Search Results for: Reichert

As much as I hate to question the judgment of Seattle’s most objective journalist, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by David Postman’s recent post: “Reichert gets Dems help on wilderness bill.”

Postman asserts that by garnering the co-sponsorhip of Jay Inslee and Norm Dicks on his wilderness bill, Dave Reichert has made any attempt to question his green credentials a “tough argument.” Okay. I’ve disagreed with Postman before. No biggie.

But how does Postman, a self-proclaimed champion of fairness and balance, present the tough arguments of those of us who dare to challenge his thesis? With a big, fat, editorial caveat:

But the campaign of Reichert’s Democratic opponent, Darcy Burner, and her amen bloggers have called the bill a cynical attempt at green-washing.

“Amen bloggers” …? Really?

Postman’s got it half right, but what really makes it so tough for us to argue against the Reichert mythology is when media gatekeepers like Postman intentionally undermine our credibility before presenting our rebuttal.

The implication is clear. Postman… he’s a serious blogger. Joel Connelly, whose blog post he cites in support of his thesis… he’s a serious blogger. But amen bloggers like me and Dan Kirkdorffer and our colleagues, well… we’re just goddamn partisans whose work you can pretty much dismiss without consideration… no matter how well reasoned or how well supported by the facts.

Obviously, I find Postman’s brushoff a tad irritating, but not having benefited from a proper J-school education myself, perhaps I don’t fully understand the finer nuances of his profession? So I’m hoping Postman can explain to me, in the abstract, from his journalistic perspective, what exactly the difference is between an opinion expressed by a columnist like Joel (or an editorial writer like Kate Riley) and that of a lowly blogger like me?

I mean, an opinion is an opinion, right? Is a newspaper columnist inherently more credible because he’s paid to write his opinions, while I just spew mine for free? If I were paid $90,000 a year to write my opinions, would I suddenly be harder to dismiss? Or do I have to be paid by the right people, say some corporate media conglomerate, or perhaps a fifth-generation newspaper family that claims gravitas as a birthright, like some Lamarckian adaptation?

Surely it can’t be the fact that we express opinions that makes us amen bloggers so unreliable, as Postman himself cited Joel’s opinion as definitive support of his thesis. Neither can it be the mere medium that is in question, print vs. online, as in this particular instance all three of us are peddling our work via blogs. So is Postman implying that it is our proud partisanship that costs us our credibility, while it is his and Joel’s vaunted impartiality that secures their own?

Such an implication would leave me even more confused, because doesn’t the mere act of having an opinion imply some sort of bias or partisan leaning? Isn’t the explicit role of the columnist to express his opinions, freely informed by personal bias as well as the facts? Indeed, Joel describes himself as an environmentalist; doesn’t that make him a partisan too? And while I understand that reporters like Postman jealously guard their appearance of impartiality, wasn’t his elitist dismissal of other bloggers as “amen” an act of editorializing that reveals a personal bias of his own?

And finally, you can’t get much more partisan than the candidates themselves, and yet reporters routinely regurgitate their pronouncements and public statements without prepending a cynical asterisk.

So if it’s not our opinions, it’s not our medium, and it’s not our partisanship that automatically undermines our credibility, I can only assume that Postman’s obvious disdain for us amen bloggers comes from the quality of our work itself. In which case I’d argue that he owes it to us (not to mention his readers) to critique and refute our work before dismissively brushing it off as unworthy of serious consideration, because when Postman implies that Joel is credible but we automatically are not, or that Reichert’s motives should be taken at face value while ours most definitely shouldn’t, well I can’t help but take that as a personal slight especially in the absence of any serious effort on his part to back up his assertions… you know, apart from the occasional characterization of me as a drunkard, a hypocrite or a knee-jerk lackey.

The other bloggers are fully capable of defending themselves, but my question for Postman is, what is it that I have written to earn such disrespect? When I accused Reichert of bragging about bringing home earmarks in one piece of franked mail, while bragging about opposing them in another… was I wrong? When I attacked Reichert for promising to cut Medicare when speaking before fellow Republicans, but promising to defend it when franking his constituents… did I mislead my readers, deliberately or otherwise? I’m asking, because if I’m so wrong so much of the time you’d think a simple refutation would come as easily as a dismissive wave of the hand.

