Spin Control : Capitol tree naming needles protesters
Diligent defenders of Christmas set their sights on Olympia this weekend, protesting the annual affront to the holiday in the Capitol rotunda.
That’s right, the decorated example of arboreal splendor is officially known as “The Capitol Holiday Kids Tree.” In other words, it is not technically labeled a “Christmas tree.”
Oh, the ignominy of it all.
On Saturday, a group so intent on saving Christmas that it calls itself SavingChristmas.com planned an old-fashioned protest at the Capitol, complete with songs. Let’s all gather round for a few verses of “We Shall Overcome All Ye Faithful.”
The group’s Web site explains its mission “is to keep alive the traditional American Christmas message of ‘Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men’ in the manner in which it has always been celebrated.”
Well, probably not the way it’s always been celebrated, like when people were fined or put in the stocks in Puritan New England for making merry on Christmas. Or when yuletide celebrations routinely turned into riots among the poor in the early 1800s. Or when Christmas was just another workday in the factories, mills and plantations, which it was up until 1870 when it first became a federal holiday.
Abetting this movement to free Christmas from its shackles is Spokane’s own Rep. John Ahern, who first blew the whistle on the whole Capitol tree-naming problem last year when he asked Gov. Chris Gregoire to rename the tree. The governor callously pointed out that the tree is put up by the Association of Washington Business, and thus is not hers to rename.
Proof positive, to anyone who can think these things through, that Chris is not short for Christmas.
Say what?
The 2007 legislative session has not yet started, but competition is already under way for the strangest press release out of Olympia. This week’s nomination comes from the state Senate GOP offices, which sent out a notice that Janea Holmquist, of Moses Lake, is the youngest woman ever elected to the Senate.
This fulsome report notes from whence came the Bible upon which the youngest woman senator was sworn in (Supreme Court Justice Jim Johnson brought his own), the origin of the term “senator” (Holmquist notes that it comes from the Romans), the fate of her predecessor (Joyce Mulliken was named to the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board), and the fact that five years ago she was the youngest woman elected to the state House.
What it doesn’t say is how old she is.
This wasn’t an inadvertent oversight. The GOP staffer who wrote the press release said he and the senator “went around and around” on whether it should be included, and she’s the boss.
But for those who wonder, Holmquist turned 32 on Thursday.
Discovering that being sworn in at 31 years, 354 days is a record was no mean feat, staffer Brendon Wold said. There’s no master list, so they had to look up all female senators and check the birthdays of those whose pictures might have been in the ballpark.
Not that we’re against leaks
State GOP chairwoman Diane Tebelius isn’t happy with the punishment Rep. Jim McDermott got last week for leaking tapes of Republican congressional leaders talking about an investigation of Newt Gingrich back in 1996.
McDermott committed actions “inconsistent with the spirit of the applicable rules and represented a failure on his part to meet his obligations,” the House Ethics Committee concluded this week. He “risked undermining the ethics process,” the panel said.
Imagine that. Congress has an ethics process that could be undermined.
This is known as an official rebuke. It doesn’t include a fine, a stint in jail, community service or even a requirement to show up on time for votes for the next two years. It’s sort of like the vice principal in junior high saying “This is going on your PERMANENT RECORD.”
This little tap on the wrist, Tebelius says, “is too lenient and underscores the need for higher standards of conduct for our congressional members.”
Good point. But one has to wonder if she overplayed the hand just a bit by saying the McDermott ethics violation adds to “the ever-expanding list of misdeeds by Democrats in Congress,” which she said included John Murtha’s involvement in Abscam and Alcee Hastings’ impeachment for bribery allegations.
Those two things are even older than the 1996 McDermott tape incident. Abscam was in 1980. Hastings was impeached in 1989 over something that allegedly happened about six years earlier, and for which he was acquitted in a criminal trial. Those old chestnuts were tossed on the fire again recently because Murtha and Hastings were up for leadership posts.
Which they didn’t get.