Congressman Jim McDermott's independent opponent Linnea Noreen has been getting praise from a variety of pundits.

Words of support for Noreen usually come in pretty close proximity to criticism for McDermott. But she has begun to be taken seriously in some corners.
In his Puget Sound Business Journal column, Glenn Pascall writes about Noreen under the headline:

"A new kind of politics in McDermott's shadow"

Pascall has known McDermott a long time and writes:

With a twinkle in his eye and a touch of devilish Irish delight, Jim has always enjoyed sticking it to his opponents, believing that the road to justice lies over the bodies of the unjust. This has led him at times into a temptation, known in times past as "excess of zeal."

At this point in the election cycle, what's the point of raising such issues? In this case, there is a point because there is an alternative — and an opportunity to help launch a new style of politics and a new generation of elected leadership. The specific example: Linnea Noreen, running for Congress as an Independent on the Nov. 7 ballot.

...

On why she is running against McDermott, Noreen says, "When a person is not doing their job, they need to be held accountable. The person who represents Seattle in Congress needs to be in the forefront of education reform, structural reform of the health care system and federal transportation financing. Jim McDermott is doing none of the above. "

Pascall says Noreen is "an intriguing example of what could be the next chapter in American politics. "

In The Seattle Times, columnist Ryan Blethen agreed last week:

If we lived in a country where two parties did not make politics a monopoly, McDermott might worry about the independent candidate in the race, Linnea Noreen.

When asked, the average moderate or independent-minded voter would rattle off a list of desirable attributes in a candidate: smart, listens, passionate, critical thinker, articulate, open ... the list goes on. My guess is that if you did not put party affiliation next to the three candidates and voted only for their positions, voters would check off the box for Noreen.

For a liberal's view, Michael Hood at blatherwatch says he'll vote for Noreen, violating his pledge to vote only for Democrats.

Linnea Noreen says she doesn't expect to win, but she'd just like to pull 10% against McD to prove to strong Democrats (are you listening Jennie Durkan? Hey, Peter Steinbrueck! Nick???) to run against him. Noreen is an articulate, savvy, informed young woman who's spent some of her 29 years in the non-profit sector and helping progressive candidates. We're voting for her despite our vow to never vote for anyone except Democrats again.

To be able to write this; for Noreen to run against him, is a luxury of which we couldn't partake if Jim was in political trouble against a Republican. But since he's not (yet) we can, so we urge you to vote for Noreen and make a political statement in the safety of the blue zone that is Seattle.

Unfortunately Hood cannot avoid sexist comments about Blethen's praise for Noreen. If Hood's trying to get Seattleites to take Noreen seriously, it would be better to stop assuming that only an ulterior motive could propel a male to write kind words about her. She's faced these sorts of comments throughout the race.

Sen. John Kerry was in Seattle today holding an unannounced fundraiser for Sen. Maria Cantwell — just as he's in the national spotlight for comments he made in a speech that the White House says was insulting to U.S. troops.

Speaking in Los Angeles yesterday, Kerry said:

"You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Kerry says it was a joke gone bad. He was trying to make fun of President Bush's intellect and found himself in the middle of a controversy a week before the election.

At Huffington Post, Taylor Marsh says the line from Kerry's stump speech was supposed to go like this:

"I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

The White House, Republican Sen. John McCain and the American Legion all called on Kerry to apologize. The White House clearly wants to make Kerry's comments a campaign issue for Democratic candidates. Press Secretary Tony Snow said today:

What Senator Kerry ought to do first is apologize to the troops. The clear implication here is if you flunk out, if you don't study hard, if you don't do your homework, if you don't make an effort to be smart and you don't do well, you "get stuck in Iraq." But an extraordinary thing has happened since September 11th, which is a lot of people — America's finest — have willingly agreed to volunteer their services in a mission that they know is dangerous, but is also important. And Senator Kerry not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who have given their lives in this.

This is an absolute insult. And I'm a little astonished that he didn't figure it out already. I mean, you know, if I were Senator Kerry — I mean, you've seen me, I say something stupid, I apologize as quickly as possible. And this is something for which he ought to apologize. Meanwhile, it's probably reasonable to ask some of the Democrats — ask a Jim Webb or a Tammy Duckworth, both of whom are citing their military record — OK, what do you think about it, what do you think about this quote? Do you agree with him? He was your presidential nominee. And as for the notion that you can say this sort of thing about the troops and say you support them, it's interesting.

In Seattle, according to a transcript released by his Senate office, Kerry said:

"Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal clear as I know how: I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy.

"If anyone owes our troops in the field an apology, it is the
president and his failed team and a Republican majority in the
Congress that has been willing to stamp — rubber-stamp policies that
have done injury to our troops and to their families.

"My statement yesterday — and the White House knows this full
well — was a botched joke about the president and the president's
people, not about the troops.

"The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a
remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe.
It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything
in America to raw politics. It's their willingness to distort, their
willingness to mislead Americans, their willingness to exploit the
troops, as they have so many times at backdrops, at so many speeches
at which they have not told the American people the truth.
I'm not going to stand for it."

CNN is reporting that President Bush will also join in the criticism of Kerry.

"Even in the midst of a heated campaign season, there are still some things we should all be able to agree on, and one of the most important is that every one of our troops deserves our gratitude and respect," Bush will say in a speech, the text of which was released by the White House.

UPDATE: Here's the KING 5 video of Kerry's Seattle press conference.

Michael Yon

A state Democratic Party flier for congressional candidate Darcy Burner includes an "unauthorized use" of an iconic photo of a U.S. solider with a dying Iraqi girl in his arms, according to the photographer's attorney.