Have I proven to be dishonest or dishonorable? Have I been a poor political analyst? Have you found the quality of my prose to be incoherent, unintelligent, uninformed or otherwise wanting when compared to the standard we’ve come to expect from our city’s two dailies? Because if so, the least you could do is show me the courtesy of critiquing my writing and refuting my arguments before blithely dismissing me as just an “amen blogger.”

Come on David, cite a few examples. Show what liars we are. Prove to the world why we cannot be trusted. I betcha you can’t, because while opinions and interpretations can be partisan, facts cannot, and as Dan has proven, my god do we bloggers labor over getting our facts straight.

Which is why, I guess, so many of us found your characterization of us as “amen bloggers” so frustrating, if not downright offensive. Like the lazy trolls who, incapable of actually refuting my arguments, point to my occasional use of foul language as reason alone to dismiss me, you have seized upon our outspoken partisanship as an opportunity to be equally curt and scornful. But if we are relevant enough to be publicly dissed, aren’t we relevant enough to be told the reasons why? Is our work really that lacking, or is there some other, more personal reason that causes you to show us so little respect?

Which brings us back to Joel Connelly, who on this issue I have no compunction in saying is flat-out wrong. Joel pines for a romanticized past in which the Republican Party truly embraced environmentalism, and in which the mantle of bipartisanship was more than just a last ditch rhetorical refuge for the electorally impaired. Reichert’s green credentials don’t pass the laugh test, and I’ve told Joel this to his face in no uncertain words. He thinks my unforgiving partisanship is dangerous, mean spirited and counterproductive. I think his desperate longing for bipartisanship is naive. And yet Joel frequents Drinking Liberally, engages us in debate and joins us on our podcasts because despite our differences we like and respect each other.

Likewise, I have repeatedly professed my respect for Postman and his work… a respect that clearly is not reciprocated. No, he was so concerned with dissing us bloggers that I wonder if he even bothered reading his own post?

Why would someone with such sterling environmental credentials like Inslee, or a congressman who has no worry about re-election, like Dicks, agree to co-sponsor something if they thought it was designed only to help Reichert’s re-election prospects?

Duh… um… because they genuinely support expanding the wilderness area, regardless of Reichert’s motives? You gotta admit, it’s a possibility. (Do they teach that in J-school… objectively establishing one’s thesis by asking rhetorical questions?)

Reichert had been frustrated that he wasn’t getting any co-sponsors from the delegation.

You don’t just “get” co-sponsors, you do the hard work of actively seeking them out. Which I guess explains why seven months later, Inslee was the first co-sponsor to sign on. Hell, Reichert hasn’t even bothered to get the support of a single Republican colleague. (Or is evaluating Reichert’s competence as a legislator off-limits during an election year?)

See how much I respect you David? Enough to actually bother to critique your work, instead of just insulting it. Think of it as tough love.

Yeah, I know… it’s an awfully long post in response to a single word, but I’m just plain tired of tiptoeing around the fragile egos of Postman and a handful of his peers who insist on taking every critique of them or their institutions as a personal insult. Do they have any idea how sensitive they come off? Do they know how many times I’ve been embargoed on a story with the specific instruction not to post until Postman or some other journalist publishes first, out of concern that if I break the story on HA, the “real” journalists will willfully ignore it?

That’s what we’ve come to, a point where media pettiness has led some in the progressive community to seriously question whether they’ll face retaliation from reporters and editors for openly allying with bloggers like me. And that, by the way David, is why I tend to relentlessly focus on stories like Reichert’s abusive and dishonest franking practices… because nobody else will! You don’t think the Burner campaign and the state party don’t shop around their stories before eventually sending them my way? We’re not an amen chorus, we’re the media outlet of last resort for progressive campaigns and causes that can’t get the time of day from a press corps obsessed with sex scandals and horse races.

Unlike some bloggers on the right who ridiculously claim to be “small ‘l’ libertarians” while maintaining an active role in their local Republican Party, I have always worn my bias on my sleeve, and I have always urged my audience to read me in that context and make up their minds for themselves. My comment threads have always remained open, and for the most part unmoderated, subjecting my work to the most brutal form of public vetting you will find anywhere on the web.

