Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Saturday, June 21, 2008

In the Third Year of the Palousitics Revolution


Three years ago today when I started this blog, I wanted two things: Dino Rossi in the Governor's Mansion in Olympia and a Wal-Mart Supercenter under construction in Pullman.

God willing, I'll see both of those things happen by next January.

From its humble beginning, I'd like to think Palousitics' now nearly two dozen contributors have played an important role in recent events on the Palouse, such as:

  • Taking the WSU College Republicans' fight to promote free speech and expose racism, intolerance, and lack of academic diversity at WSU to a local, regional, and national audience. Ed Weber,the director of WSU's Foley Institute recently apologized to conservatives for kow-towing to the "hegemony of the left-leaning liberal viewpoint" and promised more conservative speakers on campus.

  • Arguably the most pro-growth Pullman City Council and Whitman County Board of Commissioners in recent times.

  • According to PARD's latest screed in the Daily News "unfairly and personally attacking" the millions of Wal-Mart haters in Pullman and forcing them into anonymity and silence. In actuality, many of the silent majority of Wal-Mart supporters have found the courage to speak out, prompting Wal-Mart officials to comment that, other than the PARDners, they have been overwhelmed with the positive response they have received in Pullman.


  • Since I started Palousitics, I have been interviewed by the New York Times, been a guest on a Seattle radio talk show, co-hosted a Pullman talk radio show, met Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, rubbed elbows with members of the international mainstream media, seen Palousitics ranked as one of Washington's most influential political blogs, and most importantly of all, spoken at a troop support rally for our local National Guard troops deploying to Iraq. I always tell people that I never know from day-to-day what new thing blogging will bring.

    But April pointed something out to me recently that made me the proudest I have been yet of this blog. It was a long, rambling, self-pitying, paranoid history of the Hawkins development in the corridor written from Queen Nancy's perspective.

    In it, she blames the foiling of her efforts to stop Hawkins, in part, on:
    political will and the public’s patience waned in the face of a publicity campaign that unfairly and inaccurately depicted Moscow as meddlesome, unreasonable, anti-business, greedy, and mean-spirited.
    As I am not aware of any other "publicity campaign" that depicted Moscow as "meddlesome, unreasonable, anti-business, greedy, and mean-spirited" other than what we waged here at Palousitics, I'm more than happy to take credit for it.

    The little blog that took on an out-of-control city government to bring millions of sales tax dollars to Whitman County.

    An Army of Davids indeed.....Happy Third Blogiversary to all you Palousitics contributors and readers.

    1 comment:

    Mattwi said...

    Happy Blogiversary...