Goldy

Kinda a crappy, generic ad that could pretty much run in any state, with little modification, but does anybody else find it ironic that Dino Rossi is running as political outsider intent on fixing the other Washington, while being almost totally dependent on “independent” expenditures from consummate insiders like Karl Rove?

When the NRSC first started talking up Rossi last spring, I thought part of his appeal was supposed to be his reputation for raising huge gobs of cash. And yet he’s becoming as much of a welfare case as Dave Reichert. Go figure.

The Hillsdale College Collegian, the school newspaper of Hans Zeiger’s alma mater, calls their “favorite son” to task for his long record of bigoted commentary:

If Hans Zeiger’s recent skirmish with liberal blogs can teach us anything, it’s basic common sense: Don’t call the Girl Scouts a feminist training corps and expect to get away with it.

Learning common sense from the liberal blogs. That’s not a bad start.

But too bad the editorial doesn’t stop there, for in attempting to elaborate on the lesson, the author provides an unflattering window into Hillsdale College culture that probably explains an awful lot about Zeiger and his abhorrent views:

Your friends at the table in Saga might think it is okay to make jokes about women needing to know their place. Your professor might jokingly refer to Catholics with a derogatory phrase. And your frat buddies might even crack the occasional racially-charged joke.

At Hillsdale, most students overlook offensive comments like these. But in the future, your coworkers, neighbors and pew-mates may not.

That’s because Hillsdale College –– despite the school’s history of gender equality and racial inclusion –– consists primarily of white Christian conservatives.

Um… so let me get this straight: your professor might “jokingly refer to Catholics with a derogatory phrase,” because Hillsdale College “consists primarily of white Christian conservatives.” So that means… uh… Catholics aren’t Christian?

Coming from an alma mater that was home to the infamous “water buffalo” incident, I can’t imagine students just shrugging off a professor’s anti-Catholic remark, but I guess white Christian conservatives say the darnedest things. Which I also guess is why Zeiger chose Hillsdale College, and why he felt so comfortable routinely disparaging woman, gays, Muslims, Catholics, Unitarians, mainstream Baptists and whoever, during his four years there. He felt right at home.

Of course, a lot of us regret some of the things we did (or didn’t do) in college. For example, I regret not having taken more philosophy courses, while Christine O’Donnell regrets having dabbled in Satanism. But both Christine and I have had a couple decades to maturely muse over our regrets, and reshape ourselves into more philosophical, less Satanic people.

Zeiger on the other hand is only 25, just a few years out of college — and sexist, racist, anti-Papist Hillsdale College at that — and only weeks removed from regretfully pulling down from the Internet huge swaths of his hate speech. So forgive me for not taking his sudden mea culpa at face value.

The piece I taped last week for FOX News is being broadcast today, first at 8:45 AM Pacific on The Strategy Room, airing live at FOXNews.com, and then at 9:20 AM Pacific on the real TV. Best of all, I’m told the clips they used are from me and my good friend, 710-KIRO sports talker Dori Monson. Just like the old days.

UPDATE:
Just saw the clip on The Strategy Room, and out of a 20 minute interview, they showed maybe five or six seconds. But at least that’s better than Dori, who got a second or two, max. But, you know, that’s TV.

Not sure what they’ll show on the TV, but I’m not sure I ever will, as I don’t have cable.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmOyaWaEwNk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Genesis 4:13-18

Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

But the LORD said to him, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,  east of Eden.

Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.

Discuss.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtNxpn6NltU[/youtube]

I’m kinda busy today on a side project, but over on Slog I’ve posted a rather massive piece I’ve been working over the last few days, in which I ask, is Rep. Dave Reichert brain-damaged?

And I’m not asking it in a snarky, mean-spirited, metaphorical sense. I’m asking it literally, based on medical literature and recent events that suggest that Reichert’s brain may actually be damaged.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Reichert’s hand-sized cerebral blood clot is necessarily an indication of prior brain atrophy or wasting, or that such a severe head injury, untreated as it was for two months, would have certainly caused permanent impairment.

