Rossi's Deposition: Talk About Depressing
Pretty sad to see a King County Judge stand up for the public's right to know--even in the face of objections from the Republican state Attorney General--and then we get this as a consequence. Instead of anything remotely enlightening about what Dino Rossi knew and what kind of coordination he might have had with BIAW in campaign fundraising, we get hours or whining and bickering by childish-sounding attorneys. Every single question was objected to by Rossi's attorneys. The attorneys questioning him seemed to play into exactly the Republicans' portrayal of this whole thing as a political stunt. This first portion of the deposition actually accomplishes the astounding feat of making me sympathetic to Rossi. He comes off as a hapless guy stuck in a miserable situation.
Things got a little more substantive later in the deposition. Rossi insists throughout the day that he was "75 percent" certain he wouldn't be running for governor at the time (summer '07) when he made calls to the BIAW's local affiliate the Master Builders of King and Snohomish Counties. Were those phone calls part of the BIAW's attempt to convince the Master Builders to pony up money for a Rossi campaign? Rossi says no, offering this explanation instead:
They were seeking to fund electoral activities on a broad based sense, not just funds but having the support. Part of the problem was is that there was a personality clash between the Seattle Master Builders and the folks at the BIAW, and so me not being a candidate and about 75 percent sure I wasn't going to run again, they asked if I could bring the two together because they promote small business candidates around the state, which I support small business candidates around the state. So that's what happened.
Sounds convincing to me!
1 comment(s)
Cliff says:
I can see your sneer in the "sounds convincing", but when you think about it, it's totally convincing. Rossi knew that the BIAW would be in the can for him nomatter what. Why would he have to "coordinate" anything? All he'd have to do is announce he was running and they'd get in line. Why would he even bother.
Posted On: Thursday, Oct. 30 2008 @ 12:50PM