Search Results for: Reichert

David Horsey has a commentary in Sunday’s Seattle PI on Rep. Jim McDermott, Rep. Jay Inslee, and Rep. Dave Reichert. At one point, while interviewing Reichert, Horsey gives us a telling glimpse into the eyes and soul of Sheriff Hairspray:

[Reichert] described a meeting with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan during which one of her companions pointedly asked Reichert how many more soldiers’ lives he was willing to sacrifice to the Iraq War.

Recreating the moment, Reichert trained his hardest gaze on me as if I was that upstart activist and said, “That question offends me. Do you know how many partners I’ve lost as a cop?”

What the hell? What does the number of police partners Reichert lost have to do with soldiers dying in Iraq? And where is the offence in a concerned citizen pointing out that (1) soldiers are dying in Iraq and (2) as a Congressman, Reichert shares in the oversight responsibility, and consequences, for our actions in Iraq?

I have several theories about Reichert’s inappropriate (if not bizarre) response. I’ll call them the stupid theory, the fiction theory and the unmanaged anger theory.

The stupid theory is that Riechert simply fucking up his own talking point. He meant to use a talking point along the lines of this one from his DaveReichertForCongress web site:

We may disagree on the timeframe of that, but as a police officer who has lost friends and partners in the line of duty, I do understand how difficult it is for society to make sacrifices in the name of freedom and keeping Americans safe.

Nothing in the written version of the talking point would suggest that Reichert could be offended, per se, by the peace activist’s question. If the web site properly captures the position, Reichert should have sympathetically disagreed—something like this: “I understand your concern about more soldiers losing their life in the line of duty–I’ve experienced the tragedy of losing law enforcement partners. Still, I disagree with you about the best way to achieve a free and safe America in a way that minimizes such sacrifices.” Instead, Reichert forgot or misunderstood the proper response, and invoked faux outrage instead of sympathy.

The fiction theory is that the event didn’t really happen this way at all. Rather, the details given to Horsey constituted a “creative intrepertation” of a more mundane exchange. The purpose was simply to use the interview with Horsey as another opportunity to shape his image as playing the staring role in “Tough Guy Sheriff Goes to Washington.” We’ve seen this before from Reichert…you know, like the bus driver flipping the bird at Bush incident where Reichert bragged before a group of Republicans only to change the story to something more mundane when the “tough guy” version looked damaging.

The unmanaged anger theory is that Reichert really was insulted and outraged, and, therefore, responded irrationally. Reichert is widely known for being sensitive to criticism, being overly defensive when his failures are brought to light, and having a short fuse. In the face of such “insolence,” I can imagine Reichert reacting with a mixture of anger and defensiveness that clouded is thinking, resulting in a response that was a non sequitur. How dare they blame him for deaths in the Iraq war!

We saw this behavior in 2004 when Reichert walked out on a debate and refused future debates with his Republican primary challengers. We saw a little bit of this anger during the 2006 campaign season in his debate with Darcy Burner.

While still King County Sheriff, Reichert sometimes displayed this type of behavior. For example, after an African American man killed a white officer (Deputy Richard Herzog) with his own gun in 2002, Reichert made a series of bizarre media statements. As Geov Parrish put it:

King County Sheriff Dave Reichert bristled last week after the fatal shooting of deputy Richard Herzog—a white officer, allegedly “executed” by a naked, unarmed African-American man with the officer’s own gun. Here’s Reichert: “I’m just going to be blunt about it and get to the point: Race isn’t important. . . . We’re sick and tired of being labeled as racist.”

In other words, Reichert equated discussing race with calling people racists. And then he shut down all discussion.

The sheriff has since backpedaled….

At the time, I was struck by Reichert’s repeated use of the word “execution” to describe the actions of Herzog’s killer. The naked, stoned-out-of-his-gord killer shot Herzog during a struggle after Herzog’s gun fell out of its holster…not particularly the circumstances that go with the word “execution.”

Reichert’s lashing out at the media came on the heals of criticism after Seattle Police shot and killed Aaron Roberts, an African American man. Reichert’s angry, illogical statements prompted the Seattle Times (22 June 2002) to editoralize…

King County Sheriff Dave Reichert irresponsibly lobbed his own grenade when he rushed past an official denunciation of the killing to rail against African- American leaders who have frequently charged law enforcement with using excessive force against minorities. The sheriff’s emotions later cooled to those more befitting a leader, but it was too late. A debate has begun whether the region has seen its first incident of reverse racial profiling: the executing of white police officers by black men….