"It's a copyright infringement, it's a legal matter," D.C. attorney John Mason told me.

Sound Politics, where I first saw this, has a copy of the Burner flier here.

The photo of the soldier was taken by Michael Yon. It shows Major Mark Bieger and an Iraqi girl, Farah. Yon wrote on his blog about the photo:

Major Bieger, I had seen him help rescue some of our guys a week earlier during another big attack, took some of our soldiers and rushed this little girl to our hospital. He wanted her to have American surgeons and not to go to the Iraqi hospital. She didn't make it. I snapped this picture when Major Bieger ran to take her away. He kept stopping to talk with her and hug her.

Yon has already stopped an authorized use of the photo by a new magazine. In May, Yon wrote that protecting the photo had become a full-time job.

I regularly turn down usage requests for this photo — uses that could earn money — because this photo is sacred to me and is representative of the U.S. soldiers I have come to know. It is also representative of the horrors of the enemy we all face.

Mason said that Yon turned down a request from the Republican Party to use it in campaign literature this year.

"Mike's not a political guy. Mike does not want the photo used for any message. He wants it to stand alone."

The flier was produced by the Washington State Democratic Party. I'm waiting for a call back from the party spokesman.

UPDATE: Democratic spokesman Kelly Steele said, "Our attorneys have been contacted and are investigating. As Mr. Mason said, it's a legal matter."

MORE: Yon, a former Green Beret, is an independent photographer who was embedded with troops in Iraq, including with the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, in Mosul.

Bruce Willis is reportedly planning to make a movie based on Yon's work there.

Yon wrote a piece in the current issue of The Weekly Standard about how U.S. officials have made it difficult for journalists to work in Iraq.

In a counterinsurgency, the media battlespace is critical. When it comes to mustering public opinion, rallying support, and forcing opponents to shift tactics and timetables to better suit the home team, our terrorist enemies are destroying us. Al Qaeda's media arm is called al Sahab: the cloud. It feels more like a hurricane. While our enemies have "journalists" crawling all over battlefields to chronicle their successes and our failures, we have an "embed" media system that is so ineptly managed that earlier this fall there were only 9 reporters embedded with 150,000 American troops in Iraq. There were about 770 during the initial invasion.

Many blame the media for the estrangement, but part of the blame rests squarely on the chip-laden shoulders of key military officers and on the often clueless Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad, which doesn't manage the media so much as manhandle them. Most military public affairs officers are professionals dedicated to their jobs, but it takes only a few well-placed incompetents to cripple our ability to match and trump al Sahab. By enabling incompetence, the Pentagon has allowed the problem to fester to the point of censorship.

UPDATE: The issue has been resolved. This statement came tonight from photographer Michael Yon:

Ea

rlier today, concerns were raised about the use of an iconic photo to which I own the copyright. I understand that mistakes of this nature can happen with no malevolent intent, and the Washington State Democratic Party has responsibly addressed my concerns. We have agreed on a one-time license for the past use of the image and this matter has been fully and completely resolved.

Is Mike McGavick using his latest TV commercial to promote the Green and Libertarian Senate candidates as a way to pull anti-war votes away from Sen. Maria Cantwell?

I think the argument can be made.

Nominally the point of the commercial, according to a release from the McGavick campaign, is for McGavick to address "the need for decisiveness in Iraq and Sen. Cantwell's vague position."

But watch it, and try it at least once with no sound, and see if you think the ad could be driving anti-war voters from Cantwell to Libertarian Bruce Guthrie or Green Aaron Dixon.

In the commercial, campaign signs appear with the names of both third party candidates, their photos and party designations. A graphic says, "Guthrie, Dixon: Pullout Now."

McGavick says in the ad: "On Iraq , Bruce Guthrie and Aaron Dixon have the guts to say what they think. They say, let's get the troops out now."

Then a sign with Cantwell's photo appears, labeled "incumbent." There's no party designation for her. The graphic reads:

Cantwell: FOR THE WAR

3yrs STAY THE COURSE

"And, now suddenly, she's become vague?

"And, President Bush doesn't understand our frustrations.

"It's time to be decisive. Beat the terrorists. Partition the country if we have to and get our troops home in victory."

Other than the line "beat the terrorists," it could be an anti-war ad. It sounds a little critical of Bush. It gives Dixon his only face time in a paid TV spot. It prominently features the fact that Dixon and Guthrie oppose the war, and have the "guts" to say so. And turning around the sound-bite criticism Democrats usually leveled at Republicans, McGavick tags Cantwell with supporting a strategy of "staying the course."

I don't know what Cantwell or her campaign thinks about the new McGavick ad because they did not answer my questions. Cantwell, her staff said, was unavailable for an interview and there has not been a response to questions I posed yesterday evening.

The timing of the McGavick ad is curious. It appears at a time when the war is becoming more unpopular and when "Republican candidates are barely mentioning Iraq on the campaign trail and in their television advertisements."

I asked McGavick spokesman Elliott Bundy if the campaign was trying to send anti-war voters from Cantwell to Guthrie or Dixon. He said:

"We're simply making the point that of the major candidates in this race, the only one with a position that is vague is the incumbent."

I talked to McGavick about the ad yesterday. I hadn't at that point thought it was a way to exploit liberals' unease with Cantwell's support for the Iraq invasion. But it still seemed an odd ad because for some time McGavick said that he and Cantwell shared nearly identical positions on the war.

McGavick said that may have been the case, but that Cantwell has become more vague. But the first thing he said made her sound like a supporter of a quick troop withdrawal, which of course is not the sense you get from his commercial.

