Comments

1
owned. nice work, savage.
2
wait, you mean Tim Burgess, the guy who didn't have the stones to run against Greg Nickles, and is now in a high drudge because McGinn won the seat Burgess felt he was entitled to, engages in front-running behavior when he feels there is a political advantage to do so, but shies away from taking on difficult issues when there is little perceived political advantage?

golly. that's worrisome. you'd almost expect a guy like that to be silent as the city was getting screwed on transportation issues for 8 years (including viaduct replacement and the 520 bridge), but come out swinging against a powerhouse group such as the homeless.

oh.
3
Love it!
4
I don't really give a fuck about Tim Burgess one way or the other, but this kind of niggling demand for consistency from Dan "let's invade Iraq" Savage is bullshit. Your views matter, Dan, because you're a major public figure and because you were the editor of the paper when you wrote your articles supporting the war in Iraq. But you don't take any responsibility for them. The only times I've seen you respond to criticism about your support, you say, "I'm just a sex advice columnist." It's bullshit. Burgess talked about voting for Obama because he was feeling good and felt like talking about it. That doesn't abrogate his right to privacy on the rest of it, and it's patently disingenuous to pretend that it does.
5
Talk about eating your young. Leave the people who agree with you alone no matter what they believed in the past.
6
@4: Bullshit. Dan never tried to hide his mistake about Iraq, and he has admitted he was wrong roughly 700 billion times.

Burgess, on the other hand, apparently voted for Bush in 2004, but he is too big of a pussy to stand behind his vote or admit he made an error in political judgment. Should Tim ever decide to run for mayor, I hope the Stranger continues to press this issue.
7
Judah, "right to privacy" doesn't mean the press can't needle an elected official to spill the beans about whatever they want. I wish my favorite paper would needle politicos less selectively, but times are tough for journos.

Beyond that, I can't help but point out your history of Dan's writing on the Iraq war is remarkably, er, abridged.
8
Nobody like McCain.
9
I was reading the start of the post yesterday introducing Tim Burgess as the Obama fundraiser correspondent:
So Councilmember Tim Burgess ran into me on the street this morning outside of Dino Rossi's speech at the Washington Athletic Club, mentioned that he had a ticket to Obama's fundraiser at the Westin today, and quickly became The Stranger's senior White House correspondent.

And I was all about to make a snarky remark like, Tim Burgess is the only guy who would feel right at home at both a Dino Rossi speech and a Barack Obama fundraiser. (And yes, I realize Burgess wasn't actually attending the Rossi speech.) Then I thought better of it.

But now that Dan mentions it, let me tell what I think of Tim Burgess. Think what you will.

Tim Burgess is nothing more than your prototypical "go along to get along," "finger to the wind," cowardly, front-runner politician who stands for one thing and one thing only, himself. The irony here is that these classic craven, unprincipled politicians who only care about their self-interest are too stupid too realize that it may not be in their self-interest in the long run to be, well, craven, unprincipled politicians who only care about their self-interest.

Maybe Eastside voters are disengaged enough to allow their territory to serve as the launching pad for the political careers of "have your cake and eat it too" conservative politicians. But Seattle voters are smarter than that, and Tim Burgess is going to find that out when he runs for mayor in 2013.
10
I guess I know who won't be live blogging any more events for The Stranger.
11
Judah @4:
Burgess talked about voting for Obama because he was feeling good and felt like talking about it. That doesn't abrogate his right to privacy on the rest of it, and it's patently disingenuous to pretend that it does.

Judah, you seem to have about as much of a clue about the "right to privacy" as Dr. Laura Schlessinger has about the First Amendment and freedom of speech.

(It's remarkable to me how complete idiots have all of a sudden fallen in love with the word "disingenuous" and start throwing it around in all sorts of head-scratching ways. It's like "disingenuous" is the new "ironically" or "literally.")
12
Rather than just pick on Tim, I would hope that Dann will issue a comprehensive report of how all of Seattle area politicians voted in 2004 so we can all examine the data for ourselves.

