Washblog

This isn't new for Reichert, hanging out with the coarse characters my mother would have warned about, exchanging money with them, standing up for them behind the scenes.  He took $20,000 from the ARMPAC of indicted "Death-to-liberal-judges" Tom DeLay, voted with Tom something like 95% of the time, and supported his leadership numerous times by voting against ethics in the House (House Resolutions 5, 153, and 213, for example.)

It took me a couple of years, but I've finally decided that the political presence of Dave Reichert in Washington State is essentially an illusion that floats and shimmers under a glorious head of hair.  It's like so much of what we get these days: hooey, the ersatz standing in for the truth, crazy-making, repudiation of reality itself as the blood flows and the glaciers melt and our fiscal security deflates and our civil liberties recede.  Floyd McKay puts it trenchantly.  Dave's part of the "seamless web" of the GOP, the Bush family and the energy industry.  So he doesn't get to vote his conscience (and I'm assuming he has one) on money matters or drilling in the Arctic, for example.  That seamless web he helps to weave has got him in deep and it's got us too.

Last October, Alice Mundy nailed Reichert in the most beautiful way in a Seattle Times piece on the green pickle Reichert finds himself in, the conflict between his role as a loyal trooper in the Republican Party and his stated goals of protecting the natural environment.

And so we see now that Rep America, the Republican pro-environment organization, which appears to be true and faithful to its mission (I think they're for real, dear hearts), gives Reichert a pretty puny rating of 46 out of 100 on its Congressional Scorecard.

Rep America proves it.  Reichert can't argue that he has no choice in environmental matters.  Numerous Republicans scored in the the 80s, 90s and 100s.  Reichert chose his votes.  He had the moral obligation to choose well, especially given the green-wash he gives himself, and he chose poorly.

Dave's a cute guy.  He talks the good talk. And maybe he means well but so often he votes for blood and oil instead of the environment and the middle class.  In H.R. 6, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, he voted with the oil lobby to roll back Clear Air protections, give huge subsidies to nuclear, oil, and gas companies, place severe restrictions on the rights of American's injured by MTBE, a potentially cancerous gasoline additive, and require drilling for oil on certain coastlines.

On the now-famous Defense Appropriations Bill that Reichert's DC buddy, Ted Stevens injected with a poisonous ANWR drilling provision, Dave uttered nary a peep of ethical outrage that the well-being of American soldiers who are being asked to spill their blood for oil was being used to sneak through the interests of the oil lobby in Alaska.   He just voted for it, saying he had no choice.

Dave, Dave, Dave.  You're giving away the store.  You give away our privacy, wiring us digitally in on our driver's licenses with Big Brother on the Real ID Act.  You give away our forests, selling our national park and forest lands for mining and development (HR 4241).  You give away our safety and the right of Washington State to determine what goes on the labels of the food our stores sell.

I used to think that grownups ran the world.  That meant something to me, because it's been a relief as an adult to understand, for example, that my cohorts are no longer likely to unpredictably knock me down and spit on me or kick me in the shins cause I'm not cool or something.  But I've come to understand that the knocking down and spitting is expressed in other ways in this world of taller people who know how to appear respectable.  Oh, please, can we get in the 8th CD come November a nice  grown-up? Darcy, we need you!

Note: Bill info can be checked on The Thomas Guide.