religion and ethnicity, not by culture and upbringing. And I’m convinced that a single intolerant thought from a brainless staffer dragged Rob McKenna too far into that cesspool.

In the Huffington Post, Lucia Graves repeats one of the biggest myths of the entire I-502 campaign:

As voters in Washington state this month legalized marijuana for recreational use, they overrode the concerted lobbying of a conspicuous interest group: The dispensaries that already had the right to sell marijuana for medical use, and who now risk relinquishing that lucrative marketplace to new competitors.

Though one might assume that legalization would be opposed primarily by law enforcement and social conservatives, nearly all of the money donated to fight the ballot measure in Washington came not from such groups but rather from the existing medical marijuana industry, according to state campaign contribution filings.

All things told, the anti-502 forces dabbled in far more fantasy and myth-making than those who supported the initiative. But the idea that the anti-502 crowd was simply a bunch of greedy dispensary owners trying to protect their turf was also a fantasy. As a supporter of the initiative, I mostly bit my tongue throughout the campaign over this point, but now that the vote passed, I feel compelled to kill off this myth once and for all.

The opposition to I-502 from the activist and medical marijuana community had two primary reasons. First, it was a result of various aspects of the bill. The per se DUI provisions were a very big part of that, but so was the lack of home growing and the 1 ounce possession limit. What New Approach Washington (the group behind I-502) saw as necessary regulations to appeal to undecided voters, many activists and medical marijuana patients saw as new open doors for the police to go after medical marijuana patients and even regular users.

The second reason was due to longtime internal divisions in the state’s activist community. When Sensible Washington was trying to get a legalization initiative on the ballot in 2010, an expected source of funding mysteriously dried up at the last minute. At the time, I tried to investigate (this was long before I had any affiliation with the group), but couldn’t get anyone to divulge what happened. The leaders of Sensible Washington blamed Alison Holcomb (who eventually founded New Approach Washington), and since then, there’s been a serious rift in the community between the two groups. If you look at the folks who were most outspoken in opposition to I-502 this year, almost all of them had some affiliation with Sensible Washington. In fact, they even wrote the No on I-502 argument for the voter’s guide.

In her post, Graves writes about how the funding for the opposition came primarily from the medical marijuana community, but that’s only because the opposition received almost no funding at all. The I-502 campaign raised $5.6 million, compared to the opposition’s $16,000. If the medical marijuana dispensaries were in such a lucrative marketplace and needed to guard their turf, they could’ve scared up far more than $16,000.

Beyond that, Graves is simply incorrect when she talks about “dispensaries that already had the right to sell marijuana for medical use”. Dispensaries in Washington state are still technically illegal (thanks to Governor Gregoire’s veto in 2011). It’s only in Seattle and a limited few other places where the authorities have generally looked the other way. In that environment, it’s possible that some folks were making good money, but just about any of those people would stand to benefit far more by becoming a totally above-board dispensary that sold to everyone. If anyone was opposing I-502 because they wanted to keep a system where they were quasi-legal and could only sell to a smaller segment of the population, they’re likely too dumb to stay in business for that long anyway.

Sadly, one of the biggest purveyors of this myth was our friend Dominic Holden from The Stranger. Back in April, he wrote this in the New York Times:

In late February, Dr. Gil Mobley, a physician with a local clinic providing medical-marijuana authorizations, began a campaign called No on I-502, a new name for a group that, before, called itself Patients Against I-502. It anticipates donations from lawyers and doctors, said its treasurer, Anthony Martinelli, and pot dispensaries may also finance a fall volley of television commercials.

Needless to say, the pot dispensaries never did that. There wasn’t a single anti-502 television ad made. And Holden never explained what basis he had for saying that. He never quoted any dispensary operators who opposed it. Nor did he explain what Mobley’s financial motive was. In fact, because I-502 bans home grows for non-patients, Mobley’s clinic will likely see increased profits from folks who still want a doctor to authorize their green thumb to cure whatever ails them. And at no point this year did anyone manage to explain how it made financial sense for the state’s few dispensary operators to oppose I-502.

At the end of Graves’ article, she quotes several dispensary operators who opposed the measure, and they all repeated what has long been known:

Trek Hollnagel, a spokesman for the Conscious Care Cooperative in Northern Seattle, also dismissed the notion that his dispensary fought the measure out of self-interest, saying that while the law does take away some patient “rights” — he again cited the provision on driving — he added it’s a victory to a certain extent, because there will be some form of arrest protection for everybody.

“I would say it’s kind of a mixed emotion,” Hollnagel said.

Hollnagel continued that the new law might be good for business, because it would make patients feel more comfortable about seeking help.

“In my professional opinion I think this will be beneficial for the cannabis industry as far as the dispensaries and all aspects of business go,” he said.