McGavick said Cantwell's vote in June for a Senate resolution calling for withdrawal of troops "was the first sign that the senator was more interested in establishing that she wanted troops home rather than victory."

That's not what he said in August. At a press conference with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, McGavick went out of his way to say he disagreed with GOP leadership that the vote on a resolution by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin was infused with meaning.

He said then:

"It struck me as one of these partisan squabbles without much meaning because in the end, the Levin amendment doesn't cause anything to happen. It just expresses what I think is the heartfelt feeling of everyone that we'd like our troops home sooner rather than later.

(...)

"I know the Republicans thought they had to make a case for supporting the president and the Democrats to show distance, but when I look at the content of the resolution I just think it was another chance to throw bricks at each other as far as I was concerned."

Other evidence McGavick offered yesterday to show a creeping vagueness in Cantwell's positions is her call for greater international support for a plan for the future of Iraq, including participation of the Arab League, which he called "completely unrealistic." But Cantwell's been saying that since May.

Another issue raised by McGavick yesterday as evidence of a muddled position is a statement from Cantwell staffer Michael Meehan in July that she supported bringing troops home by the end of the year and that "30,000 is not enough."
But not only was McGavick still saying he and Cantwell essentially shared the same Iraq position at that point, Cantwell first used the 30,000 figure herself in April.

You can read the McGavick campaign's "fact check" with backup on its claims here.

The one change of any substance has been Cantwell's statement in August that she would not have voted for the war if she had known that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction. She made that statement to The Seattle Times only after being told that McGavick had said he "would have opposed the invasion had he known what he knows today."

Her change was welcomed by anti-war Democrats.

There's not much evidence that Cantwell has made any big changes in her Iraq position. If it's been vague, it has been all year long, even when McGavick was saying they largely shared the same position. I didn't see a change when some on the left were grasping for a sign Cantwell was leaning more their way, and I don't see it now.

UPDATE: Cantwell spokesman Katharine Lister says by e-mail:

For well over a year Senator Cantwell's position has consistently been to change the course in Iraq and hold the president accountable. She voted in November 2005 for the president to make 2006 a year of transition to begin bringing our troops home and again in June 2006, she voted for the Reed-Levin plan to demand a plan from the president to implement a plan to begin to bring our troops home this year. In July 2006, the Senate passed her amendment for no permanent bases in Iraq, which our opponent still opposes.

From The Olympian's on-line chat with Supreme Court Justice Susan Owens and her challenger, Sen. Stephen Johnson.

Moderator: Justice Owens, you've been criticized for skipping a debate earlier this week in Seattle. Would you explain that decision? Given the quieter profile of this race, do you think its right to skip debates when the public might not have enough information to decide this contest? Owens: There aren't limited venues, we've been at many public forums, we've been together at many of these and they can see many of them online at TVW and the voting for judges Web site. I had been on the road and when I came home I saw some e-mails about this forum — which had been thrown together very quickly — and decided to use my veto power. I don't answer questions from bloggers, and that was apparently the moderator's only credentials. They didn't want to get a regular journalist to do it. I have other reasons, too. I'm working as a justice and we had a full slate of cases on Tuesday. So I said no — in my view it wasn't a big deal. I apologize for any inconvenience for anybody. But Sen. Johnson and I have been all over the state, together and alone, even when gas was at its highest price. I had hoped to hit all the counties.

Johnson: I think the problem was that people understood that the arrangements had been agreed upon. That's why Joel Connelly came in — I thought Owens had selected Joel Connelly from a list of names — that's the facts as I understand them. I think Joel Connelly felt it was settled. If not I don't think he would have shown up. I wish she had shown up.

Owens: I don't take questions from bloggers. I just don't blog and don't read them. Every forum we've been at has been moderated by an attorney or a credentialed journalist, and one by the state president of the League of Women Voters. I personally did not know who this other moderator was. My people might have agreed to that, but when I found out the reality, I said no.

(A thanks for the tip to Stefan Sharkansky, who takes his offense here.)

In the Washington Post, Dan Froomkin came up with a great read with his collection of news of the aftermath of Dick Cheney'"no-brainer" radio interview. That came in the vice president's appearance last week on WDAY in Fargo during a discussion about interrogation and trials of terrorism suspects.

"Q: Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?

"THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president 'for torture.' We don't torture. "
This was not, the White House insists, a reference to water-boarding. It's worth reading all of Froomkin today to get the full flavor of officials' efforts to quell any such talk.

Take particular note of the exchange between Press Secretary Tony Snow and ABC News' Ann Compton. Snow said Cheney is "not a guy who slips up."

"Q: To say that Vice President Cheney doesn't make mistakes like this, he did go up and curse a senator to his face on the Senate floor, and accidentally shot his friend, so he's not perfect. (Laughter.)"

Snow's response: "That's a great line, but it's not germane."

No one has yet offered a good explanation of what Cheney could have meant by a "dunk in water" other than water-boarding. Read the full transcript of the radio interview here and see for yourself if any other explanation fits.

The ACLU has talked to Bellevue Community College officials on behalf of students kept out of last week's rally with Sen. Maria Cantwell and Barack Obama because they were wearing Mike McGavick T-shirts. ACLU Executive Director Kathleen Taylor wrote to the school:

The Constitution does not permit government officers (including the security staff and administrators of BCC) to decide which political viewpoints may be publicly expressed on campus and which may not.

...

Moreover, the Obama event was part of the curriculum for many classes. Students are allowed to wear armbands, buttons, or T-shirts that express political viewpoints in the classroom. BCC could not bar students from a political science class simply because they wore T-shirts opposing the political views of the professor or a guest speaker. The same principle applies here, because the Obama event was an integral part of the curriculum for many BCC students. The College should seek to facilitate intellectual exchange, and it should not make a habit of closing campus doors on students eager to explore and lean about competing ideas.

