Dave Reichert: Another lying Republican hypocrite exposed -- no thanks to the media
By David Neiwert Thursday Oct 23, 2008 4:00pm
It stands to reason that Darcy Burner's opponent, Republican Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington's 8th District, would be getting desperate about now. After all, the most recent polling consistently shows him trailing Burner by about four points.
So of course, he's been trying to smear her with a cheap falsehood about her Harvard degree. And in the process, he appears to have really stepped in it. From Goldy at HA:
Let’s see if this, Rep. Dave Reichert’s official Congressional biography, makes the front page of the Seattle Times:
REICHERT, David G., .a Representative from Washington; born in Detroit Lakes, Becker County, Minn., August 29, 1950; graduated, Kent Meridian High School, Renton, Wash., 1968; B.A., Concordia Lutheran College, Portland, Oreg., 1970; U.S. Air Force Reserve, 1971-1976; U.S. Air Force, 1976; police officer, King County, Wash., 1972-1977; sheriff, King County, Wash., 1997- 2004; elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Ninth Congress and to the succeeding Congress (January 3, 2005-present).
Problem is, Reichert never earned a B.A. from Concordia in 1970, because they didn’t even grant their first bachelors degree until 1980. In fact, the year Reichert started was Concordia’s first year as a Junior College; before then, it was merely a Lutheran high school.
What Reichert has is a two-year Associates degree from a small, Christian, Junior College. (And possibly, not even that; has Heffter bothered to ask Concordia’s registrar for Reichert’s records?) Thus Reichert’s official bio, which he has allowed to go uncorrected for four years, and which has been picked up by numerous news organizations and other web sites, is an undisputed lie.
You see, Reichert has been spreading the story that Burner fluffed up her resume by claiming to have a degree in economics from Harvard. And sure enough, the Seattle Times -- which has a long track record of explicit animus toward Burner -- bit on the story.
It gave the Reichert team the chance to pounce:
Reichert's campaign called Burner's statements about her degree "outrageous."
"It calls into question everything that she has said to this point," said Amanda Halligan, a spokeswoman for the Reichert campaign. "It demonstrates an arrogance that she thinks she can say what she wants and that no one is going to learn the truth."
Darcy's response is here.
The problem is, as Matt Stoller explained in some detail yesterday, it's all bullshit:
The story is literally made up out of whole cloth. Burner has a degree in computer science and economics from Harvard, as her website says. Having gone to Harvard, I know how this works. You get a degree under one department, take classes in another, write a thesis joining the two, and that thesis is reviewed by professors from both departments. It's actually much harder to get a joint degree, but the registrar shows a degree only from one department because Harvard doesn't have minors. In fact, economics is a fairly easy degree to get, while computer science and economics takes a lot more work.
Indeed, here are the words of the same Harvard dean quoted in the Times' story:
I'm the professor and ex-dean who was quoted in the story, and as it happens, also the guy who wrote the CS degree requirements. At the time Darcy was at Harvard, she would have needed, as part of her CS degree requirements, several courses in a technical specialization area related to CS. She fulfilled that CS degree requirement by specializing in Economics (which meant, by the way, that she couldn't have taken just the easy, non-mathematical Ec courses). So it's not exactly a minor (which we didn't have then, though we do now), and it's also not anything that the registrar would be able to certify (because it's an internal requirement of the computer science faculty). But it's something everyone getting a degree in CS had to do (though other students would have other specialties). The way Darcy is describing herself is accurate.
None of this, however, prevented one of the more popular local right-wing radio yammerers, Dori Monson, from going on the air today and pronouncing Burner "a liar."
Better look in that mirror, fellas.
In the meantime, the rest of us can go to Blue America and donate to Darcy. With the media in the tank for Reichert, it's obvious she'll need all the help she can get.
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Rule #1: When a Republican accuses a Democrat of ANYTHING - take a careful look at that Republican because 99 out of 98 times the Republican is doing EXACTLY what they accuse the Democrat of doing.
Usually they are quite a bit worse.
Then again, she did go to an "eastern elite" university.
*yawn*
Who gives a fuck. They're all lying sacks of shite.