Yes, I aggressively support Darcy Burner because she is damn smart and a damn hard worker, and because I believe the phrase “Congressman Dave Reichert” is an insult to anybody with an IQ above 110. Yes, I am proudly partisan, but my work has always been based on facts, and I challenge anybody—even Postman—to prove that my facts don’t stand on their own.

And with that I say… amen.

The TNT’s Niki Sullivan, live blogging from the state GOP convention in Spokane, reports on the latest attempts at Republican humor. First Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers entertained the crowd with the “Top 10 reasons it’s good to be a Republican in 2008,” including such comic gems as:

3. We believe Al Gore deserves an ‘F’ in science and an ‘A’ in creative writing.

That’s a hard act to follow. But Dave Reichert tried, trotting out his now familiar Borscht Belt routine:

Right now, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert is up. He repeated a joke I first heard him tell at the Pierce County Republicans’ Lincoln Day breakfast earlier this year. It involves an airplane that’s going to crash, one fewer parachute than passengers and, ultimately, Hillary Clinton dying.

Hillary Clinton dying… oh man, that’s a knee-slapper, isn’t it?

I’m actually well familiar with this joke. My 11-year-old daughter used to tell a variation of it, but involving President Bush instead of Hillary Clinton. And she found it absolutely hilarious… when she was nine.

In fact, the inappropriateness of a sitting congressman joking about the death of a sitting senator aside, this is a joke specifically designed to appeal to nine-year-olds. It goes something like this:

A grandfather, a grandson, a wealthy man and [Despised Public Figure] are flying on a plane, when the pilot comes out and announces that the plane is about to crash, but that there are only four parachutes for the five of them.

“I’ve trained for too many years to die like this,” the pilot says, so he straps on the first parachute and jumps out of the plane. Next the wealthy man says, “I’m much too rich to die this young,” so he grabs the second parachute and jumps out of the plane. Then [Despised Public Figure] stands up and says “I’m [Despised Public Figure], and I’m much too important to die,” so he grabs the third parachute and jumps out of the plane.

Finally, the grandfather turns to his grandson and says, “I’m old; I’ve lived a long life. Here, you take the last parachute.” To which the grandson replies, “That’s okay grandpa, there’s a parachute for both of us… [Despised Public Figure] took my backpack!”

There are two things to note in deconstructing this joke. The first is that the punchline partially owes its humorous impact to playing off a popular stereotype of the Despised Public Figure as stupid. Deserved or not, this works well with President Bush in the lead role (as it would for Dave Reichert himself), but whatever you think of Hillary Clinton, she certainly doesn’t have a reputation for being dumb, and as such, the joke comes off more mean spirited than funny. It’s just a poor vehicle for ridiculing her.

The second thing to note about this joke is that the humorous twist is primarily derived from the unexpected contrast between the cool intellect of the child versus the panicked stupidity of a powerful adult. The punchline is not dependent on the identity of the object of ridicule because the humor comes less from the act of stupidity than it does from the act of a mere child being both observant enough to recognize the error as it was happening, and calculating enough to allow it to play out uninterrupted.

Think about it. You could swap “President Bush” with “Dave Reichert,” and the humorous effect is virtually unchanged, as long as the audience is familiar with Reichert. But if you put the observation in the mouth of the grandfather instead of the grandson, the joke just doesn’t work.

This is, at its core, a joke about empowering children. Which is why it is a joke that primarily appeals to children.

That Reichert finds this kiddie joke so humorous that he repeats it to Republican audiences statewide… well… I’d say that’s funnier than the joke itself.

The one and only bright spot for House Republicans of late has been the ongoing primary battle between Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. NRCC chair Tom Cole had fantasized out loud about a “death fight” between Obama and Clinton that would tear the Democrats down, sweep Sen. John McCain into the White House, and with him produce the kind of presidential coattails that could carry House Republicans to victory in November.

But with even official Republican spokesman Tim Russert declaring Obama the presumptive nominee after Clinton’s disappointing showing in North Carolina and Indiana, Cole’s daydream is fading fast, and his caucus is beginning to wake up to the daunting challenges they face this November.

