Sound Politics - That Abysmal Media
The Seattle P-I is misfiring on all cylinders today. They begin a calumny masquerading as an editorial by exposing fatal ignorance:
Absolutely preposterous. Dino Rossi's call for a rerun of the governor's election has no basis, at least so far.
And it just gets worse after that. They exhibit a fawning attitude towards the AG which highlights their ongoing dereliction of journalistic duty in researching the plethora of King County ballot irregularities.
Gregoire's conduct throughout the difficult post-election period has been exemplary. She showed optimism, patience and a disciplined pursuit of legally valid processes on the basis of facts and principles, not vague feelings.
OUCH. My brain hurts.
In contrast to Gregoire's dignified patience, Rossi now wants another shot at winning the election without meeting the high legal standards that should be required.
Here's an example of her "dignified patience": " 'I've said all along, 42 votes out of 2.9 million is literally a tie,' Gregoire told The Associated Press...." (But 129 is not.)
Further: "As justification for recount, Gregoire and the Democrats have cited voting 'irregularities' in several counties and the fact that Rossi's margin of victory is well within the margin of error for mechanical counters."
Well, that's a joke on two counts, as SoundPolitics readers well know: The Federal Election Commission standard for error rates on voting machines is one mistake in 1,000,000 ballots read by the machine: this is the standard used in Washington State for certification of voting systems. The human error rate is higher. And if 'irregularities' were present before, this recount, with pseudo-votes and violations of state law, is even worse.
Back to the Post-unIntelligencer screed:
We are not surprised by much in politics, but Rossi's request that now Gov.-elect Gregoire join him in asking for a new vote was amazing. He said the election was "a total mess," an absurdly subjective way to describe the generally well-conducted election.
Note: this was not a satire written by the Onion or Scrappleface. They published this with a straight face.
In the same paper, columnist Robert Jamieson gets it horribly wrong when he writes:
While one wrinkle did emerge yesterday, it so far offers no compelling reason for state voters to rush back to the ballot box. According to a list of voters in the Nov. 2 election, more votes [3,500+]appeared to have been counted in King County than there were actual listed voters. King County election officials said the list was a preliminary one that did not take into account some voters, such as domestic-abuse victims, whose voting information is kept confidential for safety.
Which should account for maybe 250 of these.
Curiously, Rossi wasn't armed with this information when he thundered wildly about the need for a revote.
And Secretary of State Sam Reed, a fellow Republican, says he has no reason to believe that votes were improperly cast. Not yet.
This propagandistic spin is an exact inversion of reality (also, Rossi did not "thunder wildly"). As David Postman of the Seattle Times wrote, "the issue of the mismatched numbers in King County came as a surprise to [Reed]. And while he said some discrepancy is not unusual as counties reconcile records after an election, the number in King County is large enough that he sent a staff member to investigate."
Thus, it was not Rossi who was unprepared before speaking as Jamieson implies, it was Reed.
So, lacking a clear-cut case of fraud or evidence of some Herculean screw-up, a revote for revoting's sake just makes a big old mess.
"Herculean" usually refers to immense effort needed for some massive goal: for example, a private blog trying to edify and elucidate the obdurate press. "Gargantuan" is the more apt descriptive for the level of screw-up we've seen in King County.
He goes on:
People might actually switch their minds from how they originally voted. Some folks who sat on the sidelines during the first election could now decide to rush onto the voting field, skewing the result wildly.
They might exercise their right to vote for who they want?!
I thought we wanted to "count every vote"?
Unless someone can come up with solid proof, the revote is a Pandora's box that ought to be tossed into Puget Sound. Kerplunk!
Stefan, feel free to bang your head here.
With his knee-jerk call for a revote, Rossi stands to become a political creature I hadn't envisioned -- a beast of his own making, abetted by the howling mob of state Republican Party chiefs and talk-radio listeners who want to win at all costs, taking a page from the Karl Rove playbook.
At least they're not bawling, like Berendt.
In conclusion:
But to try to stuff a revote down the throats of Washingtonians who have had enough of this laughingstock election would be like Dino doing the monster mash all over voters' weary toes.
"Mr. Jamieson, your editor is on line one, something about wanting you to call it a 'generally well-conducted laughingstock election,' and to stop mixing metaphors."
Washingtonians have to had their say about what's being stuffed down their throats: poll results show re-vote is wanted.
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Side note, from The Olympian: "Rossi, a real-estate agent from Sammamish, held a news conference in Bellevue, where he told reporters that he still has questions about how some votes were counted -- and others were not allowed -- in the closest governor's race in U.S. history."
Characterizing him as a real-estate agent is purposeful: they mean to make readers forget that he is an elected state senator. I suppose they could call Gregoire a "whites-only sorority president from Seattle" to balance this. |