Read the full letter here.

Evan Smith, a columnist and forum editor for Enterprise Newspapers with editions covering Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace and surroundings, sent me a note on more strange goings on in the 32nd District Senate race.

Some Democrats up there are unhappy with Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, and after trying to oust her in the primary Smith says some have now taken another approach:

Now, the party organization has formally endorsed Fairley, but appears informally to be backing her Republican opponent, David Baker.

Those of us who live in the district get mailings supporting Baker with an endorsement from a Democratic activist (Dan Mann); we get recorded phone messages saying "I'm a Democrat, but I'm voting for Baker;" we see people waving Baker signs along with people waving signs for Democratic State Rep. Maralyn Chase, a rival of Fairley's ever since Fairley endorsed Chase's primary opponent four years ago; and we see Baker and Chase signs show up at the same places at the same time.

District Democratic Chairwoman Lila Smith, who supported Fairley's primary opponent, notes that the District Party Organization has now endorsed Fairley and "would never support a Republican," but some individual members are obviously supporting Republican Baker against Fairley, who is well connected with Democrats in Olympia but ignores the District Democratic Organization.
Now, Baker tells Democrats that he will join their District Organization if he wins.

Could Republicans have their own Tim Sheldon? You wouldn't think so if you look at Baker's Web site and see a list of positions on issues that make him look pretty clearly a Republican.

UPDATE: David Baker sent this comment:

Perhaps I am also working with Sen. Fairley because we both had people waving signs at 145th Street and I5 last Friday. We also have signs that appear at at about the same time in locations throughout the district. Maybe I am working with Sen. Cantwell because our signs are together at may location in the district. :) I would appreciate your vote because I work with everyone regardless of political affiliation.

• The King County Journal reports:

  Five students at Bellevue Community College wearing Republican Mike McGavick T-shirts say their rights were violated when they were denied access to a Democratic rally Thursday in the college gym where party star Barack Obama was the big draw.

  I got lots of e-mail about this while I was traveling over the weekend, including one from a student involved, that I see Josh Feit has already posted at The Slog.

• In today's paper, the Journal has its campaign profiles of Congressman Dave Reichert and Darcy Burner.

  UPDATE: The New York Times has an 8th District story today, too.
  

• At the Herald, Jerry Cornfield looks at energy policy from Maria Cantwell and Mike McGavick.

• The News Tribune calls 26th District Republican House candidate Ron Boehme "about as far right as they come" and mentions a few of his "fringe personal beliefs" in this endorsement of his opponent, Larry Seaquist. Horsesass.org follows up with some background on Boehme, and asks how the guy won the Republican primary.

• An ad from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee on Sound Politics raised the eyebrow of at least one reader. Stefan Sharkansky explains. The offending ad was on the homepage today.

When people talk about "the war" in Canada they're usually talking about Afghanistan. In the United States, Afghanistan has been overshadowed by Iraq, of course. In the U.S., Afghanistan stands as the war that had wider political support. You can still hear some anti-Iraq war politicians talk about their support for the Afghanistan invasion almost as a demonstration of their combat bona fides.

Canadians aren't fighting in Iraq. The Ottawa government passed on joining that effort. That brought criticism of Canada from some corners of America. It didn't measure up to anti-French feelings. There was no Freedom Bacon. But it's still evident.

A Republican ad that ran against Tennesee Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford, Jr., recently accused him of being soft of North Korea and says, "Canada can take care of North Korea. They're not busy." Canadians reportedly complained directly to the White House about the the jab.

And today in the Toronto Star you can read a compilation of recent examples of slights and insults from American politicians under the headline, "Not many votes here but it's a convenient whipping boy when U.S. economic growth remains weak."

There are about 2,000 Canadian troops in Afghanistan fighting in the NATO deployment. Papers here are full of news of Afghanistan. Saturday there were protests in Canadian cities against the Harper government's commitment of troops. I see stories in Sunday's papers about the latest battles a change of military command , and concerns from Human Rights Watch about civilian deaths.

Canada's role in Afghanistan was brought squarely to my attention at the Edmonton meeting of the Canadian Association of Journalists over the weekend. The keynote address Saturday morning came from veteran war correspondent Arthur Kent. He said of the Canadian media:

"The country's richest news companies continue to under perform in investing in international news, especially when in this case so many Canadians are literally on the front lines."

Kent left NBC on the most unfriendly of terms, suspended from his job on "Dateline" and with the network essentially questioning his courage because he would not take a new assignment in Bosnia without proper safety precautions and equipment. He sued the network for breach of contract and the network settled, for an amount he once called "terrific."

He now runs his own documentary film company in London and has continued to report on Afghanistan, where he first visited more than 20 years ago.

Salon once wrote that Kent had an "almost Frank Capra-esque vision of journalism." He urged journalists here to return to their roots, be tough on governments and fight the dumbing-down of network news. Journalists, he said, must rise above the "demented maelstrom of pseudo news that swirls around us each day."

But his romanticized view of the job and his Hollywood looks — you can pick from "rakish," "rugged" or "boyish" — shouldn't detract from a respect for his solid understanding of global conflicts.

Before the U.S. invaded Iraq, Salon asked Kent, "Will the U.S. and its allies face much resistance from the Iraqi people? "

After Saddam Hussein, the United States, Britain and other Western countries are large hate objects in the minds of most Iraqis. Look at 12 years of sanctions, 12 years of the people starving, while Saddam Hussein cheats the system and builds his weapons. We've known about it. Our governments have done nothing. It's naive in the extreme to expect the people of Iraq will welcome American troops the way the people of Afghanistan welcomed Western forces after the Taliban's collapse. Western countries have been directly damaging the Iraqis for more than a decade. We will not be seen as white knights who have come to rid them of their evil dictator, as I'm afraid the policy makers in Washington would have us believe.

