Quotes & amp;amp; Notes

by Inlander Staff
(Mis)Reading Iraq -- "Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder. "


-- Richard Perle, recently resigned chairman of the Defense Policy Board, in a PBS interview July 11, 2002





(Mis)Reading Iraq, Part II -- "The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that. My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."


-- Vice President Dick Cheney, on NBC's Meet the Press March 16





Ballistic Ballot -- Well, Spokane politics has now officially turned from complicated to downright impossible. At the city council meeting on Monday, the council decided to NOT put the question of whether we should revert to the old city manager type of government on the May ballot. That question will, however, in all likelihood appear on the November ballot at the same time as Spokane is picking its second strong mayor and council president. Yes, that's exactly right, we will have people running for an office we don't even know is going to be there after the November election. But of course none of that will affect the quality of the candidates for these offices.





April Fool? -- We got an e-mail press release from Tim Eyman on April 1, saying that the House Democrats are proposing a tax on every single e-mail message sent and received by citizens in Washington. According to Eyman, the Democrats are saying that the tax would raise an estimated $1 billion per year and help balance the state's budget.


Hmm, we're thinking to ourselves, it is April 1st and that does sound a lot like an Internet hoax announcing a federal tax that was circulated last year.


So we called House majority leader and Democrat Lynn Kessler, who's quoted in Eyman's release saying that "sticking it to the taxpayer illustrates our leadership." Needless to say, Kessler never made that statement.


"This e-mail is an out-and-out lie," she said after having read it. "We have proposed nothing like this, I've never even heard of an e-mail tax, and I'm the chair of the Ways and Means Committee. He's just causing trouble."


Eyman's office finally returned our call saying that it was a joke, however the press release did end with his usual plea for people to send more money.





Publication date: 04/03/03