Also, Obama has won (Headline from the Future).
Not yet. Did you bother to vote or volunteer yet?
The repubs and their gangs have torn down close to 500 Obama/Biden signs. They have attacked and threatened our volunteers. Now there is evidence that these hooligans have started burning Obama volunteers out of their homes. NW New Mexico is way worse than any place in the old South.
What do we do now? Our lives are on the line.
Thanks for all you and other volunteers are doing. I can't imagine Democrats behaving that way - it's amazing the divide between the two camps in terms of intelligence and tactics
My daughter (from Australia) has just driven through Arizona, NM and Texas and she says she can barely stand it the people in many of those places have very little intelligence nor reasoning ability. My daughter is writing about the election process - we're shocked at the way things are handled in the US - disenfranchising voters, intimidating people, lying, etc. Weird to us folk in the Land DownUnder.
Farmington? Aztec? Not on the Rez, probly? Chama?
I hadn't heard a peep about it...you can email me at my blog which is linked to my sig
Get on the phone to all the local tv bureaus...all the big abq stations have NW bureaus... send me details. I know a couple of people down here, too...KUNM's got a hungry news dept...
And it's worked before. It doesn't appear to work anymore, but it did as recently as 2004.
I wish I really knew why, but I think that the gradual acceptance of blog information has really made it hard for Karl to slip the turd into the punch bowl. It's too hard to be slippery on facts and more and more the conventional news people are using bloggers as a resource. Sure some of them hate bloggers and are afraid of what might happen to their profession, but they can quickly scan blogs to get a feel for the veracity, mendacity and/or hypocrisy of pretty much any given public statement
Reichart is a conservative from a very conservative district. (It used to be Jennifer Dunn's district.)
Reichart is a good man and he was instrumental in finally catching the Green River Killer, so he has the name recognition for the area.
Monson is a blowhard, but not as bad as some, and he is balanced by Dave Ross (another radio host that I used to enjoy listening to for his drive-by common sense) , who ran against Reichart 2 years ago (4 years ago?) as a Democrat for the same seat and lost.
I am glad that Burner is doing so well in that part of Seattle. It will be tough to beat Reichart, no matter what because of the district. So it's a good thing that she is doing so well.
Monson is still a blowhard. He comes across as a knee-jerk conservative who's done well but is scared someone will do better. We come from the same neighborhood and time-frame... there's plenty of him out there - but plenty of thoughtful people as well. :)
I think Reichart fits the bill of white, middle-aged hero for the Eastside - I'm sure he's a good guy but Bruner has got the smarts and credentials to do a better job than he.
Dunno about "good guy." Sounds like a wannabe, to me, a parvenu...
Dori Monson is the reason I move my radio away from KIRO at high-noon. Dave Ross (9am-noon) is damn good and I've listened to him for decades. One of the smartest hosts on radio (and actually acts like a host.)
Listen to him here: http://mynorthwest.com
Or at: http://daveross.com
Because if I were Darcy, I'd be pursuing some civil litigation after winning the election.
As for people's houses being burned, I presume you've called the authorities. Maybe put up security cameras on your properties.
I dont think the Seattletimes is out to get Darcy, they actually have endorsed Barack Obama after endorsing Bush on the last two elections. Must have been a slow news day. Living in Seattle, the attack ads against her are pretty dumb. One of them shows her talking on camera saying "The Fisa bill sucks", & "We need more and better Democrats in Washington", OMG SHE SAID SUCK AND SHE WANTS MORE DEMOCRATS ELECTED! BURN HER!! Really, that's their attack ad. Dave Reichert ads, he isnt very emotional and has that deer in the headlights look while reading a queue card as a gangsta thug is holding a gun to his wife's head screaming "READ THE CARD OR I BLOW HER BRAINS OUT!!!".
Darcy doesn't support me, she covers the eastside, the area where Bush and Cheney head straight to when visiting Seattle, which is often a fund raising event. Good luck penetrating that Republican held stronghold.
So, what you're saying is that Reichert is actually ideally qualified to take over Monica Goodling's job at the Department of Justice, and then TURN DOWN Darcy Burner for a job there, because she's too much of an egghead.