[…] But extended or even permanent impairment is far from out of the question … thus it is not unreasonable to expect that a brain trauma as severe as that described by Reichert, in a man of his age, and untreated for so long, could very well have resulted in some degree of permanent neurological impairment.

You’ll need to read the whole thing for the background, but I ask you, if President Obama had suffered a similar injury, and then gave an interview like the one in the clip above, don’t you think this would be the number one story on talk radio and cable news?

I’m just sayin’.

Dino Rossi has released four TV ads (as opposed to those anti-Murray ads from IE campaigns that flooded the airwaves prior to Labor Day), but his latest is the first not to feature him narrating on camera.

Why? Perhaps because it’s relentlessly negative, and those aren’t the kinda words you want to put in the mouth of the candidate. But perhaps also, focus groups found Rossi a little, I dunno… creepy?

In any case, I never really thought those ads worked. And apparently Rossi’s media strategists agree.

I know it’s the age-old home gardener’s dilemma this time of year, but does anybody have any good ideas as to what to do with my abundance of zucchini… you know, other than this?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOHdN8sdnwc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Now that’s a shit-kicker of a political ad.

Oh yeah, I did another post on Slog today: “Dino Rossi: Careless or Carefree?”

There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about some of Dino Rossi’s more boneheaded flubs. … Some have chalked off Rossi’s curious statements to strategy, others to a doctrinaire conservative ideology. But I have an alternate theory that I find at least as plausible: perhaps Dino Rossi just doesn’t care?

As always, read the whole thing.

The KING-5/SurveyUSA poll continues to be the most Dino Rossi-friendly poll in Washington state, but even the latest one reports a nine point swing in Sen. Patty Murray’s favor, giving her a 50-48% lead.

That said, I’m still not so sure about those cross-tabs. This new poll still only shows Murray with 52% of the “Metro Seattle” vote, up from a totally unbelievable 48% one month ago. By comparison, the final SurveyUSA poll of the 2004 season showed Murray with 58% of the Metro Seattle vote, while she ultimately went on to win over 65% of the King County vote on election day.

I’m not sure exactly how SurveyUSA defines “Metro Seattle,” but it’s sure as hell hard to imagine Murray winning only 52% of it.

Just got back from doing an interview with FOX News on I-1098. Yeah, I know, that makes me a media whore. But I heard they were interviewing 710-KIRO sports talker Dori Monson too, and I just wanted to bring him down to my level.

Anyway, I don’t have cable, and wouldn’t watch FOX News if I did, so on the odd chance any of my readers are watching Monday when the segment airs, I’d appreciate hearing back as to which clip they used.

According to our critics, bloggers like me aren’t really very good journalists. We’re partisan, we’re selective, and we don’t do our own reporting. Get your news from real journalists, like those at the Seattle Times, and you’ll come away much better informed.

Or will you?

Take this morning’s article on a plumbing screwup at Washington State Ferries headquarters, a story that’s making the top of the hour news on radio stations across the region: “Water fountains fed by heating, cooling systems found in ferries headquarters.”

Oh man… figures, doesn’t it? And you can see that instant, angry, government/union-bashing reaction in the comment thread on the Times website:

“This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, were talking Washington State Ferry System they have trouble keeping their ferries running.”

“Probably hooked up by the state Ferry engineers.”

“Wonderful that the State requires union workers paid union wages on contracts and this is what we get. But I’m sure the union will step right in and protect the lazy plumber who did this by saying they need ‘more training’.”

Only problem is, while none of the facts in the article appear to be obviously wrong (because apart from the addition of an administrator’s quote, all of the facts seem to have been pulled from a WSDOT press release), the Times article gave its government-hating readers exactly the wrong impression.

This wasn’t a screwup on the part of lazy/incompetent public employees, but rather the private sector.

For what the Times leaves out is that the building is owned and operated by Seattle uber-landlord Martin Selig, and that the water fountains were installed two-years before the Ferries moved into the building, not by union plumbers, but by a small, mom & pop, Kirkland-based contractor.

The Ferries and their workers were victims here, not the perpetrators. But you wouldn’t guess that from the Times’ factual reporting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayCmNlo80a4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6saBwHM6VM[/youtube]