WhackyNation

I’ve picked up that both Republican and Democrat members of TVW’s board agreed this afternoon that party pressure would be put on candidates and their supporters who violate TVW’s copyright.

This is in response to Darcy Burner-Amen-Bloggers David Goldstein and Daniel Kirkdorffer who have been lifting Dave Reichert and Burner soundbites from TVW’s website.

Supposedly the D’s will find some sort of pressure on Burner to get her to persuade her cronies to knock off the soundbite stealing.

Right.

I wouldn’t hold my breath this plan is going to work.

David Goldstein is openly challenging TVW, Washington’s public affairs television channel, to defend its copyright.

Violating TVW’s published copyright, the pro-Darcy-Burner blogger has posted a 37 second clip of Congressman Dave Reichert’s speech to the Mainstream Republicans last month which TVW caried in its entirety.  So far, Democrat Darcy Burner has not disavowed Goldstein’s action.

The latest epidsode is reminiscent of a 2006 TV attack ad when Darcy Burner supporters stole another Reichert speech from TVW.  Although chastised by the Seattle Times editorial page for exhibiting “bad leadership,” Burner did not denounce the tactic which probably cost her the election.

So Goldstein in his egoistic need to pretend he’s a journalist defending the public’s right to know, is setting up his favorite candidate, Darcy Burner, for more leadership criticism.  Goldstein is too closely allied with the Burner campaign not to cause public scutiny of Burner’s support or non-support of Goldstein’s challenge to TVW.

Goldstein doesn’t appear to be a chess player.

The other question is, how will TVW respond?  I’ve suspected TVW to be a paper tiger and will not defend its copyright.  If it doesn’t, then nobody will respect TVW’s copyrights and its archives will become opposition research for campaigns.  I suspect there are a lot of Democrats and Republicans who would not like to see this happen.

So, it will be interesting to follow this story in the weeks to come.  Maybe the liberal blogger of the Horses Ass site will earn the moniker “Horses dick,” even among Democats.

I saw this post over at Horsesass.org and I thought how pathetic.

It hasn’t been 24 hours since Darcy Burner and nine other Democratic challengers introduced their Responsible Plan for ending the war in Iraq, and we’re already seeing a surge of new challengers signing on.

When you watch your political opposition lock onto zealotry and lock out the political reality of the moment you have to have pity.  In this case, not only for the candidate, but also for her sycophant supporters in the blogosphere.

Here’s a tip: 2008 is not 2006.

In Washington State 2006 was all about anti-Bush, anti-war.

Right now, 2008 is about the economy, and maybe the issue du jour will change by November.

It’s pathetic that the moveon.org contingent behind Burner’s campaign is still focused on the war, as if anybody cared anymore.

With the fluctuations of the market, the subprime crisis, and the falling dollar the affluent 8th Congressional District doesn’t give a rat’s ass what’s going on in Iraq.  Oh, maybe some of the righteous and some of the have-nots do, but most of the constituents are worried about their pocketbook.

Darcy Burner is living the glory days of her last campaign and reliving the playbook of her 2006 campaign.

Maybe I’m giving the opposition too much help here, but, geez, out of pity, I have to say “Get with the times.”

If Burner can’t talk about any issue but the war, she’s going to go down as a big one-issue loser this November.  Then, maybe, we’ll be done with her once and for all.

It’s been about a week since I called on Moveon.org’s candidate for Congress in the 8th District, Darcy Burner, to denounce the over-the-top General Betrayus ad.  It appears she is still ducking the issue, but finally Seattle’s lame, left-of-center, drive-by political reporters are finally seeing the validity of questioning her stunning silence.

Says the Time’s David Postman:

I’ve been largely uninterested in the “debate” over MoveOn.org’s ad attacking Gen. David Petraeus. But, though I’m late to the game, I was surprised to see that congressional candidate Darcy Burner isn’t answering when asked how she would have voted if asked to condemn the ad….

I don’t see the value in asking every member of Congress or every candidate what they think about the newspaper ad. But Burner is clearly a netroots favorite and her most vocal supporters are the very people who have been the most strident in defending the ad.

Postman was way late to the story, which makes me wonder about his ability to ask hard question of Democrat women politicians whether they be Burner, Gregoire, Cantwell, Murray or Sommers.  Postman only jumped aboard the Burner-Betray Us story after he was scooped in the print world by Josh Feit at the Stranger who followed up on a press release issued by State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser.