On Monday, former Speaker Newt Gingrich launched a broadside against Cole and the rest of the House Republican leadership, warning that the party faced a “catastrophic collapse” if they didn’t immediately change course in this political environment “reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.” And yesterday Cole himself added to the gloom, warning members that the NRCC doesn’t have enough money to “save them” in November:

“It was a pretty stern line that he took with us,” said one House Republican.

Cole, on the defensive in the wake of special election losses in Louisiana and Illinois, pointed his finger Tuesday at his Republican colleagues, telling them that they had been too stingy in helping fund party efforts.

[…] Cole’s overall message was clear, said members who sat through the meeting: “If you’re not out doing your own work, and you’re waiting for the NRCC to come in at the last minute and save you, it ain’t gonna happen.” That’s how one lawmaker characterized Cole’s talk, adding that the NRCC is “not going to have the resources” to help all members “and Democrats will have a lot more money.”

That’s bad news for Republicans like Dave Reichert, who yesterday found himself on yet another top-ten list of “Most Vulnerable Incumbents,” this time in the pages of the highly respected (and subscription-only) Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call:

Dave Reichert (R-Wash.)
It’s tough to go from hero cop to endangered incumbent in such a short stretch of time, but that’s the former King County sheriff’s fate in a suburban Seattle district that is steadily becoming more Democratic. Reichert still has a reservoir of good will to draw from as he fights off Democrat Darcy Burner for the second straight cycle. But Burner has become a more polished and confident campaigner — and has outpaced the incumbent on the fundraising front for the past few quarters.

Actually, she’s outpaced Reichert in every fundraising quarter since declaring her candidacy last year, and there’s no reason to expect that trend to reverse itself. Reichert’s never had a reputation in Congress as a hard worker, either as a legislator or a fundraiser, and he’s finding it particularly difficult to raise money now that his party is firmly entrenched in the minority. Not that Reichert has ever been a stellar performer, relying on multi-million dollar bailouts from the NRCC to carry him to victory in each of his two previous elections… bailouts that Cole warns might not be available this time around.

The fact is, even well-larded lobbyists balk at throwing good money after bad, and recent special election losses could dry up resources for the NRCC. Back in December Cole was almost cheerful as money finally started to pour in after Republicans successfully defended a couple seats in Virginia and Ohio, telling staffers:

“I’ve seen more lobbyists this morning than I’ve seen in four months,” he said. The lobbyists were passing out checks, he told them gleefully. “I’ve got one in my pocket from a guy I ran into in the street.”

But I’m guessing Cole’s pockets are pretty empty these days, now that a spate of recent special elections haven’t gone his way. And that’s gotta be bad news for vulnerable incumbents like Dave Reichert.

The dead tree editions of both of Seattle’s dailies feature stories on yesterday’s passage of legislation creating the Wild Sky Wilderness Area, here, here and a rare front page column by Joel Connelly here. Nine years in the making, the bill protecting 106,000 acres in the North Cascades was repeatedly blocked by Republicans until, well, the Republicans finally lost their ability to block the bill, along with their control of Congress.

Creation of the wilderness had been blocked in the House for years by Congressman Richard Pombo, a powerful California Republican who said some of the land wasn’t pristine enough to warrant wilderness protection. But Pombo was unseated in 2006 as Democrats regained a majority in the House, and Wild Sky was revived.

For me, this raises an important point on which Joel and I agree to disagree: that in the current political environment, the most important thing environmentalists need to know about any candidate is the little “R” or “D” next to their name.

Peter Jackson, a Seattle writer, mused over the fact that 117 Republicans in the House voted against the Wild Sky legislation. He is the son of Sen. Henry Jackson, a Democrat who crafted landmark environmental legislation in negotiation with a Republican-run White House.

“We have to convince members of the party of George Bush that they’re also members of the party of Theodore Roosevelt,” Jackson said. “To borrow from a relative of mine, in matters of wilderness, the best politics is no politics.”

Perhaps Dave Reichert really does support Wild Sky—it would have been political suicide for him to oppose it—but he sure as hell didn’t do anything to move it forward when his own party was in control of the process. That’s because the GOP is institutionally opposed to government mandated conservation even on government lands, as evidenced by the majority of House Republicans who still voted against this popular bill despite the obvious futility of their opposition.

