McGavick and Civility ... his party's antics already making his talk cheap.

01/22/06

As I understand it, I could be getting a phone call or encountering a radio or TV ad from Republicans claiming that Democrats are not interested in or actively working to protect children in my state.

Republicans have announced that they will be paying big bucks to intentionally mislead the voters about public safety - particularly safety of children and what the state's elected officials are or are not doing about it.

The politics of either/or manipulation is precisely the excremental tool over-used by the state Republican organization in a silly mimicry of the national RNC tactics of smear and bluff. The Olympian offers a clear and accurate description of the circumstance including clarification as to the conflicting proposals which have - as a priority - a toughening of the penalities for child molestaters.

On the one hand, my perception is that republican legislators made proposals based first and foremost on voter perceptions and secondarily on what would prove to be the most effective toughening of not only penalties but prosecutors' ability to effectively put offenders away.

So most republicans want to look tough on crime in a kind of Brownie/Fema manner with little apparent regard for whether or not the tool they want to legistlate is the best and most effective.

Democrats and the apparently few wise Republicans such as Jay Rodne of Snoqualmie took a common sense - even researched - approach to the problem.

And I'm not aware of any Democrats spending big bucks to smear Republicans who disagreed with that more thoughtful approach at dealing with public safety.

Which brings us to the coming out party for Mr. McGavick and his debutante delivery of a plea for civility in government.

I get visions of the Supreme Christian Republican Evangelical American Moralist congregation meeting the new preacher in town who gives his first sermon - one on civility - while most of the choir behind him is loudly passing gas.