Feit writes:

Given that most of our delegation has voted on this (Sen. Murray ‘Nay,’ Sen. Cantwell didn’t vote, Reps. Inslee and McDermott ‘Nay’ and everyone else, including Rep. Dave Reichert, whom Burner is challenging, in favor), I think it’s a fair question to throw Burner’s way. How would she have voted? Gotta take votes if you’re in Congress.

I put the question to her campaign spokesman, Sandeep Kaushik, and here’s what he said:

“Look, her dad is a veteran. Her husband is a veteran. And her brother just got back from Iraq. No one has more respect for the military than Darcy does. Obviously she has a lot of respect for General Petraeus. But there are two things going on here. The Bush Administration has put him in an untenable situation, asking him to find a military solution to a situation that doesn’t have a military solution. And second, the GOP is manufacturing a kind of situational outrage over what really is just an ad in a newspaper to distract people from the question at hand: How do we end this war?”

I asked again: How would Burner have voted?

Kaushik said: “Darcy has a lot of respect for General Petraeus and the difficult job he’s trying to do. And she’s not a fan of name-calling on either side.”

Not an answer. So I asked if I could ask Burner directly. Kaushik said Burner is out of town and “I think we’ll just leave it at that.”

Does Darcy, the purported high techie from Microsoft, not have cell phone?  Apparently taking vacation and hiding behind her campaign manager is her way of ducking the issue.

I got to say Josh Feit, despite his leftist bias, surprises me by showing the stuff of the old school in his ability to see a story and ask the questions.

Feit’s story not only kicked Postman in the butt to finally drive by the story, but got our friend Eric Earling at Sound Politics to weigh in.

In a sense it’s recognition of reality. Local Democratic Members of Congress Baird, Dicks, Larsen, and Smith voted against MoveOn in a vote that inspired the Wrath of Kos. Add to that fact that the public really didn’t like the ad either and it becomes a pretty logical step for someone trying to unseat a successfully re-elected incumbent in a swing-district.

That being said, it really betrays (sorry, couldn’t resist) the Darcy Burner, darling of the netroots, theme we’ve come to know and love. The dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge display from her spokesman, as linked above, in avoiding the question was very inside-the-Beltway in its obtuseness. Hardly the speak-truth-to-power approach we’ve come to expect.

So, the Darcy-the-Duck story is tracking two ways:

The first is the story itself, a legitimate one, asking the sock puppet of Moveon.org whether she would denounce the General Betray Us ad or at least acknowledge it was over the top.

The second is the slow reaction by Seattle’s drive-by media to a legitimate and important story.  Does the drive-by hesitancy suggest a bias to her politics, a fear of angering the Moveon.org blogosphere in the Northwest, or an inability to confront women politicians?  It would be nice to know the answer to this question before the Gregoire-Rossi race heats up.

Hour by hour Darcy Burner is proving herself unfit for public office.

As she refuses to denounce the over-the-top personal attack ad against General Petraeus she is proving herself more loyal to her left-wing, blogosphere, hate-America supporters than to common decency and morality.

Burner must denouce this ad as “too over the top” or else face a reputation of being a whore to the Moveon crowd.

Today, two newspapers, the New York Times and the Seattle Times advanced the story against the ad.  Come on, Darcy, think for yourself!  Quit ducking the inevitable.

The New York Times ombudsman said the newspaper not only violated its own policies on personal attack ads but gave Moveon.org a much cheaper rate than it was entitled to.  Writing in today’s paper Public Editor Clark Hoyt chastises his own paper in an article entitled “Betraying its Own Best Interests“:

Did MoveOn.org get favored treatment from The Times? And was the ad outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse?

The answer to the first question is that MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.

The answer to the second question is that the ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, “We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.” Steph Jespersen, the executive who approved the ad, said that, while it was “rough,” he regarded it as a comment on a public official’s management of his office and therefore acceptable speech for The Times to print.

But Ombusman Hoyt doesn’t buy Jepersen’s rationalization of left-wing hate speech:

For me, two values collided here: the right of free speech — even if it’s abusive speech — and a strong personal revulsion toward the name-calling and personal attacks that now pass for political dialogue, obscuring rather than illuminating important policy issues. For The Times, there is another value: the protection of its brand as a newspaper that sets a high standard for civility. Were I in Jespersen’s shoes, I’d have demanded changes to eliminate “Betray Us,” a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier. 