A lot of people don’t want to believe this for one reason or another, but it was the truth. Dispensary operators were somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place. They had customers who vehemently opposed the measure (and who on Facebook tried to identify dispensaries who didn’t oppose it and organize boycotts), but also knew that I-502 would have some pretty serious benefits as well. In the end, most dared not offend their customers. And now that I-502 has passed, a lot of them could potentially make a lot more money in a fully regulated system.

SlateTV: The GOP’s mad rush to immigration reform.

Ed: Republicans try to reinvent themselves with minority voters.

The Losers Weepers:

• Maddow: Republicans begin their purge.
• Jonathan Mann: Karl Rove goes nuts.
• Ann Telnaes: Mitt blames gifts.
• Sam Seder: Mitt Romney blames loss on Obama’s “gifts.”
• Jon on Bill-O the Clown and the end of Traditional America.
• Thom: The Ryan excuse.
• Maddow: Leaderless…some Republicans learning 2012 lessons better than others
• SlateTV: Romney’s bitter excuses.
• Young Turks: Romney’s postmortem ‘gifts’ excuse.
• Republicans need to stop being the stupid party.
• The boy who couldn’t handle it.
• SlateTV: Secession Petitions of the disgruntled.
• Young Turks: ME GOP Chair, “Hundreds of Black people committed Voter Fraud!!!
• Letterman: Top ten Romney Scapegoats (via Crooks and Liars).
• Sam Seder: Maine G.O.P. chair on “dozens of Blacks” seen voting.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: What the G.O.P. needs from Romney.
• Thom: Mitt Romney couldn’t be Santa
• Buzz60: three signs Republicans haven’t learned from their losses….
• Maddow: Romney’s final insult to the American public.
• Jon: Look who’s still talking!
• Young Turks: the Obama ‘mind control’ conspiracy
• Liberal Viewer: Right wing crazies lost Romney the election.:
• Jon and Kristen Schaal married and single women voting their viginas
• Mitt Romney “explains” his loss (via Slog).

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Sam Seder: So long, Twinkies.

The five funniest campaign videos of 2012.

Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Mark Fiore: Newly frugal guy!

Young Turks: Rep. Allen West loses election & his grip with reality.

The Petraeus Surge:

• Jon: Never saw it coming
• SlateTV: Wikipedia entry mentions Broadwell-Petraeus affair in January
• Young Turks: Pat Robertson excuses the General.
• ONN: Petraeus is just a start.
• TV fail: All (up) In(my snatch)?!?
• Ann Telnaes: Your privacy.

Monika Eckhart goes to Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers’ Office.

Rush Limbaugh goes all apoplectic over a Twinkie joke petition!

Thom with the Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Pap and Katrina Vanden Heuvel: Obama should get tough against GOP obstruction.

Super-duper-scandal of All Time:

• SlateTV: McCain snaps at reporter.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: tears into Graham and McCain for hypocrisy on Rice appointment:
• Anderson Cooper whumps Rep. Rohrabacher on Benghazi, “What you’re saying is factually not correct”
• Al Sharpton: What the hell is going on with John McCain??
• Ed: Bitter, hypocrite John McCain wants details, yet skips Benghazi briefing.

White House: West Wing Week.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Rewriting a blatant, malicious FAUX News conspiracy theory

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

I’m really confused why the first third or so of this Jean Godden piece was written. I like Godden’s writing for the most part, but this is both forced and unnecessary.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd thinks the players in the Petraeus scandal are like Shakespeare’s MacBeth and Othello.

Every once in a while, Maureen Dowd’s editors will mention to her, “hey maybe don’t shoehorn quite so many references to the movie you just saw into a political analysis when you write your next column.” And rather than seeing that as a request to not shoehorn any piece of fiction into her column on current events, she decides it’s ol’ Shakespeare’s turn. I’ve mostly stopped reading her, but I remember it seemed for years that any mention of Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Lady Macbeth reference.

A better analogy would be to another Shakespearean general: Coriolanus.

Even better would be to realize that this is a pointless effort and to either just write something about Petraeus, or to write about Seattle, since that’s what people go to Godden’s page for.

Shakespearean tragedies are defined by fatal character faults. MacBeth’s was envy; Othello’s was jealousy. Coriolanus, on the other hand, was driven by ambition. And that certainly seems to loom large in the Tragedy of Gen. David Petraeus: a man motivated, from the beginning, by ambition. He wowed them at West Point and climbed the social ladder by wedding the West Point Superintendent’s daughter. He climbed the ranks to earn his fourth star and embraced fame as a military idol.

I guess I should mention that there are spoilers for a play written in the early 1600’s coming up. I’d recommend the movie version of Coriolanus that came out last year if you haven’t seen it.