Face it - Dan doesn't like Tim and will take a swipe whenever he can, no matter how juvenile.
13
@6 No. Every time I've seen Dan admit he was wrong, he qualifies it by saying his opinion didn't matter very much because he's "just a sex advice columnist". You say he's been more contrite elsewhere, fine. I haven't seen it, and don't feel like going looking for it, but that doesn't change the basic point -- Dan has dissembled about his position on the Iraq war many times, and it's hypocritical to demand total consistency on something as obscure as "why I voted for this guy."

Judah, "right to privacy" doesn't mean the press can't needle an elected official to spill the beans about whatever they want

Sure. But pretending that Burgess is violating some kind of moral standard by making an off-hand public comment about his voting history and then refusing to let Dan rifle through his underwear drawer is dishonest journalism.
14
Can't quite decide if the question of who Tim Burgess voted for in 2004 is "silly" or just "stupid." I'm gonna say "stupid."
15
Didntvote4bush @12 and Sandman @14, it's good to know Tim Burgess has his lackeys out there. Hey, God forbid any of us should hold any public official accountable for anything lest we be subjected to your contempt and ridicule.

Anyone who had half a brain already knew in 2004 what a disaster George W. Bush and his policies were. Voting for G-Dub in 2004 is a real litmus test for "don't have a clue about civics, economics, basic arithmetic, etc." Tim Burgess apparently doesn't want to admit that he passed that litmus test with flying colors.

I'm reminded of an article that showed how all these pundits who were proven to be utter fools when it came to their support for the Iraq War managed to come out fairly unscathed while the people who were dead-on vindicated about the war didn't fare quite so well. As long as we let our leaders get away with conventional wisdom (i.e. what's popular) rather than real wisdom, we're going to keep getting lousy leaders and lousy results.
16
What's a few foreign civil wars of Republican adventure that are crushing our national economy between friends?
17
Judah, you seem to have about as much of a clue about the "right to privacy" as Dr. Laura Schlessinger

I was referring to Burgess' right to tell Dan to piss off, more than the penumbral constitutional right to privacy. But, you know, fuck you anyway.

It's remarkable to me how complete idiots have all of a sudden fallen in love with the word "disingenuous" and start throwing it around in all sorts of head-scratching ways.

Disingenuous: pretending not to understand something that you do understand. Dan knows that Burgess isn't obligated to talk about his voting choices, but he's trying to pretend that Burgess owes him an explanation because of an off-hand comment about being happy he voted for Obama. It's artifice. Pretense. Not genuine; disingenuous. Look it up.
18
Judah @17: Dan knows that Burgess isn't obligated to talk about his voting choices,...

I'm in complete agreement on this point, Judah. Your insistence that somehow this is the point is what I find amusing.

And yes, believe it or not, I'm familiar with the dictionary definition of disingenuous.
19
@18

I never said it was the point. I said it was a bullshit maneuver from Dan, who has a history of being appallingly inconsistent and dishonest about some very important issues.

And yes, believe it or not, I'm familiar with the dictionary definition of disingenuous.

You're the one who implied that my use of the word was "head-scratching". But, again, fuck you anyway.
20
Tim's wife is really nice. At least she voted the right way in 2000, even if she hasn't admitted it to him.
21
This is precisely why you people at The Stranger can't get past being losers. Losing is all you know and losing is your security. Without the rock of losing to cling to, you'd be cast adrift in a frightening sea. You dumb fuckers are so in love with being the losing, loony left, frozen out of everything, you can't bear the thought of winning.

If somebody like Roger Ailes or Newt Gingrich looked at a voter switched parties and stopped voting for Democrats and started voting for Republicans, Newt or Roger would call that winning. If that voter then gets himself elected to office as a Republican? That's called "winning big"! Newt and Roger are assholes, but they're also winners. They like winning and they don't bitch and whine when they win. They don't attack the people who handed them victory.

