Stefan Sharkansky today has a post at Sound Politics I keep reading over and over again. I'm mystified why he wrote it. He draws some connection between people involved in the story of Larry Corrigan, the former Norm Maleng staffer who pleaded guilty to trying to arrange sex with people he thought were underage girls, and the story about John McKay, the fired U.S. attorney for Western Washington.

Sharkansky wrote:

At first I dismissed this as a creepy coincidence, but then it occurred to me that it's quite significant.

I hope Sharkansky believes that I respect a lot of work that he has done. I link to him often. But this strikes me as an incredible stretch of logic.

And no, I have absolutely no reason to believe that anybody else is implicated in Corrigan's sick sexual behavior. It's a general problem with a senescent clique of political insiders, Democrats, Republicans and careerists who are indifferent to party. These are people who have been in and around government for decades and who have either lost the ability to smell the stench of corruption, or to act promptly if they do smell it — whether the corruption is the personal acts of a creepy pervert and embezzler who happens to be a long-term employee, or whether it is the public corruption in the county election office.

Yikes. Some of the players are the same. But we're talking about two stories involving high-profile events in Seattle's legal community. Who should be surprised that some of the names are the same?

Instead of comparing the McKay story to the Corrigan case, he could have just as easily connected it to the Green River killer. Norm Maleng was the prosecutor. John Wolfe was on the panel that chose Judge Richard Jones for a federal judgeship. Jones was the judge in the Gary Ridgway case. Dave Reichert was the lead investigator in the Green River case. A creepy coincidence?

It's a problem from the start to use the sordid tale of Corrigan to draw any parallel with other players.

Because Sharkansky believes McKay should have investigated the 2004 governor's election, that to him has become some moral equivalent of Corrigan's crimes. Wolfe is one of the people Sharkansky lists as a player in both stories. He's Corrigan's defense attorney. Is that in any way a sign that he has "lost the ability to smell the stench of corruption"? You may not like attorneys who defend admitted sex offenders, but that's Wolfe's job. And his link on the McKay story is that he served on that judicial panel where five of six members named Jones as their first choice. McKay was an applicant for the job, too. And while he didn't make the list of finalists, there are unconfirmed reports that Democrats on the panel, including Wolfe, supported his candidacy.

Then there is Mike McKay. Sharkansky writes, "he was treasurer of Maleng's campaign from which Corrigan embezzled $70,000." And his connection to the John McKay story? The McKays are brothers. And that is the sole piece of evidence that Mike McKay can't smell corruption in the King County elections office.

And what about Reichert? He makes Sharkansky's chart because a) he says Corrigan worked on Reichert's campaigns, and b) Reichert defended McKay.
The Seattle Times stories on the Corrigan case say only that he was active in Reichert's campaigns. But the real issue here is Sharkansky's strenuous advocacy for Reichert's re-election last year. Does he really believe the congressman is part of some ethically-challenged clique that is indifferent to party? If so, how could he have been so enthusiastic about his re-election? And if not, then his chart of connections starts to unravel pretty quickly as a bit of runaway rhetoric.