During Reichert’s entire career as a cop, only five King County officers died in the line of duty. Herzog’s death was the only non-accidental death of an officer in the line of duty under Reichert’s administration. (The only other death was of Deputy Mark W. Brown who died in a motorcycle accident in 1999.)

No doubt, Reichert took Herzog’s death hard. But there was more to it—the King County Sheriff’s office (i.e. Riechert) was taking some heat in Herzog’s death. His death was avoidable. Herzog was killed with his own handgun, in part, because he was allowed to carry a holster not designed for his weapon. The result was that his weapon fell out of the holster during the struggle. Later the state Department of Labor and Industries investigated the incident and fined the King County Sheriff’s Office for safety violations. The root of the problem was mismanagement and a failure to follow established procedure (Seattle Times Sep 9, 2005, B3). (Reichert appealed the Labor and Industries decision and lost.)

Reichert’s statements to the media following Herzog’s death were made under a cocktail of sorrow, some guilt, and denial. And he reacted angrily and irrationally.

My hunch is that Reichert’s reaction to the peace activist involved that same cocktail of sorrow, guilt, and denial. By pointing out the Congressman’s shared responsibility for the death of American soldiers in Iraq, the activist triggered the same kind of angry, illogical, and embarrassingly inappropriate retort.

One of the Democrats’ first moves Friday after taking control of the US House was to pass a package of rules and ethics reforms aimed at addressing political corruption and reigning in our massive federal deficit. All six Democratic members of Washington’s delegation voted for the rule changes. All three WA Republicans voted against them.

And one of the highest profile changes was to re-adopt a stringent “pay-as-you-go” (PAYGO) budget rule that requires lawmakers to offset any new spending on entitlements, or any new tax cuts. Such a rule was in place during much of the 1990’s, during a time when President Clinton led the nation from record deficits to record surpluses, and actually started paying off the national debt. Deficits later exploded and the national debt mushroomed to $8.6 trillion under President Bush after Republicans suspended PAYGO.

Rep. Dave Reichert, who campaigns as a “fiscal conservative,” vehemently opposes PAYGO:

“I will vote against it because it raises taxes,” Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., said in a telephone interview. “The easiest fix is always to raise taxes.”

Uh-huh. If you ask me, the politically easy move has always been to cut taxes, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. Republicans are concerned that the new rule will make it harder to renew Bush’s tax cuts, most of which expire in 2010… and most of which disproportionately benefit the wealthy. Given the choice between true fiscal conservatism and paying back the GOP’s corporatist patrons, Reichert has clearly chosen the latter. And who pays for this choice? Rep. Brian Baird explains:

“We want to get the budget under control and we need to look at entitlements and revenue,” he said. “Does Dave Reichert really want to sit down with my 22-month-old boys or his grandkids and tell them they owe $8.6 billion?”

Of course, that’s what it comes down to — somebody’s got to pay for this generation’s deficit spending, and if it’s up to Reichert and the Republicans, the cost is going to fall on the shoulders of the next generation.

We’re not talking about discretionary spending. We’re not talking about investments in infrastructure or education or R&D. We’re not talking about national defense. We’re not even talking about the automatic cost-of-living increases mandated in programs like Medicare and Social Security.

PAYGO only applies to new entitlement spending (like when Medicare’s prescription drug program was implemented) and new tax cuts. Under PAYGO any new tax cut or entitlement would have to be offset by raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere. It’s Balanced Budgeting 101. You know… common sense.

Yet Reichert apparently thinks we can still balance the budget using, you know… magic.

“But the way to reduce the deficit is to rein in federal spending and cut taxes, which has proven to increase revenues,” Reichert said.

Yeah, just like it was proven under Ronald Reagan and George Bush II — the two administrations that oversaw the largest expansions in the national debt in US history. That’s supply-side economics, or as Bush I famously called it during his 1980 presidential campaign, “Voodoo Economics.”

Reichert claims to be a moderate. He claims to be fiscally responsible. But when push comes to shove he unblinkingly repeats the Republican mantra and votes to protect tax cuts at all costs.

Hmm. I’d love to see where his buddies on the Seattle Times editorial board fall on PAYGO?

Back in January Dave Reichert’s campaign manager publicly gloated over having reached the $1.1 million mark, bragging to reporters that “a war chest of this size will put this race out of reach.”