He was tough on the Bush administration, both in the run up to the Iraq war and through the occupation. But he sees Afghanistan far differently. In that theater, he has plenty of criticism for the media first. He said that the media focuses too much on the bad news out of Afghanistan and that polls showing little public support are skewed, too.

"Really, the Canadian public only now is beginning to appreciate some of the complexities of the story. I have been going there 26 years. I still learn things every time I go back.

...

"Very little reporting is done to explain to Canadians — horrified and disgusted by the Iraq war, its commencement and conduct — that Afghanistan is not a Bush-Blair war. Afghanistan is a Brezhnev, Reagan, Thatcher war; one that Canada was deeply involved in."

Canada helped finance anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan and was involved in the country in the 1990s, he said, when the "Taliban exploited chaos to take power."

"We're not in Afghanistan today out of the goodness of our heart, some post 9-11 sense of mission. We're partly responsible for what Afghanistan has become and we're there making that right."

He criticizes the media's coverage of the on-the-ground military opearations in Afghanistan as well as the back-home coverage of the Ottawa government's role there. While saying that the media coverage gives an unfairly negative view of events, he also says reporters failed in asking tough questions about the prosecution of the war. He said there was a failure to discover a "gross weakness in the NATO deployment." That was the fact that NATO went to war without a "force reserve," meaning there was no group of soldiers, weapons and equipment held in reserve. That, he said, only became known recently from an admission by a British general.

Kent gives a troubling overview of the struggling government in Afghanistan. He's no fan of President Hamid Karzai, who he says is a "fashionable figure" whose family is connected to the opium trade. Kent has personal connections there and has watched former sources rise to power, only to be tossed out when Karzai, he says, would not stand for real reform.

He says reporters should be asking questions about why there are warlords and drug lords in the government and why expensive villas are going up around Kabul while reconstruction stumbles.

Kent is particularly critical of the new attorney general, Abdul Jabbar Sabit. Sabit is touted as a reformer, but Kent say Sabit has connections to a man on America's list of most wanted terrorists. Sabit, as an aide to the interior ministry, was also the lead man in Afghanistan's renewed crackdown on vice.

Reporters, Kent says, should press Prime Minister Stephen Harper about his support for Karzai. They should ask him, he said,

"You just played host to this guy. What did you do to tell him that Jabar Sabit is the not the kind of person we as Canadians want to see when our people are dying on the ground, trying to prop up your government?"

In urging on reporters, Kent gives a nod to the romanticism he's been pegged with. He says there was a time in the not too distant past when things were different in newsrooms in the United States and Canada — a time before corporate executives would sacrifice news for profits

"It almost seems naive now to talk about it, but there was a belief that hustle and imagination could spell success. Imagine if once again we were actually encouraged to be different, and once again to be uncompromising in that passion, in that accuracy and timeliness."

He takes some comfort in new media. He said by combining the "standards of traditional journalism" with the "open air market of the Internet" reporters could "sense freedom" and "be free of those suits" who run journalism today.

MORE: It was just pointed out to me that I failed to mention that Kent is Canadian; born in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Catching up with the news, I see that Mike McGavick announced yesterday he was going to put another $500,000 of his own money into his campaign. On Sept. 26 the Wall Street Journal reported that McGavick had no plans to add to the $2 million of personal funds he had already loaned the campaign.

McGavick said in a statement yesterday that if he were running a nasty campaign "our state would now be flooded with national party independent expenditures on my behalf." He also said national support has been lacking because "the list of endangered Republican incumbents has grown since the beginning of my campaign, drawing away national resources."

I've also had time to read all the way down to the last line of the fundraising release put out by Sen. Maria Cantwell's campaign. In a list of special interest donations to the McGavick campaign, Cantwell closes with this:

Contribution from his own special interest committee, Michael Sean McGavick: $2 million

I can certainly see why Cantwell wants to draw attention to McGavick's donations from oil companies, Halliburton and the pharmaceutical industry. But if $2 million from McGavick's own bank account is a special interest donation, what was the $10 million Cantwell spent of her own money six years ago?

When she used her personal wealth to beat Sen. Slade Gorton, Cantwell said self-financing was a way to escape special interest money. Her spokesman Ellis Conklin said in 2000:

She puts her money where her mouth is. She's not taking any (political-action committee) money. As a result, she's not going to be beholden to any special corporate interest. I don't think the voters are going to see this as some sinister tactic.

Using personal wealth for a political campaign was described by Cantwell's team as a noble thing.

Cantwell campaign manager Ron Dotzauer said his candidate is running a campaign of "personal sacrifice." He said she cashed in stock near its year-low value; she had gained the stock as an executive at RealNetworks after she lost her 1994 House re-election bid. Dotzauer thinks "the voters are going to respect the fact that she's spent more time talking to them than dialing for dollars."

And according to the most recent FEC reports available on-line, Cantwell has yet to pay back a $2 million personal loan she made to her 2000 campaign.

A group promoting U.S. cooperation with foreign allies, foreign aid and opposing torture has given Congressman Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, one of its very few Republican endorsements.

Citizens for Global Solutions endorsed a long list of Democrats in the House and Senate, based on a scorecard of votes. Reichert is one of four House Republicans endorsed.
He got an A+ ranking from the group. Sen. Maria Cantwell and four Democratic members of the House from Washington were endorsed as well.