They don't attack their own side like those dumb fucking Teabaggers, who are so much alike to you dumb fuckers at the Stranger.

See, in electoral politicians, when people stop voting for the other side and start voting for your side, that means your fucking side is fucking winning you fucking fuck.

Hey, you know what would be really retarded? Find every single voter who picked Bush over Gore and Bush over Kerry, who then picked Obama over McCain, and stab them with a fucking shiv! Fuck them hard and drive them back into the arms of the GOP. Just to prove how fucking stupid you are.
22
DEATH TO ANYONE WHO WAS EVER AN INFIDEL - Dan Savage, 2010
23
@15 -- people change, k? The GOAL of our political work is to turn Bush voters into Obama voters, Rossi voters into Murray voters, anti-gay voters into pro-gay voters. What's the value in converting people then shaming them for formerly getting it wrong?
24
The point is that Tim Burgess clearly hasn't changed. Has anyone paid attention to anything he's done since being elected?
25
who cares?
26
Elenchos @21, you're really piling false premise on top of false premise.

First off, Tim Burgess hasn't even come clean that he voted for Bush in 2004. You can't be defending a confession that hasn't happened yet.

Second, you're suggesting that the difference between Burgess's presumed vote in 2004 and his vote in 2008 was that somehow he matured or evolved. Hey, my folks voted for Reagan, and eventually they realized how foolish they were. They changed. Tim Burgess is a different story. By 2004, he was already a fully formed political animal. No, Tiger Tim didn't change his stripes. This is a clear indication that this fellow either put picking the winning team ahead of political principle or, worse, that he really is a "have your cake and eat it too" Bushie at heart.

Third, it's one thing to be a regular voter who makes a patently stupid political choice. I'm sure a lot of folks who voted for one Eyman initiative or another through the years have seen the error of their ways, just like a lot of people are embarrassed that they were Ayn Rand fans in high school or college. It's another thing to be someone who's just on the cusp of entering a public life and to cast a vote that indicates you don't have a clue about economics or the social contract.

You're right that The Stranger has had a penchant for picking political losers over the years. I'm even more frustrated than you are at this publication's penchant for political self-immolation. It's like they put their pride and purity ahead of accomplishing anything every time. But so what? It's a bit of an ad hominem argument to leave Burgess off the hook for his opportunism just because some Daily Kos types are the ones calling him out on it.

The truth is that we don't have to speculate about how much Tim Burgess may or may not have changed since 2004. We need only look at his record as a city councilmember to see that this is a guy who'll be as conservative as he can get away with and who isn't afraid to demagogue a non-issue like aggressive panhandling. He might be a good fit for mayor of Bellevue, but not mayor of Seattle.
27
Come clean? Come clean?

Because every Bush voter whom Obama won over is still dirty until they come and suck Dan Savage's war monger, amnesiac cock? Jesus. Nobody has to come clean to the fucking Stranger about whom they voted for two elections ago. Stop insulting the voters we won over. Congratulate them. Maybe we can win over a few more of them if we can refrain from being jerks about it.

The only part I agree with is that we don't need to look any further than Burgess's city council voting record. Which is quite in line with 40 to 70% of Seattle, and not by any stretch of the imagination more conservative than any other moderate Democrat, such as for example Barack Obama, Hillary or Bill Clinton, or Christen Gregoire. My opinion of Burgess is that he's a run of the mill moderate Democrat whose most damning quality is that he bores me. I wouldn't think about him at all if the idiotic Stranger weren't so obsessed with making dull old Tim Burgess some kind of martyr.

Are you allowed to disagree with Obama, the Clintons, Gregoire or Burgess? Sure.

Declare ideological jihad against them for being infidels? Apostates even? No, not unless you are a stupid, stupid motherfucker.
28
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