Well, um, it didn’t exactly turn out that way. The final numbers have now been posted to Political Money Line, and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner — who entered the race as an unknown political novice — ended up outraising Reichert $3,080,275 to $2,989,379. Yes, she lost at the polls, but she made it closer than anybody but the most optimistic blogger had any reason to expect at the time. The race was never out of reach, and it forced the GOP to devote resources to Reichert that would have otherwise been spent defending vulnerable Republicans elsewhere. There is no doubt that Burner’s insurgent campaign contributed to the Democrats seizing control of the House.

With her impressive campaign and fundraising prowess, Burner has virtually assured herself an unopposed shot at the Democratic nomination in 2008, should she choose to seek it. And Reichert has assured himself a busy two years scrambling to raise enough cash to defend a seat in a district that is steadily trending blue. In 2006, Reichert benefited from a 2-to-1 advantage in PAC money (over $1.1 million,) but as a junior member of the minority that easy money might not be so easy.

It’s hard to beat an incumbent whatever the circumstances, and conventional wisdom says that Reichert’s reelection should make it tougher yet. But this will be a tough two years for Reichert. Rumor has it he’s losing several key staffers, and he won’t be able to rely on all the advantages that come from caucusing with the majority. The 8th CD will eventually go Democratic. My guess is that this switch will occur on Reichert’s watch.

From the National Review online:

As for the horserace, multiple GOP sources say that the contest for Min Leader isn’t much of a contest at all. They say current Maj Leader John Boehner has solid backing in the conference and will win with ease this Friday morning when the secret ballots are cast. Many acknowledge that there is a hunger for change after last Tuesday’s losses, but they say RSC chair/Rep. Mike Pence (R., Ind.) is not a popular alternative. Few give Energy & Commerce Committee chair Joe Barton (R., Tex.) much of a shot, though he could pick up backing from fellow Texans and members of his committee.Holed up in his Capitol office, Boehner is devoting his time to member contacts, not media appearances. Key Boehner allies in the effort include Rep’s Pat Tiberi (R., Ohio), Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), and Dave Reichert (R., Wash.).

So… Reichert has quickly emerged as a “key ally” of Boehner and the corrupt, K Street-controlled, Republican establishment. That didn’t take long.

So much for Reichert’s alleged “conscience-driven independent” streak. (The Seattle Times’ new motto: “All the news that fits our way of thinking.”)

Darcy Burner called Dave Reichert last night to concede the 8th CD race, and apart from Darcy and her family there are few people more disappointed than I am. As Dino Rossi’s most ardent supporters know, it can be terribly frustrating to come so close to an upset victory and lose.

About his victory, Reichert claims that “the key is listening, and being in touch with the community…” yet I’m not so sure he really heard a word voters were saying:

“I am a little surprised it was as tough as it was, because of the inexperience of my opponent,” Reichert said. “The national environment played significantly higher role, and had more of an impact, than I expected it to play.”

What a dick. Totally incapable of any type of introspection.

In a district that has never sent a Democrat to Congress, Reichert nearly lost to an unknown political novice, and he blames it solely on the national climate. He couldn’t even find the grace to bring himself to give Darcy some credit without accusing her of being “nasty.”

But you wanna know the real reason why Reichert won? All you need to do is read this morning’s paper:

Reichert, a former King County sheriff known for helping to capture the Green River Killer…

That’s the main reason why Darcy didn’t trounce Reichert in King County… a lot of people voted for the beloved sheriff who caught the Green River killer. Of course, Reichert didn’t really catch the Green River killer — in fact, he so fucked up the investigation that Gary Ridgeway was allowed to continue to kill for 18 years after he first became a suspect. And the fact that most voters don’t know this…? Well… I blame the media.

And I also blame myself.

No doubt us bloggers played a huge role in building the buzz that led the media and political establishment to recognize Darcy as a viable candidate, but we failed to do the one thing that would have assured her victory: tear Reichert down. Both campaigns were typically negative, and neither was particularly nasty by modern standards. The main difference was, Darcy attacked Reichert on the issues and on his allegiance to President Bush, whereas Reichert attempted to diminish Darcy as a person.