The group is non-partisan, with a PAC and a non-profit, but it clearly is not supportive of the Bush Administration. It has made it a priority to block confirmation of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

The Reichert campaign was quick to publicize the endorsement today. A statement from Reichert said:

We welcome the endorsement of Citizens for Global Solutions. The United States has a moral obligation to lead global efforts to end genocide and promote international cooperation to work to eliminate global pain and suffering.

I'm in Edmonton for a meeting of the Canadian Association of Journalists. This weekend I'll be on two panels about blogging. Actually I am the panels. I guess they couldn't get any other MSM bloggers so I'm what passes for an expert.

(I wanted to make some Canadian exchange rate joke and say I'm only 80 percent of an expert here, but the dollar is worth about a dollar here so I'll pass.)

Here's how you can help. I want to talk about what has worked well on the blog and what hasn't. I'm particularly interested in comparisons to blogs not associated with mainstream media outlets.

What do you think? If you read here regularly what do you like? What do you wish was different? What do you see as the big differences between Postman on Politics and other blogs you read regularly?

If your suggestion starts with "Take a flying ..." please think harder and come up with something constructive.

I will share the comments as part of my talk here.

A last minute donation from a supporter of your opponent is the sort of thing that can give a candidate confidence.

Democrat Darcy Burner certainly got a little of that earlier this week when Puget Sound Energy called her to their Bellevue office and gave her a $2,000 check from the PSE PAC.

"I think it's a good sign," she said when I asked if it looked to her like PSE might be trying to cover its bases as polls show Democrats on the rise.

PSE has long been involved in the 8th District race, just on the other side.

In fact Congressman Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, has gotten more money from the Puget Sound Energy Inc. PAC for Good Government than any other politician, according to online data available at PoliticalMoneyLine. (Those rankings could be changing with new FEC filings this week.) Yesterday he was shown as having recieved $6,300 in eight separate contributions. The first was May 2005. The most recent was $1,000 on Aug. 22.

But Reichert spokeswoman Kimberly Cadena said the money has continued to come in, most recently a $3,000 check Oct. 6, for a new total of $9,800.

In Washington, the PAC had given only to incumbent House members and to Senate Republican challenger Mike McGavick. Sen. Maria Cantwell does not take direct PAC donations. But executives at the company have donated thousands of dollars to her campaign.

So far this campaign cycle Republicans have gotten more of PSE's campaign donations, but not by much. PoliticalMoneyLine's figures show $19,550 has gone to Republicans and $14,999 to Democrats, not including recent donations. That's a 57/43 percent split.

Through most of the 1980s and '90s PSE gave most of its political donations to Republicans. But it has been getting more even in recent cycles.

In 1996 just 3 percent of their money went to Democrats, but then donations on that side started to climb. Dems got 56 percent of the money in 2002 and 54 percent in 2004.

Burner seemed encouraged by the donation, though likely for any symbolic value of being taken seriously by a major force in the 8th than for the cash itself.

Burner showed up late to Tuesday's fundraiser with Al Gore. But when she addressed the Democratic donors that had paid up to $26,700 to hear the former vice president, Burner announced where she had been.

"I just came from Puget Sound Energy where I'm pleased to say they actually gave me a PAC check. I was delighted. And one of the reasons that they were willing to invest in this campaign is that they understand ... that we need to build a future with clean energy, we need to build a future where we deal with the problem of global warming in an intelligent and aggressive way. They know that we need members of Congress who believe in science and who understand this is a real problem that we can solve.

"They know that control of the United States Congress likely hinges on what happens just across the lake, and me not making any major mistakes the next two weeks. But we can do that."

Global warming became an issue in the Reichert/Burner race after a Seattle Times story last month quoted Reichert saying he had doubts about climate change:

"I'm going to wait until all the facts are in. There were many scientists who used to say the world was flat."

That led to Reichert's campaign making several attempts to clarify the congressman's position.

PSE Spokeswoman Dorothy Bracken didn't mention global warming specifically when I asked what the attraction was to Burner. She said the utility has been holding candidate forums in recent years to give employees a chance to hear from politicians directly. That's why Burner was invited Tuesday:

"Our employee PAC had wanted to meet with her. They interviewed her and came away impressed about her knowledge and understanding of energy issues and they made a decision to make a PAC contribution to her campaign.

...

"She has throughout her campaign demonstrated an eagerness to learn the issues facing our industry as well as what Puget Sound Energy is facing."

Cadena said Reichert's campaign is confident PSE remains a strong supporter of the congressman and had no issue with his statements on global warming:

"Any assertion otherwise is purely wishful thinking on Darcy's part. PSE has never criticized or even commented on Congressman Reichert's measured position on global warming.

...

"If donations are an indication of support, PSE's more substantial contribution to Congressman Reichert should speak for itself."

She also said there is no concern about business donors trying to work both sides as the race tightens, pointing out that Reichert has lone PAC support from Microsoft , Boeing and Paccar, as well as personal donations from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

I'm on the road today so won't be posting until later.

Probably never before has half a sentence had such legs.

In an April story about an Alaska fundraiser for Senate candidate Mike McGavick The Seattle Times reported:

It could raise as much as $500,000 for McGavick, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell in this fall's election.

That number, based on background sources, turned out to be grossly inflated and never connected to reality once the fundraiser was over.

McGavick spokesman Elliott Bundy said the Alaska fundraiser brought in about $80,000. I looked at on-line sources and couldn't find even that much that I could confidently attribute the April Anchorage fundraiser. Whatever the number, $14,000 of it was returned to donors because it came from employees of Veco, the Alaska oil field company that has been linked in news reports to a federal investigation of Alaska state lawmakers.

