Over at Olyblog, Russ Lehman, an old opponent of Rich Nafzigers when they were both on the Olympia School Board, takes a swipe at Nafziger and his blog:
The flap over Rich Nafziger’s blog, where he comments about the very un-Democratic way we make laws and policies in Olympia, as well as his view of the Governor as, well, somebody less than the leader we need at this time of crisis, misses the point just as the comments about our city council members who have the attention span and restraint of children missed the most important point about their egregious behavior.
The voices of disgust about certain city council member’s prurient and truly anti-Democratic impatience and intolerance, focuses on the violations of the Open Public Meetings Act instead of the true “crime” committed – an affront to our very Democracy. They validated people’s worst fears about policymaking – that politicians are interested in primarily, if not only, the interests of those who can pay to have their voice heard.
Nafziger is right about what plagues our lawmaking system. It is not truly interested in “the little guy’s” voice; responds very differently to those who make a living lobbying; is populated by many (though not all) people who seem much more interested in ego gratification then open, deliberative, courageous policymaking.
The problem is, according to those inside the Olympia beltway, not what he said, per se, it’s that he “pissed where he sleeps”. The common refrain in Olympia is that he was crazy to lambaste his political patrons (read: bosses).
Also, if you’re interested in reading everything Nafziger has put on his blog and then regularly takes right back down, I’ve tried to share as much as I can here. The posts aren’t in order of when they were posted by Rich, but rather by when I marked them in my feed reader. So, you may need to dig around a bit before you find what you are looking for. Like the one where he gives Gov. Gregoire a Hoover award.
Anyway, I’m going to ask him again in the comments of one of his blog posts why he keeps on taking his old posts down. I still wonder why
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