Joel is an encyclopedia of Washington state political lore and wisdom, and I don’t doubt his tales of bipartisan cooperation on environmental issues. But that was a different era, and as Peter Jackson points out, a different Republican Party.

I crashed the Municipal League’s 2008 Civic Awards last night at the Olympic Sculpture Park, where my friend and colleague David Postman was being honored for “Governmental News Reporting of the Year.” Knowing that Postman’s bosses at the Seattle Times had forbade him from accepting the award in person so as not to compromise his impartiality—and unencumbered by these (or any) ethical burdens of my own—I realized that there must be an unused name tag at the registration table with at least half my name on it… and sure enough I managed to sign in as Postman, no questions asked.

His “Honoree” name tag firmly pinned to my lapel and a surfeit of free drink tickets in hand, I strolled into the PACCAR Pavilion determined to do Postman proud by mingling with our city’s power elite on his behalf. As it turned out, I would need the drink tickets.

Indeed, it wasn’t at all what I had expected. To be honest, I think I had the Muni League mixed up with the Urban League, and to my great disappointment this was the league with all the white people. That meant better booze, but boring food, and even boringer conversation. And Republicans. A handful of actual, real life Republicans. In Seattle of all places. Who’d a thunk?

Diving right into the role of seasoned journalist, I headed straight to the bar, where I could swear I saw Pete von Reichbauer palming the contents of the tip jar. (Life is tough for Republicans these days; they never know where their next campaign contribution might come from.) An awkward social situation to say the least, but take it from this big-city native: the first rule to remember when confronting the desperate wretches at the fringe of society is to avoid making eye contact at all costs! I knocked back my syrah, grabbed a refill, and headed off into the crowd.

I soon learned that while a lot of folk supposedly read Postman, very few apparently know what he looks like, for I was roundly greeted with congratulations and hearty handshakes throughout the hall. Fully expecting to be unmasked at any moment I played the role for all it was worth, regaling guests with invented tales of political intrigue and the madcap antics of my Postman’s colleagues in the Capitol press corp, but whether it was the context or the booze or the dulling effects of wealth and power, my subtle satire seemed lost on the crowd. The more bizarre the anecdotes the more credulous the audience; if anyone questioned my true identity they certainly didn’t let on.

But when I was introduced to my Postman’s fellow honoree John Stanton, I figured the jig was up. Stanton looked straight at me. He looked down at my name tag. He looked back up at me, and I could see the dawning recognition on his face that mine just didn’t quite match the name on my lapel. Improvising, I quickly explained that during Passover, I like to “Jew things up” a little. Stanton seemed momentarily stunned, then nodding knowingly, he pulled a hip flask from his pocket, and we both enjoyed a long, hard swig of single malt before heading up to the dais to accept our awards.

At this point there were several people within arms length who know me quite well, and who must have wondered what mischief I was up to, so I figured somebody would stop me before I reached the podium, but Seattle’s polite society was apparently too polite (or too drunk) to intervene. So there I found myself, standing before a room filled with mayors and millionaires and sundry politerati… accepting an award as David Postman… an uncomfortable moment considering I hadn’t prepared a speech.

Still, caught up in the excitement—and fortified by three or four glasses of wine and a generous dose of Stanton’s best whiskey—I managed to muddle through, graciously thanking my hosts for the honor, and warning the crowd to keep their hands on their wallets should von Reichbauer come near (to which more than a few attendees nodded strenuously in agreement), before launching into an angry and passionate tirade against the endless cycle of newsroom cutbacks that threatens to destroy our Postman’s once proud industry.

In short, I Postman was a hit. The crowd erupted in deafening applause as he I kissed presenter Christine Chen square on the lips, waved my his commemorative plaque in the air along with the $50 Ivars gift card that came with it, and quickly headed back to the bar. When who should jump in my way but a puffing, red-faced and very, very angry Jim Vesely.

“How dare you…?!” the Times editorial page editor sprayed in my face, and I must admit I felt an immediate twinge of shame. I’ve had my fun over the years gently ribbing the Times, but in masquerading as their star reporter before a roomful of our city’s rich and powerful, I knew that this time I had gone too far. So I braced myself for whatever righteous fury I deservingly had coming my way.