The Seattle Times editorial board’s self-righteous bullshit aside, the truth is, this campaign just wasn’t negative enough. If voters understood the truth about Reichert’s job as sheriff, and about the way he bungled the Green River killer investigation, and then claimed all the credit for himself two decades and dozens of dead women later… Darcy would have won. And with the local media mostly unwilling to reexamine the hero myth they created around Reichert, that type of truth telling fell on the shoulders of us bloggers. And in that, we failed.

That’s one of the two unfortunate lessons I’ve learned from this race. 1) Don’t be afraid to go medieval on a candidate’s ass, if that’s what it takes to win. And 2) the Seattle Times editorial board cannot be trusted to truthfully represent and promote the interests of our community.

I intend to address both these issues in the future.

But… as personally disappointed as I am with the apparent outcome of this race, I fully understand on an intellectual level that both Darcy’s and Peter Goldmark’s campaigns were an integral part of a HUGE victory for the Democratic Party… and particularly for us netroots activists who embraced the 50-state strategy first enunciated by DNC chair Howard Dean. Darcy and Peter threw themselves into races the political and media establishment considered GOP gimmes, forcing the Republicans to draw money and resources away from races elsewhere.

And by fielding hardworking candidates who ran tough campaigns in races everybody expected them to lose, the Democrats showed local voters the type of respect that is absolutely necessary for the party to build towards victory in the future. Whoever the Democratic nominees are in 2008, their races will be made incredibly easier by the hard work Darcy and Peter put into 2006. That’s why I come away from this election with absolute confidence that every last ounce of passion and effort the netroots put into these races, and every last dime we raised, was totally worth it. We helped the Democrats take back Congress, and that after all, was the ultimate prize. The GOP may have successfully defended these seats — this year — but at a great cost.

And so to those in my comment threads who seek solace by mocking me over Darcy’s loss, I ask you: How are you enjoying that Democratic majority in the US House and US Senate, or our near super-majority in the Washington state Legislature? What role did you play in losing three Supreme Court races, and all three statewide initiatives? And hey… how about Mike McGavick’s twenty-point loss to the Dem’s “most vulnerable” Senate incumbent? If all you have to celebrate from last week’s election is the thought that Darcy and Peter and a handful of bloggers might be having a bad day, well then, you really have nothing to celebrate at all.

The truth is, we didn’t get behind Darcy and Peter because we thought they would win, we threw our all into these races because we thought they could win, and because we knew with absolute certainty that making these races close would help other Democrats win elsewhere. And on both counts we were proven right.

Did we shoot for the moon? You betcha. But then, to quote Jack Kennedy:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.

And so to all of you who volunteered for Darcy and Peter, and who contributed money through my Act Blue page or elsewhere, I want to thank you for a job well done. We may have lost these two races, but overall, we kicked ass, and you all deserve credit.

Now let’s get back to work.

Under 50, tied with the challenger. Not a place a Republican incumbent wants to be the day before the big blue wave hits.

Among those poll respondents who have already voted: Burner leads by 8 among those who tell SurveyUSA they have already voted. Reichert leads by 5 among those who tell SurveyUSA they are certain to cast a ballot before polls close, but who have not yet done so. 38% of respondents have already voted; 62% have yet to.

What does that mean? Well, you don’t even have to do the math to see that Reichert would need to win over 5% of the uncast ballots to win the election.

It is interesting to note that in the previous poll Burner led by 8% with the 25% of respondents who said they had already voted, and now with 38% of ballots cast she still leads by 8%. Not having anything but intuition to back this up, it always struck me that a survey of how people actually voted should be more accurate than a survey of voter intent.

If I were Reichert, I’d be awfully nervous.

Of course, the headline is a trick question, for it turns out Rep. Dave Reichert is both a liar and an asshole.

A few days back when I first posted on the Issaquah school bus driver who got fired for flipping off President Bush, I focused on the assholish side to Reichert’s personality… the fact that he’s so proud of his role in getting the driver fired that he made the incident a part of his stump speech. I wrote:

Flip off the President, lose your livelihood. That’s justice in Dave Reichert’s America, and shows you what a mean, sanctimonious, vengeful S.O.B. he can really be.

What could be more assholic than bragging about getting some poor bus driver canned for dissing the President? Hmm. How about fabricating your role in the entire incident?

In a bungled attempt at damage control, Reichert has recently attempted to minimize his role in the firing, telling KIRO-TV that he called the Issaquah superintendent a week after the incident happened because it was “bothering him.” But as David Postman reveals this morning, that’s not what Reichert told a crowd in August. Speaking at the King County Republican picnic, Reichert boasted about getting the driver fired:

And as the motorcade went by, the President and I drove by on I-5, the President was having a great time. He was waving at everybody, he waved at the kids. He got the biggest kick out of the kids leaning out the window to say hello to the President of the United States.