But no matter that the initial number was pre-event speculation and that a quick FEC check would show later it was no where near correct. Democrats and their supporters have adopted it as fact and used widely as a symbol of close ties between McGavick and the oil industry, as well to Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens.

Out of D.C. the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee issued a press release two days before the fundraiser saying "Mike McGavick stands to raise as much as $500,000 on Thursday at an Anchorage fundraiser hosted by the oil industry and Stevens" and repeated the claim in another release the day of the event.

The state party joined in ,too, with a press release the week after the event about McGavick's fundraisers with Majority Leader Bill Frist and Vice President Dick Cheney that said:

The week before, he lined his pockets with money from Big Oil as he attended a fundraiser in Alaska hosted by Sen. Ted Stevens, where he reportedly took in as much as $500,000.

Notice how the speculative "as much as $500,000" has mutated to sounding like there were sources saying McGavick had actually collected as much as $500,000.

The phantom half a million was there again in a July press release about record profits for Exxon
and in May about gas-price gouging.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid used it in a fundraising letter that stated as fact that McGavick had "received more than $500,000 at one oil industry fundraiser in Alaska." No longer speculation, or even a "reportedly took in as much as $500,000," Reid boosted it to "more than $500,000."

And the number is still flying about in the final days of the campaign. The number is featured in a flyer mailed last week by the Washington State Labor Council. On the cover is an off-shore oil rig spewing black smoke with type across it saying: "You've got to be pretty slick to try to buy an election." Inside is photo of a pair of hands holding a wallet with a wad of big bills cascading out and a smaller picture of McGavick in a tuxedo. It says:

McGavick raised some $500,000 from Big Oil companies and executives at a single fundraiser hosted by Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens.

That's footnoted, to The Seattle Times story from more than six months earlier.

McGavick supports drilling in ANWR and oil companies do support his campaign. Cantwell's work in the Senate to stop ANWR drilling has made her an anathema to much of the Alaska oil industry.

But if they want to paint McGavick black with crude, they need to find something better to do it with than the phantom $500,000 from the Last Frontier.

At The Stranger, Josh Feit continues his reporting on The Seattle Times endorsement of Mike McGavick.

He has an editorial on it in this week's paper. And on the Slog he writes about an interview he had with Times Editorial Page Editor Jim Vesely. Vesely said "the estate tax came up in the editorial board's deliberations, but it 'wasn't the tipping point.' He said, 'it always comes up, but it's like 10th on the list ... it's not critical.'"

You can see from Feit's editorial he was not convinced. He did get a chance to follow up on his reporting last week that found a list of issues the Times is on the record supporting that McGavick opposes.

Vesely acknowledged this, saying: "We said in the endorsement that we agree with Senator Cantwell on a lot of issues like on ANWR, and we disagree with McGavick on ANWR and the flag burning amendment and gay marriage and stem cell research... and the question comes to mind, 'What on earth are we doing?' ... and it comes down to how much potential does the candidate have for the next six years."

In other endorsement news, the Spokesman Review today announced its support for McGavick.

A special panel of judges sitting for the state Supreme Court says Justice Richard Sanders violated the Code of Judicial Conduct and "created an appearance of partiality" by meeting with sex predators at McNeil Island.

The judges upheld the Judicial Conduct Commission's sanction of admonishment for Sanders, saying it was "appropriate and sufficient in this case."

The case stems from a visit Sanders made in January 2003 to the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, where he talked with sex offenders about their cases.

The unanimous opinion issued this morning was written by Court of Appeals Judge C. Kenneth Grosse. He wrote:

A visit by a judicial officer to a special facility for sexually violent predators is not in itself inappropriate conduct under the Code of Judicial Conduct. However, conversations with the residents of the facility concerning the reasons for their confinement, particularly when one or more of these residents has a matter or matters pending before the court on which the judge sits, can violate the Code of Judicial Conduct. By asking questions of inmates who were litigants or should have been recognized as potential litigants on issues currently pending before the court, Justice Richard B. Sanders violated the Code of Judicial Conduct. His conduct created an appearance of partiality as a result of ex parte contact.

...

The Commission held, and we agree, that the record established through clear, cogent, and convincing evidence that Justice Sanders violated Canons 1 and 2(A). In support of that holding, the findings reference two of the three letters from resident Andre Brigham Young inviting the justices to visit McNeil Island. Those letters indicate that the residents were looking for something more than just a tour of the facility. In fact, Young suggested that others (opposing counsel and defense attorneys) should be asked to attend to avoid "the appearance of partiality." The letters in and of themselves should have given sufficient notice to Justice Sanders that this visit had the potential of being more than an institutional tour. Additional warning flags were also raised by three justices who expressed concerns about the visit and potential problems.

Moreover, a simple computer check would have revealed that Rickey Calhoun
and Andre Brigham Young, two people mentioned in the prior communication
with Justice Sanders, had cases pending before the Supreme Court.

Libertarian Senate candidate Bruce Guthrie is using at least a little of the $1.2 million he loaned his campaign to produce the first third-party TV commercial in the race.

The ad is called "party puppets" and the Guthrie campaign says it uses the audio from actual interviews with voters mixed with video of paper bag puppets.

I'm trying to find out how big a buy the campaign made. This is billed as the first in a series of similar ads, and specifically hits Sen. Maria Cantwell for her support of the U.S. Patriot Act.

You can watch the commercial here.)

Here's the script:

Voter 1: "You know you need to vote for the person who most represents what you believe in, right?"

Voter 2: "The Patriot Act, what it does as far as racial profiling and discrimination is definitely not compatible with my beliefs at all."