Wait a minute... Reichert only has a 2 year degree and is claiming to have a 4 year degree?
Check this out:
http://www.komonews.com/news/31308239.html
"SEATTLE -- The Washington State Patrol has placed nine of its troopers and sergeants on paid leave while they're investigated for using fake diplomas to get higher pay.
[...]It is not a crime to have a fake diploma, but it is a crime to use the diploma to get higher pay or advancement in rank. A four-year degree boosts a trooper's pay by 4 percent, and a two-year degree earns a 2-percent hike."
I mean it's probably just an honest mistake on someone else's part, but it would be good for someone to check up on if he ever claimed to have a B.A. when he was a police officer and if he got any salary boost.
Reichert apparently has no Vietnam service either. It seems that he served his entire Air Force Reserve time here in the United States. He takes right after George W. Bush.
after '71. They were already reducing the forces by then...And unless as a fac, af grunts were mostly remf...i was, when i was there in '68...'com-int'
that shirt is really nerdy
And wouldn't you love a congress-critter that understands HTML?
The picture is of Burner standing in front of her house that just burned down.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localne...
help a dude out, what's it mean???
End War.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html
.
R E M E M B E R:
Dave Reichert HAD NO LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE before he was elected...
.
you are so much better!
So, do you let the bullies win?
The people who are doing this align themselves with the bullies who have ruled without any serious challenge to their power for a long time. They think they are entitled to rule over people they consider less than them; less patriotic, less worthy, less American, less whatever. And using threats and force to intimidate doesn't bother them a bit.
But, the alternative to stopping them now is to let them stay in power over us.
Imagine if they get away with what they are doing now. What will it be like the next time we try to take our lives back from their control?
I've been thinking of the Civil Rights workers lately, those, "community activists" who put everything on the line to correct a grievious wrong in this country, and did it non-violently.
In the hindsight of history they look so courageous, and they were, but I bet they spent more time feeling angry and frightened than courageous, like a lot of us feel right now.
But I think they also recognized that the alternative to seeing their struggle through until they acheived their goal would have been to let the hate-mongers, bullies and murderers win. And that was no longer possible to accept.
So, here we are now. The hate-mongers bullies and murderers are once again faced with losing their grip on power and they are going to do ANYTHING they can, including violence, not to let that happen.
I confess, I hesitated to put an Obama sticker on my car because I didn't want it vandalized, and I hesitated to put an Obama sign in my yard, because I was afraid.
But the minute you let someone rule over you by fear, you are lost, so the signs and the stickers went on. Yesterday I saw a large hand-painted sign in a yard that said, "Some Joe-six pack stole my Obama sign", and I thought, "That's perfect. That's the perfect response. They take down a sign, put up a bigger sign. And do it with humor."
This isn't over yet, and it will get worse, these are not people who will just walk away from the grip they have had on everything, so, don't be surprised at what depths they sink to, juist remember that the lower they sink, it's all the more reason not to let them win.
If there's one thing that we should have learned by now it is that the right wingers go out of their way to accuse either their opponents or an anonymous group of people who can't defend themselves of whatever their own sins are. Everything from Larry Craig going after gay rights to Mark Foley going after internet predators, Sarah Palin and her abstinence education (she eloped with Todd, gave birth eight months later) to this.
A right winger tries to smear you with something? Look into their background for that exact thing. McCain accuses you of palling around with terrorists? G. Gordon Liddy! Palin accuses you of being unPatriotic? AIP!
is greek for Republican!
Why is there an Elect Reichert Ad posted right next to this article? Talk about a waste of campaign $.
Perhaps another poster on this site will know but I believe there's another error in the Reichert bio. It states that he graduated Kent Meridian High School in Renton, WA. in 1968.
Kent Meridian High School is in Kent, WA so unless what is currently Kent used to be part of Renton that would appear to be a lie and something a local should know...
i love her tshirt, but what does it mean?
End War.
In HTML (the language web pages are written in) the angle brackets are used to set an attribute on a section and the angle bracket slash is used to end an attribute. I'd give an example but this board filters HTML.
to be finally rid of these despicable rat fuckers.
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