The sad part of it is though, we got to the last bus — and I won’t tell you which school district this was — the bus driver flipped the President off.

So the very next day, you know what I did? I called the superintendent of that school district and that bus driver no longer works for that school.

After raucous applause, Reichert told the crowd:

That’s the old sheriff part of me still around.

Really… cheering over somebody losing their job. What a bunch of assholes. (And if that really was “the old sheriff” part of Reichert, you’d think it would’ve taken 18 years for the driver to be fired.)

So Reichert tells a cheering crowd in August that he called the superintendent the “very next day”, but when the story blows up in his face he tells KIRO-TV that he waited a week to call. One way or the other, he’s lying.

And according to Michael in Postman’s comment thread, Reichert actually heard about the incident from a “school district insider,” prompting him to cook up his version as a stump speech crowd asshole pleaser.

So there you have it. If Dave Reichert really is such an asshole that his phone call led to the driver’s firing, then he lied to KIRO-TV in denying it. But if instead he lied on the stump, boasting about a role in a firing he didn’t really have… well, that just raises his assholosity to a whole new level.

Either way it doesn’t paint Reichert in a positive light. Unless of course, being a lying asshole is exactly the type of job experience you’re looking for in a congressman.

From yesterday’s King County Journal:

Reichert rode with Bush in his motorcade when the president came to the Eastside in June to raise money for Reichert and the state Republican Party.

First, the procession roared along Interstate 5 and State Route 520 to get to the Medina mansion where the fundraiser was scheduled.

Stopped on an entrance to the freeway from I-90, students in several Issaquah School District buses crammed their faces against the windows and waved to the president’s motorcade. Bush waved back.

Bush was having a great time, Reichert told a group of veterans in Orting recently. At least until he came even with one of the bus drivers.

The president turned to Reichert and said the bus driver had flipped him off.

Later, Reichert called the school district. After an investigation, the 43-year-old bus driver was fired in early September.

You can argue all you want about the appropriateness of a school bus driver making an obscene gesture, and what kind of reprimand that might deserve, but the crystalizing point of this story is that a bus driver flipped off the President and in response Rep. Dave Reichert went out of his way to have her fired. In fact he’s so proud if it, he’s made the story part of his stump speech.

Flip off the President, lose your livelihood. That’s justice in Dave Reichert’s America, and shows you what a mean, sanctimonious, vengeful S.O.B. he can really be.

A vote for Reichert is a vote for a man who thinks you should lose your job if you disrespect President Bush.

UPDATE:
Hat tip to Aaron in the comment thread:

This morning on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked House Majority Leader John Boehner if he he thought Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “has to go.” Boehner’s answer?

I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years.

Let’s be absolutely clear what November’s election is all about, at least when it comes to the war in Iraq. The Republican leadership continues to unflinchingly support President Bush’s failed policies in Iraq… and both Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris continue to support the Republican leadership. Should Reichert and McMorris win reelection, they will vote to retain Boehner as Majority Leader — or perhaps even promote him to Speaker of the House. Should Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark win in November, they will vote for a new House leadership, one that will finally hold the Bush administration accountable for its failures. This is a choice between “stay the course” and a “new direction.”

So if you think Rumsfeld is “the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years,” vote Republican.

Elsewhere in the interview, Boehner claimed that “the President is listening to the commanders on the ground.” Hmm…

Major General John Batiste

Share:

• Facebook
• Reddit
• LinkedIn
• Email
• Print

This is the ad that torpedoes Dave Reichert. It features Reichert, in his own words, explaining how his handful of supposedly “independent” votes against the leadership, actually came at the behest of the leadership.

From the Nation Journal’s subscription-only Hotline:

I suppose I owe the Seattle Times editorial board an apology. Since almost the day I started blogging, from my early, ponytail-in-inkwell-like obsession with WSJ pod-person Collin Levey to my relentless attacks on the board’s relentlessly selfish shilling for estate tax repeal, I have been one of the Times op/ed page’s harshest and most vocal critics.

The Reichert folks are getting scared. From Friday’s Washington Post:

Yet another prognosticator has moved the race for Washington’s 8th Congressional District into the toss-up category: