HorsesAss.Org

More than most, this election season has been dreadful. The ballot measures are bad enough, highlighted by another draconian Eyman eyesore and the shotgun wedding of a good transit package and an awful roads one. But city voters this season also must consider the future composition of the Seattle City Council.

Can we, like, abolish it and start over?

Recent weeks have seen a rash of headlines featuring council members and candidates and their inappropriate behavior. Even when the behavior had nothing to do with the person’s job performance (or prospective performance), the poor judgment shown, time after time, and this year’s seriously weak crop of council candidates, leaves one wondering: is this really the best we can do?

* Before the primary, Councilwoman Jean Godden’s campaign shopped to her old colleagues at the daily papers a “scandalous” story about her main challenger, Joe Szwaja, and a minor 17-year-old domestic violence incident. And then Szwaja obligingly stumbled all over himself responding to the reports.

* In a remark widely trumpeted as “racist” by supporters of opponent Bruce Harrell, candidate Venus Velazquez told a largely non-white crowd at a Hate Free Zone forum to “vote for people who look like you.” It was a dumb remark–especially since Harrell is also non-white–but in this case she’s gotten a bum rap. Velázquez was only reflecting the grim reality of Seattle politics, in which David Della was elected because he was Asian Pacific Islander and Richard McIver would long ago have been retired were he not African-American. Why? Because non-whites perceive, accurately, that in our at-large system the white council majority could not care less about minority interests. Velázquez would be the city’s first Latina councilmember, and she was speaking, however clumsily, to that. But it was still a really stupid thing to say.

* Harrell himself is a disaster, a developer-backed lawyer who–“when I starred for the Huskies in the Rose Bowl…”–trots out more–“back when my grandfather settled in Seattle…”–irrelevant cliches per second than any other–“growing up in a working class Seattle household…” politician I’ve ever met. Ever. (All guaranteed actual quotes. Frequent quotes).

* Sally Clark, who was appointed to the Council last year and still hasn’t had a serious challenger in two elections since, drew as her general election opponent one Judy Fenton, who ran for office because she wants the nude male sculpture at Olympic Sculpture Park covered up to protect our children. I can’t make this shit up. I’m tempted to endorse Fenton for the sheer entertainment value. I think I’ll go lie down instead.

* McIver made headlines this month–and spent two nights in jail–for a drunken brawl in which he allegedly tried to choke his wife. (Okay, okay, “choke” is a harsh word. He allegedly put his hands around her throat and squeezed. How’s that?)

Mind you, McIver is only on the council in the first place because he was appointed in 1995 to replace John Manning, who resigned after his third domestic violence incident. Manning ran for city council this year, too.

* Councilmember David Della, facing a stiff re-election challenge from a guy (Tim Burgess) who spent years advising the far-Christian-right group Concerned Women of America, embarrassed himself twice in the same week. First, Della pulled a Velazquez, injecting race where race need not be, by lashing out at environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Washington Conservation Voters for endorsing his (white) opponent as “someone who looked like them.” Then leaders of the police and firefighters unions reported that they, too, got flack from Della when they endorsed Burgess. Della should’ve expected those endorsements, Burgess being an ex-cop, but allegedly he warned the union leaders that there would be retribution for their choice, since Della sits on the Finance Committee and the police union is in negotiations with the city and has been without a contract for months. Ugly.

* And then Velazquez gets pulled over for DUI, refuses a breath test and generally doesn’t cooperate well with police, then does an about-face and apologizes to her supporters for all the fuss, and then pleads not guilty anyway.

I’ll ask again. Is this the best we can do?

Being on Seattle City Council is a big deal. It’s an over $100,000 a year job, with staff, that controls an annual city budget of well over $2 billion, oversees more than 10,000 city employees, and makes decisions that will affect every city resident for decades to come. One would hope that the position would attract intelligent, articulate, responsible visionaries, with proven records of accomplishment in their fields.

Instead, we have this sorry lot, the survivors of a process dependent mostly on fundraising and name recognition. More and more, we’re coming to recognize their names–for all the wrong reasons. Surely we can do better.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Should insurance companies have the right to screw policy holders with impunity?
With a stroke of the governor’s pen earlier this year, WA joined forty-four other states in penalizing insurance companies for “bad faith” actions such as denying claims without cause… at least, WA would have joined these other states if the insurance industry had not immediately filed a referendum seeking to overturn it. Dana Childer’s is the spokesperson for the Reject R-67 campaign, which is spending over $10 million of insurance industry money to invalidate the law. Sue Evans represents the Approve R-67 campaign, which is fighting to keep the law on the books. Both join me by phone.

8PM: Open lines with Bill Sherman
Absentee ballots are already pouring in, so Bill Sherman, Democratic candidate for King County Prosecuting Attorney joins me one last time to talk about the issues and take your calls.

9PM: Republico-Fascist Awareness Night
Tomorrow, right-wing hate-monger David Horowitz kicks off Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week, and College Republicans nationwide will be joining in the festivities, apparently eager to even further diminish the GOP’s standing with their fellow young folks. Joining me in the studio to explain exactly what “Islamo-Fascism” is, and why Muslim classmates shouldn’t be offended by the term, will be University of Washington College Republican President Tom Walker.

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

The UW College Republicans (who haven’t bothered to buy their own url) are promoting “Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week” starting Monday.

Should we be aware of Islamo-fascists? Sure. I think the Bush Administration should be “aware” of Islamo-fascists, specifically one particular Islamo-fascist, who seems to be a wee bit slippery these days. But who can blame him? The guy is six foot, five inches tall, hooked up to a dialysis machine and puts out more videos than Kanye West. You might remember him. He’s the Islamo-fascist who actually attacked America on 9/11 and has so far gotten away with it. Yeah, that guy.

So why are the doughy-assed douchebags at the UWCR putting on this show? Because talking about Islamo-fascism is way more fun than signing up to do something about it.

Some of the programming this week:

And it’s hosting two events open to the public: a showing of “Suicide Killers,” a documentary about suicide bombers, at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Smith Hall, and a talk by conservative author and talk-show host Michael Medved at 7 p.m. Thursday in Kane Hall.

As for “Suicide Killers,” Medved has already told me the ending: the boxing coach helps his paralyzed boxer take her own life. Very sad.

The local Muslim community, no doubt excited for special attention they’re about to receive, respond:

Amin Odeh, a board member with the local Arab American Community Coalition, said he agrees that “radical anything is dangerous — radical Muslims, radical Christians, radical Jews. Education is needed.”

Education? Not for these patriots!

(Onward, Christian Soldiers begins to play on a pipe organ)

UPDATE:
I’ll be having the President of the UW College Republicans on my show tonight, 710-KIRO at 9PM. (– Goldy)

Last June, former Seattle U.S. Attorney John McKay went to Washington D.C. to provide eight hours of testimony to the Office of the Inspector General. The Inspector General was investigating the reasons why eight U.S. Attorneys were fired.

As with the Fitzgerald investigation, this investigation has been hampered by a (former) senior Bush administration official lying. And we may have another high-profile perjury and obstruction of justice case in the works:

An investigation might be finished as early as next month, and then the U.S. inspector general might recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the fired former U.S. attorney for Western Washington told a Spokane audience Friday.

[…] McKay said he believes he and seven other U.S. attorneys were fired last December by Gonzales for political reasons, perhaps with former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove pulling strings.

Career prosecutors in his office and FBI agents agreed there was no reason to go forward with a federal investigation of the Gregoire-Rossi election, and issues associated with it were more properly addressed by state officials, McKay said.
[…]

Gonzales “lied about” reasons for the firings when questioned under oath in July by the Senate Judiciary Committee, McKay said.

The White House said McKay was fired for poor performance ratings of his office, but the former U.S. attorney said he and his office got exemplary reviews just three months before he was fired.

“The chief law enforcement officer for the United States should not lie under oath,” McKay told the bar association.

An interesting part of this story is the likely role played by the Washington State Republicans:

In the weeks following the 2004 gubernatorial race, [Washington State Republican Party Chair Chris] Vance said Republicans were “angry and frustrated.” Republican Dino Rossi held narrow leads after the initial count and the first recount, but Democrat Chris Gregoire won by 129 votes after a second recount. Vance wanted to deliver that message of frustration to McKay.
[…]

Vance said he talked about the governor’s race frequently with Glynda Becker, the western states’ contact in Karl Rove’s political office at the White House. Vance said he didn’t remember if McKay was discussed.

Democratic claims that Rove was running the Republican effort to ensure Rossi won weren’t true, Vance said, though he said the White House knew what was going on.

Becker recalled the phone calls from Vance and “every other Republican activist from Washington state” and said while McKay’s name might have come up she couldn’t remember the context.

Others who spoke to Becker about the governor’s race included Tony Williams, a one-time chief of staff to former Washington Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, who advised the Rossi campaign.

Following the 2004 election, frustrated and angry state Republicans complained to Karl Rove’s office that the U.S. Attorney wasn’t investigating—what they perceived to be—election fraud. They didn’t have evidence for election fraud, of course, but that didn’t stop them from claiming it…over and over and over again. In the world of politics, you can make somebody believe something by repeating it often enough; but, that dog don’t hunt when it comes to the world of evidence and logic in the justice system. Even so, the state Republicans launched a high-profile law suit in which, Dale Foreman opened the GOP case by claiming, “[t]his is a case of election fraud.” After six months of investigations and millions of dollars spent on each side, the lawsuit was dismissed. There was no election fraud.

One legacy of the GOP lawsuit is that the false allegations managed to shake voter confidence in our elections process. But the problem with exercising bad-faith political smears is that they can come back to bite you in the ass. So it is only fair to give the Washington state GOP a little bit of credit for the months of political mayhem surrounding Gonzogate.

An even bigger political flap will arise should Gonzales be prosecuted for lying. (And given that the trial could take years, I suspect George Bush will, before leaving office, simply pardon Gonzales.) This, too, will become part of the GOP legacy from the Washington state gubernatorial election contest.

Hey…karma is a bitch!

Noemie does what Noemie does best… an incredibly thorough examination of, and interview with Richard Pope. And she’s not really suggesting that HA’s comment threads sometimes change minds, is she?

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Were the folks at The Stranger drunk…?
Was the Stranger Election Control Board drunk when they endorsed “No” on Prop 1 and “Yes” on Tim Burgess? Did they hit the bottle after Venus Velazquez got pulled over for a DUI just days after earning the SECB endorsement? Will they lose a drinking buddy if Councilman Richard McIver loses his council seat? Josh Feit joins us for The Stranger Hour, to discuss these and other issues of the day.

8PM: What is the Armenian Genocide, and why does it matter?
It looks like House Democrats are preparing to back off a resolution condemning the Turkish genocide of Armenians during World War I. Realpolitik? Cowardice? Prof. Peter Balakian joins us for the hour to fill us in on the history of the genocide and why it matters.

9PM: Regional Blogger Roundup
A round-table discussion of regional and national news with TJ from Loaded Orygun, Jim from McCranium and McJoan from Daily Kos. TJ’s going tell us Portlanders really hate their light rail, Joan will tell us if Idahoans really love Sen. Craig (you know, in a platonic sense,) and Jimmy’s gonna tell us why the hell he’s running for office. That and other stuff.

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

I suppose you could call it a Draft “Gore” movement…

(This and some sixty other media clips from the past week in politics are posted at Hominid Views.)

Dan Satterberg was recently quoted as saying “This office should be nonpartisan,” and that he considers entering the world of partisan politics a necessary evil.

Apparently, Mr. Satterberg found it so necessary to partake of that evil that he is jointly headlining a Republican fund raising event…with Jane Hague!

Uh-huh. When “evil partisanship” calls, Satterberg steps up to the plate! He sees no problem associating his good name with Jane Hague, a candidate who is deeply flawed and neck deep in scandal.

Call me cynical, but it sure looks to me like Dan Satterberg has become a Republican fund raising asset. And he hasn’t even been elected to office yet! Democrats who are tempted to vote for Dan because “he is a nice guy, and is really kind-of, sort-of non-partisan” are simply fooling themselves—Dan is now an official tool in the Republican fund-raising arsenal.

But maybe I am misreading this whole thing. Maybe Dan is appearing at the fund raiser in a “non-partisan” role. Maybe Satterberg and Hague will actually be doing some sort of public service announcement. You know, like a Good Cop bad Drunk routine, where Jane tosses back a few, Dan tries arresting her and Jane unleashes a verbal volley. But this version of the tragedy ends differently: Jane takes full responsibility for her abuse and her drunk driving.

Or maybe Dan and Jane will make a joint announcement that, in lieu of a drawn-out investigation and prolonged prosecution, Jane has voluntarily decided to refund portions of her past King County salary—you know, from the job she obtained after lying on her resume about having a college degree. It could happen, I suppose.

Yeah…maybe Dan really is non-partisan, in which case, any day now, I expect to see him headlining a fund raiser for Venus Velazquez.

Well, thanks to the unbelieveably crappy housing market, my wife and I are no longer moving to Kent, unless we win the lottery in the next 10 days and can afford two mortgages and a new car. I will spare everyone the long and ugly details of what actually happened, but this article has some clues.

On the bright side, I will finally have some more time to blog again.

Looking at Seattle’s dailies from across the continent, I’m not really sure what’s in the news today.

It was windy! Or maybe it wasn’t. The Seattle P-I says 280,000 were left without power yesterday, but the Seattle Times says “tens of thousands.” I guess, mathematically, they both could be right. Also, one man was killed kite-surfing in 40 mile-per-hour winds. I’m sure somewhere else in the world a man was killed yesterday sticking a fork in a toaster, but I don’t see any headlines about that.

The War on Christmas seems to come earlier every year. Damn commercialism. Anyway, looks like those pussies at the Port of Seattle have decided to opt out of the annual multicultural debate by clear-cutting their Christmas trees and replacing them with a monoculture of snow dusted birch. Nothing like going out of your way to make all sides unhappy.

“I find the whole thing stupid,” attorney Harvey Grad told the Times. I agree.

Meanwhile, the state has announced it will add a nativity scene to the “Holiday Tree” and Chanukah menorah in the Capitol rotunda. I’m so confused.

Forgive and forget? Seattle City Council candidate Venus Velazquez asks voters to forgive her for her DUI:

“I guess all I can say right now is I hope and believe that voters will see this as a human mistake,” Velazquez said. “At some point you make a judgment call and, clearly, I made the wrong one because — legally — I was impaired. My own judgment of myself not being impaired didn’t match up with the legal definition.”

[…] “It’s for the voters to decide whether this mistake is enough to disqualify me from serving them,” Velazquez said. “So many times, in these situations, we’ve said, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ “

Will accepts her apology. Joel thinks voters should judge candidates on their ability to serve in office, not their ability to drive. I think she’s finally struck the exact right tone, but it may be a day too late to save her campaign. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, it looks like the state’s leading Republicans would likely accept Velazquez’s apology, what with Rep. Dave Reichert, Attorney General Rob McKenna, and non-candidate Dino Rossi all endorsing Jane Hague, months after her drunken swear-fest with the state patrol.

“Jane Hague… Leadership that works.” You know, when it’s not drinking. And driving.

Rossi also had some run-ins with alcohol. When he was 18, he and a friend got drunk on a bottle of vodka and then, with Rossi behind the wheel, crashed his Pontiac into a house and totaled the car. No one was injured, but Rossi was charged with drunken driving and underage drinking. The charge was later reduced and, instead of jail time, he had to go to a class and pay a fine.

“It’s one of those things that happens when you’re 18 and you know everything there is in the world to know,” Rossi said.

Yup, it’s just one of those things that happens when you know everything there is in the world to know.

Dear Supporters,

Last night, I was cited for driving under the influence. I take this charge very seriously and accept full responsibility for my actions.

Today, I want to apologize to all of you, who have supported me since I began this campaign, given me your trust and invested so much of yourselves in this journey.

I am more sorry about this incident that I can express in words. I am also sorry for the impact this will have on you, my supporters. I would never intentionally put others at risk or violate the great trust so many of you have given me.

And I respect the system that will ultimately judge my actions.

I am committed to serving you, the voters and the city of Seattle. I will continue to talk about the issues that matter and why I decided to seek a place on the city council, but not here. Here I accept responsibility and hope you will accept my apology. And I hope I will continue to have your support on November 6th.

Please don’t hesitate to call me at [phone number redacted -Will] if you would like to talk more about this with me. I welcome your call.

Venus

I have family who are in the drug and alcohol rehab business. People who gets nailed for DUI usually go one of two ways. If they take full responsibility for their actions and avoid blaming others, they have a good chance of not reoffending. If they don’t, well, you know the rest of the story.

I talk trash about Dori Monson on a regular basis, but on alcohol and driving, he’s dead on. Drinking alcohol and driving is entirely unacceptable. Getting behind the wheel after drinking alcohol is gambling with other people’s lives. When I’m driving, I don’t drink. At all.

Other people have different rules. At Drinking Liberally, our Tuesday evening get-together, I know for a fact that many of the fellow participants are drinking, and then driving. Maybe it is only one or two beers spread out over an evening, but alcohol affects fine motor skills even when you don’t feel tipsy. Also, DUI stands for “driving under the influence” of drugs or alcohol. “Driving under the influence” doesn’t necessarily mean a .08 blood alcohol level. You can get nailed for less than an “oh eight”, but it is somewhat harder for the state to prove that alcohol was the cause of your impairment.

Drunk driving isn’t a liberal or conservative thing. As one political operative told me back in ’02 on my 21st birthday, “everyone drives drunk, especially in politics.” Drunk driving isn’t taken very seriously in the USA. Other countries, many of them European, take it much more seriously. One of the reasons I’m such a fan of public transportation is that people should be able to go out and party without having to worry about driving home. When I go to Pioneer Square to “tie one on,” I’m usually walking or riding the bus or cabbing it, but that’s because I live close to downtown.

I really care about my friends who drink alcohol and then, sometime later, drive home. It scares the shit out of me, to be frank with you. I don’t want to seem “holier than thou” about it, because I don’t care about being holier than anyone. I just want the people I know to get home safe.

I have been berated as a hypocrite, from time to time, and in my own comment threads, for not covering Democratic scandals with the same vigor with which I attack those of Republicans, a charge to which I generally provide a twofold answer: 1) I only have time for a couple posts a day; and 2) HA is a partisan, liberal blog… attacking Democrats is Stefan’s job, not mine.

See, it really doesn’t bother me when folks accuse me of being biased, because I’ve never claimed otherwise. What annoys me is when folks like Stefan claim to be “small ‘L’ libertarians” instead of the knee-jerk Republicans they really are.

That said, I do I think I do a better job than the competition at being fair, if not balanced, and today’s post on Venus Velazquez’s DUI is a perfect example. After my inumerable posts castigating both Mike McGavick and Jane Hague for their DUI’s, and their failure to come clean about them, I couldn’t very well ignore a similar indiscretion from a fellow Democrat in a high profile Seattle City Council race. And I didn’t.

But after studiously avoiding discussion of Hague’s more scandalous drunken escapade, and the other infamies that have dogged her campaign, you’d think Stefan might be a tad embarrassed to quickly jump on Velazquez’s DUI arrest. He isn’t.

I’m just sayin’.

I’m blogging from Philadelphia today after grabbing a red-eye through DFW last night. I’m exhausted, headachy, a little disoriented… all the symptoms of a hangover… you know, kinda the way Venus Velazquez must feel right now after driving her campaign off a cliff last night.

Seattle City Council candidate Venus Velázquez was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to the Seattle Police Department.

“I take the charge very seriously. I take the process very seriously,” Velázquez said this morning. “I don’t feel good about it.”

No Venus, I bet you don’t. And neither do a lot of people who have invested an awful lot of time and money into helping Velazquez get elected. Time and money, I’m guessing, that will totally go to naught.

Velázquez said, “I was not impaired, I had drinks at dinner, as many of us do. I don’t even have a speeding ticket.”

Reminded that according to court records, she was cited for speeding in Seattle in 1995, she responded, “Well, that was a long time ago.”

Oy. Have our local politicians learned nothing from the whole Jane Hague affair?

The correct response might have been “I’m mortified. It was a terrible, terrible lapse of judgment, that will never, ever happen again. We all make mistakes, and I promise to learn from mine…” or something like that. But to try to make excuses on something as serious as a DUI…? That’s just plain dumb.

Truth is, Velazquez is both petite and buff — not an ounce of excess fat on her — and it is very possible that two drinks with dinner could put her over the legal limit while it might take more than twice that for a seasoned pro like Mike McGavick. But she refused to submit to the breath test, so we’ll never really know, which quite frankly doesn’t work in her favor.

And besides, that’s not really the point. Maybe she was .11. Maybe she was .05. But she never should have been behind the wheel of a car, let alone speeding — not as a candidate in a high profile city council race, not on the day the absentee ballots started arriving in the mail, and certainly not after a couple drinks. There is no excuse, and any attempt to make one just adds one more lapse of judgment to the list.

I like Velazquez, and she may still get my vote. But I think she just cost herself the election.

UPDATE:
Velazquez has issued a formal statement. I think it hits most of the right notes. We’ll see if it helps.

It’s not expected: The Stranger is voting “no” on Prop 1. Why?

For roads, this package is the last gasp. No one in his right mind looks at the environmental realities we’re currently facing and says, “Let’s build hundreds of miles of new roads!”

I don’t think most voters consider “environmental realities” when voting on things. People think mostly about things they think affect them directly. Things like the length of time they have to be in their cars between their job in Seattle and their house in Federal Way. That’s why expanding light rail outside of Seattle makes so much sense. Deliver dependable, speedy transit to the places that don’t have it and you will change things for the better.

But not so says The Stranger:

The light rail in this proposal would be paid for with a regressive sales tax instead of user fees (like tolls). The line itself (through a low-density area) may feed sprawl in south King County, instead of promoting the dense urban development that will grow alongside light rail stations in North Seattle.

What, like this?

The city of Federal Way is remaking it’s downtown. They are turning parking lots into housing and shops and parks. They are doing everything Erica C. Barnett and Josh Feit would have them do, yet The Stranger tells them to “fuck off,” and that they don’t deserve light rail.

If we’re trying to convince people to embrace density, urbanism, and transit, wouldn’t it make sense to bring all of these things to the people who don’t have them?

Let’s look at that last quote again:

The line itself (through a low-density area) may feed sprawl in south King County, instead of promoting the dense urban development that will grow alongside light rail stations in North Seattle.

First, Federal Way is inside the urban growth boundary. That’s where growth is supposed to happen! Second, does transit really create sprawl? Of course not, (unless your name is Knute Berger, in which case transit creates “vertical sprawl,” which is not even a thing). Light rail creates density. That’s the whole point! You put light rail where you want people to live or work! That’s why Ron Sims fought so hard to put light rail down MLK and not Rainier Avenue South. (You are forgiven if you don’t remember that, some years ago, Ron Sims was a die hard champion of light rail.)

I do respect some of the people who are against Roads and Transit. But to play the “useful idiot” for Kemper Freeman Jr. by killing our first chance in 40 years to create a regional mass transit system, that’s too much.

It’s still going to be windy today.

And every (non-)story is careful to note that WindStorm 07 (cue catchy graphic and sounder) won’t be nearly as bad as last December’s storm. But that doesn’t prevent any of them from playing on people’s fear of a repeat.

In other news:

To nobody’s surprise, Seattle City Council member Richard McIver entered a plea of not guilty yesterday to fourth degree assault in connection with a drunken late-night fight with his wife last week that landed the councilman in jail for two days. He has been absent from council chambers since, but will return to work today.

McIver’s wife, Marlaina Kiner-McIver, was in court for the hearing, and told the judge both that she wanted the two-week no-contact order with her husband lifted (the judge kept it in place, but allowed third-party contact) and that she did not wish to press charges. Interestingly, none of the multiple local TV and print stories on the hearing mentioned what any social worker will tell you: that when a partner in a domestic abuse case doesn’t want charges filed, it’s no real indicator one way or another as to what happened.

Greg Nickels has quietly proposed to city council a reform that, if enacted, would ensure his re-election for life: a city government call system that, rather than dumping citizens into impenetrable jungles of voice mail, would be answered by live operators 24/7. No more publicly popular administrative idea is imaginable.

Of course, there’s no word as yet as to which country the live operators will be answering from.

The state capitol announced that it will allow a nativity scene in the rotunda this year, joining a menorah and a “holiday tree” (whatever the hell that is) that were displayed last year. A “War On Christmas” type advocacy group complained after being denied a nativity scene last year (the capitol says they simply filed their application too late), and this year they get to set up their display as well.

Most curious is the last sentence in the P-I’s article on this, which addresses the rather salient question: is any religion-specific display in the capitol legal? The “answer”:

[The General Administration Department] vetted the idea [of the nativity scene] with the state Attorney General’s Office because of the religious content of the display and was told there was not enough time to research the issue.

The holiday displays have been a controversy for a year, and religion displays on public property are a perennial issue across the country, and Rob McKenna’s office didn’t have time to look up whether it was legal? So the bureaucrats are assuming it is legal.

Doug Honig. ACLU of Washington. Lawsuit. Bill O’Reilly wet dream. Tempest in holiday teapot. You read it here first.

In D.C., it looks like the Democrats have sold us out again on warrantless domestic spying, giving the Bush administration its desired legal immunity for telecom companies now being sued for secretly turning over customer records to the illegal program. News flash: Congressional approval numbers just dropped another point.

Internationally, Turkey’s parliament voted 507-19 Wednesday to authorize military force in Northern Iraq. While Turkish leaders say they have no immediate plans to act on the authorization, Turkish troops are already massed at the border and the Turkish military has already struck across the border in recent weeks against Kurdish rebels operating from Iraqi Kurdistan. The confrontation pits Turkey, a key US ally and NATO member, against the Kurds, America’s most reliable ally in Iraq, in yet another complication to the Iraqi clusterfuck. And say, whatever happened to the George W. Bush dictum that we won’t tolerate governments (like the government of Kurdistan) that harbor terrorists?

Has anyone else noticed that there’s been virtually no meaningful local news stories in our local news this week? Which raises the imponderable question: if a tree falls on a slow news week, does the gust of wind that caused it qualify as a natural disaster?