Come on, Darcy, time’s ticking.  Quit being a coward.  Quit ducking.

And, Darcy, if the New York Times isn’t enough to persuade you, then maybe the local paper, the Seattle Times, very well read in your 8th Congressional District, might influence you.

Today’s editorial says this:

MoveOn.org’s ill-considered, outrageous New York Times newspaper ad calling Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, “General Betray Us” not only slimed a well-respected general, it distorted a very real and very serious debate about the course of the war.

and:

Why can’t we, as a country, disagree about policy without undertaking childish ad hominem attacks on a general who is doing his best to represent the military in a very unpopular war?

This editorial page believes strongly it is time for the American troops to start coming home in an orderly fashion.

But we listened carefully to Petraeus’ testimony out of respect for his knowledge and understanding of a complicated region.

MoveOn.org embarrassed itself and its position on the war with an over-the-top and unnecessary attack on the general.

The war is bad enough. Nobody needs MoveOn.org’s stupid advertising campaign.

I guess this means by supporting a “childish ad-hominem attack” this makes you “stupid,” Darcy.

As Forrest Gump says, Darcy, “Stupid is as Stupid does.”

And, the story doesn’t stop here.  It’s about time that David Postman and the other so-called political reporters in Puget Sound start asking Burner the tough questions about the ad and her supporters.  Political reporters need to quit treating Darcy as a “girl” and hold her accountable for her politics and immaturity.

So will Darcy Burner, the darling of the Daily Kook crowd, denouce Moveon.org’s over-the-top “General Betrayus” ad?

Or will she duck and cover?  And avoid scolding her most ardent supporters?

My bet:  She’s ducking; and by doing so has earned the nickname “Ducky.”

So much for her leadership.  So much for respecting the military.

Eastsiders deserve a lot more character in their representative to Congress.   That’s why I and so many of my friends and neighbors are supporting Dave Reichert’s re-election campaign.

I’ve got to admit it.  I am impressed by the NutRoots’ fundraising success for Darcy Burner.  Over 3,000 people contributed more than $127,000 during the past few days in response to President Bush visiting Bellevue to attend a Dave Reichert fundraiser.

That’s considerable money for Burner and a testament to the strength of the Bush Derangement Syndrome infecting the American Left.

One thing is certain: the Left can successfully fundraise via the net because Leftist activists have reached a critical mass online.  That’s missing on the Right.  And it’s a disadvantage going into the next election cycle.

Conservative activists remain unhip to the net and are losing out on the net’s tactical and strategic capabilities.

David Postman interviews Darcy Burner, and, once again Darcy proves she lacks integrity and thinks the public will swallow her crap.

Compared to the Burner Postman knew last election, Postman comments “there’s no dramatically different Burner 2.0.”  Translation: same shit, different election.

To illustrate, she tried to slip one by Postman when she accused the Republicans of dirty tricks in the days before the 2006 election:

“I admit I wasn’t expecting them to make 585,000 voter contact phone calls in the last 96 hours, some of which said things like, ‘Darcy Burner is about to be indicted for a felony.’ And yes, that’s illegal.

Postman said he hadn’t heard of any ‘indictment” calls and Burner insisted they happened

but couldn’t say with certainty that they came from the Republican Party voter contact program.

Good for Postman for the follow-up.  Most drive-by reporters would have reported her original quotation as fact.

If Burner doesn’t have evidence, then she shouldn’t make wild accusations.  It makes her look cheap and lacking integrity.

I know Mainstream Republicans helped to re-elect Reichert by making automated phonecalls with a message from Senator Dan Evans.  Maybe the message from a very respected politician contrasted with Burner’s shrewish image. 

When talking about her primary opponent, State Senator Rodney Tom, she snipes,

“I’m not a professional politician.”

Horse crap.  The very definition of a “politician” is “a person who is active in party politics.”  Her claim not to be a politician makes her disingenuous or “lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere.”  She beat the incumbent congressman when it came to fundraising.  Talk about not being professional.

Anyway.  For those of you interested in 8th District politics, I urge you to read the interview.  It gives you an insight into how this candidate thinks.  As they say, “You can take the girl out of the trailer, but you can’t take the trailer out of the girl.”  No wonder liberal bloggers like her.

Keep it up, loser.

Raise lots of money, as your liberal supporters cheer.

You’re going to lose in the eighth … and you are sucking up the liberal campaign contributions that could be more effective in races that actually have a chance.

Thank you, Darcy.