“How dare you disobey a direct order?!” Vesely angrily continued. And then it struck me: Vesely thought that I was Postman too!

Well, I tried to defend my Postman’s honor as best he I could, asking why it was that ethics prevented me him from attending the ceremony while Vesely was free to swill Muni booze with impunity… but logic only made Vesely madder. Things deteriorated from there, our confrontation quickly descending into ad hominem attacks (Vesely has a mouth on him that would shock a truck driver), and I fear it would have eventually come to fisticuffs had not Sue Rahr stepped in and pulled the two of us apart.

Needless to say, things were said that can’t be unsaid, and if I really were Postman I’d add that Muni award to my resume and start mailing it out. I hear The Stranger is hiring now that Josh Feit is leaving, and since I kinda blame myself a little for Postman’s unfortunate predicament, I’d be happy to put in a good word.

The festivities over, guests started heading toward the exits, carefully avoiding the food table where von Reichbauer was stuffing his pockets full of bagel chips and salmon dip, a scene eerily reminiscent of Dan Ackroyd at the Christmas party in Trading Places, except without the Santa suit or the laughs. I grabbed myself a final drink and said my goodbyes, my heart nearly as full as my bladder.

No doubt it is a great honor to have one’s work recognized by a prestigious organization like the Muni League, but not nearly as great an honor as being David Postman himself… if only for a single, solitary evening.

The headline in today’s Seattle Times pretty much sums up Dave Reichert’s entire campaign strategy this election: “In Reichert-Burner rematch, questions still loom about Burner’s public-service experience.”

All in all, I suppose it’s a pretty even-handed piece (though it is past time for local journalists to reevaluate the Reichert as “moderate” meme that Daniel has so consistently and thoroughly debunked), but I just flat out reject the premise that Darcy Burner’s lack of “public-service experience” should be treated as a substantial issue in this campaign.

In a nation whose founding fathers envisioned a citizen legislature, prior public service has never been a prerequisite for higher office, and is certainly no predictor of success therein. In fact, we have a long honored mythology — particularly in the GOP — surrounding successful businessmen who leave the private sector and enter politics to “give something back,” the most recent local example being the failed US Senate campaign of former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick. McGavick was certainly a flawed candidate, but never once did I hear my friends in the legacy media question his lack of “public-service experience.” It simply wasn’t a credible issue.

Burner also achieved success in the private sector before embracing public service, and while she’s no multimillionaire, she honed managerial skills at Microsoft we could surely use more of in Congress, skills she clearly demonstrated in developing and promoting the Responsible Plan. By comparison, Reichert is a career public employee, a beat cop cum paper-pusher who was plucked out of obscurity and appointed Sheriff in what was arguably one of the worst decisions of Ron Sims’ own long career in public service, and who had absolutely zero legislative experience himself, prior to entering Congress. I don’t mean to disrespect police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and other first line responders who put their lives on the line for us every day, but their job experience leaves them no more or less qualified to serve in Congress than most any other profession.

But I take larger issue with this line of attack in that campaigns tend to focus on the job experience of the incumbent, not the challenger, and for obvious reasons. It is fair to question Burner on the issues or on her competency or on her character, but few challengers can ever claim to match the on-the-job political experience of the incumbent, and to legitimize such a direct, unfavorable comparison would amount to little more than a blind defense of incumbency. Reichert, on the other hand, has a two-term record in Congress to defend, a legacy of accomplishments, or lack thereof, that is a legitimate issue of debate. Thus the main question before voters is whether Reichert has adequately performed in office, and if not, whether Burner has the competency and values to warrant an opportunity to serve in his stead. That is the standard by which the media usually covers campaigns because you cannot fault the challenger for lacking experience in the job she seeks.

When consummate Beltway insider Robert Novak says that Reichert “has not distinguished himself during three years in Congress,” you can be sure that he is echoing the opinion of Reichert’s own Republican colleagues. Thus it is not Burner’s experience that is the primary issue in this race — she has apparently excelled at nearly everything she has attempted to achieve in life — but rather the actual experience of Reichert in the job he seeks to retain.