Anyway, OK, I see it now. When Caius Martius wins victory at Corioli it’s the same as when Petraeus married someone’s daughter. Oh, maybe it’s that his surge strategies in 2 countries killed a lot of people something something “this butterfly was a grub.” No! Here it is! Here it is: CIA drone strikes are when he teams up with Aufidius and, and, nope, I lost it. Shit.

He didn’t travel alone. He once arrived at a party (hosted by Tampa socialite Jill Kelley) at the head of a 28-car motorcade. He obviously liked having his attractive biographer Paula Broadwell hang on his every word. That he dallied with Broadwell is not too surprising given that she crafted a book that gushes with admiration.

You know what. Dude hooks up with someone too young for him. Nobody would approve, least of all their families. Lots of death follows the main character. For real, it’s a secret marriage and a couple suicides away from Romeo and Juliet. So that’s a better shoehorn! I win.

Um, I guess I should have had two spoiler alerts?

Anyway, then she gets away from the absurd comparison to describe life as a military brat her perception of military culture and says that too many people have died in Afghanistan. I have nothing against the former and agree with the later, so let’s end there.

I guess it’s good for Washington that Representative McMorris Rodgers will be the House Republican Conference Chair. I mean she’s terrible but so would anyone the GOP would pick for that role. So sure, she’s a bit better than the average GOP member at going on the Sunday shows and explaining why their garbage positions are totally awesome. So sure, good on her.

McMorris Rodgers was named chair of the House Republican Conference in a secret-ballot contest. She was vice chair.

McMorris Rodgers defeated Tom Price of Georgia, who was endorsed by vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as well as Jeb Hensarling of Texas, McMorris Rodgers’ predecessor as conference chair.

The Seattle Times published a dreadful Op-Ed by Joe Delmore, a Seattle-based freelance writer. Delmore is mourning the defeat of Rob McKenna:

…it will continue what amounts to one-party rule of the governor’s office. Not since 1980, when an almost-forgotten John Spellman won the governorship, has a Republican gained the state’s highest office.

Because of this three-decade dry spell, Washington has gone longer than any other state in the union without having a Republican governor, according to The Weekly Standard.

Delmore does recognize part of the problem:

Like the national party, the state’s GOP has become more conservative, even reactionary, on cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage.

…but then he fails in trying to draw a parallel to the Democrats:

It’s also true that the Democratic Party has become rigidly partisan on these same cultural issues.

The Democrat’s position on abortion and gay marriage are pretty much mainstream positions, with a bit of forward-thinking social policy thrown in. In contrast, the position of many state Republicans amounts to going backward to the social policy of the 1950. Hardly equivalent.

Are there solutions? Delmore points out:

Secretary of State Sam Reed, one of the few Republicans to win statewide office, says the party must learn to appeal to more centrist voters. Former Republican state chairman Chris Vance said the party needs to know what it takes to win independents and win elections. “It is not enough to appeal to the base,” he asserted.

Both men are spot on. Moderate Republicans have become increasingly irrelevant in this state as the Clint Diddiers and John Kosters have become noisier and angrier.

But Delmore doesn’t buy it:

Those are views of a big-tent party, but won’t solve the problem for Republicans. Republicans must still remember their pragmatic conservative roots based on the fundamental values of hard work and enterprise, a belief in God and fiscal conservatism. Those quite valid ideas still attract people from all walks of life.

Ignoring that positions of the current crop of noisy Republicans bear no resemblance to true conservationism, Delmore’s prescription for Republicans seems to be, “more of the same, except for social issues.”

But isn’t this precisely what voters rejected in this past election? McKenna has always downplayed social issues. And before McKenna, Dino Rossi tried, albeit less successfully, to do the same thing. And Mike!™ McGavick, who the Seattle Times’ Joni Balter labled as taking a limited pro-choice stance, was all about hard work and enterprise. Washington voters weren’t buying what these Republicans were selling…even without the social issues.

Two closing comments. First, Delmore’s lamentations about “one party rule” ring hollow. We have these things called elections where (typically) a Republican and a Democratic candidate ends up facing off in a General election. Each candidate puts their ideas forward. The people vote for what they find compelling.

Republicans have a thirty year gubernatorial losing streak because their ideas and candidates have not resonated with the voters. The ideas and candidates from the Democratic side have.

Republicans aren’t going to start winning by embracing and shoring-up their conservative creds, while downplaying social issues. They’ve been there, done that. And failed.

Lastly, I found Mr. Delmore’s biosketch a bit odd (my emphasis):

Joe Delmore, a registered Independent, is writing a book on contemporary politics….

A “registered independent,” huh? I wonder what state he’s living in?