Interviewer (off camera): "Did you know that Maria Cantwell voted for it?"

Voter 1: "Oh."

Voter 2: "I was not aware that she voted for it."

Voter 1: "Whoah."

Voter 2: "However I do, you know, I do want to say that I am not against the Patriot Act. I vote for the Democratic party ... always."

Announcer: "Don't be a party puppet. Vote Bruce Guthrie for Senate."

Guthrie: "I'm Bruce Guthrie and I approved this ad. It's time for real change."

You can read other political puppet news here.

UPDATE: Guthrie's campaign manager, Travis Wright, wouldn't give details on the buy. But he said it is concentrated in the Seattle market and is on broadcast, not cable.

Secretary of State Sam Reed is predicting a 67 percent voter turnout for the general election. That'd be the best showing in recent history for a mid-term election.

Reed thinks turnout will be driven by voters' "excited about this year's elections" and the fact that 34 of 39 Washington counties now vote entirely by mail, he said in a statement this morning. After the September primary Reed reported that 93 percent of voters voted by mail.

Here are the numbers for the past four off-year elections that included a U.S. Senate race:

1998 — 62.17 percent

1994 — 59.85 percent

1986 — 60.89 percent

1982 — 66.72 percent

Residents in the 5th Congressional District have been getting some strange telephone calls. In The Spokesman-Review Jim Camden reports:

Some Eastern Washington residents got recorded calls late at night or early in the morning last weekend, urging them to vote for Democrat Peter Goldmark for Congress.

Others got the same call, over and over. Others got an obscene call, or a call with no sound except the click of a hangup, with the campaign's caller ID.

Goldmark's campaign filed a police report and called the FBI. He is running against Rep. Cathy McMorris, whose spokeswoman told Camden the campaign knows nothing about the calls.

"It's good that they filed a police report, to maybe get to the bottom of it."

There have been occasions in the past where automated calls were set to the wrong time and voters got calls late at night or very early in the morning. The firm working for Goldmark says that didn't happen in this case, and that the caller ID can easily be faked by a caller.

There have also been malicious uses of automated calls, like what New Hampshire Republicans did in 2002:

For two crucial hours, an Idaho telecommunications firm tied up Democratic and union phone lines, bringing their get-out-the-vote plans to a halt.

5th District update: To try to clear up what he thought was the misuse of his work in a McMorris ad, the Goldmark campaign released a statement from PI's Joel Connelly:

What Peter Goldmark talked about at the fundraiser was Bob Woodward's new best-selling book on events leading to the 9/11 attack, and strategic failures in the Iraq war.

He alluded to the conversation referred to by Woodward in which FBI Director George Tenet warned National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice of the likelihood of an impending al Qaeda attack on the U.S. homeland.

At that point, Mr. Goldmark made the remark quoted in my article.

"9/11 was directly attributable to George Bush and the Republican administration," Goldmark told a Seattle fundraiser.

In no way did Peter Goldmark blame America for 9/11 in the statement I quoted. To say that he was blaming America would be stretching the truth to the breaking point.

As a student, John F. Kennedy wrote a thesis on England's failure to wake up to the Nazi threat, later expanded into a book entitled "Why England Slept." What Mr. Goldmark was doing at his fundraiser was extrapolating on the theme "Why America Slept."

Ron Dotzauer's attorneys are raising more questions about the loan he got from Sen. Maria Cantwell as they try to keep his divorce case from being made public.

For five years Cantwell has been dutifully filing her personal financial disclosure forms with the Senate that included a loan she had made to Dotzauer, the campaign consultant and lobbyist who over the years has been her employer, employee, advisor, boyfriend and friend.

The loan is valued between $15,000 and $50,000, according to the range on the form Cantwell submits each year.

Dotzauer told the Times Sept. 4 he didn't remember what the loan was for and four days later told the AP he'd repay it "as soon as I find out what the number is."

But now his attorneys have confused the issue. That came in a story by the AP's Gene Johnson about a hearing in Snohomish County Superior Court yesterday where Dotzauer argued to keep his divorce records sealed.

Johnson asked Dotzauer, his current wife and attorney Cynthia First, and his other attorney, Camden Hall, about the loan.

"I don't know that you're accurate in using that word, 'loan,' " Hall told a reporter. He declined to elaborate.

First refused to answer questions about the money, first suggesting she didn't know what a reporter was talking about, and then adding: "Ask Sen. Cantwell. We didn't list it. She did."

I did ask Cantwell's campaign about it. Spokeswoman Katharine Lister offered a statement unambiguous as far as describing the financial transaction as a loan.

"In 1999 before Senator Cantwell ran for the Senate, when a friend needed help, she was lucky to be in a position to loan him money. She has reported that outstanding loan every year since 2000."

Some have criticized the loan because Dotzauer owed Cantwell money while she was helping to secure funding that benefited Dotzauer's lobbying clients. But while Cantwell has not spoken publicly about her financial ties to Dotzauer, her staff and her Senate financial reporting has been consistent in reporting that there is an outstanding personal loan.

I can't figure out why Dotzauer's attorneys would now raise doubts with their vague answers and suggestions that maybe Dotzauer doesn't consider it a loan.

A great variety of the worst political websites in the country has been collected by c/net.

The problem in selecting the most ridiculous, poorly crafted, or just plain bizarre political Web sites is an embarrassment of riches: There are so many worthy contenders.

And our own Rep. Jay Inslee gets a place of dishonor:

Meet Jay Inslee, an on-again, off-again Democratic representative to the U.S. Congress from Washington state since 1992. In keeping with the spirit of his tech-centric district--which includes Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond--he offers an official