Dr. Steve Schwartz, founder of this blog, didn’t think much Kshama Sawant. See, e.g., his postings here, here, here, here, here, and here. That’s just a small sampling; for more, enter “Sawant” in the search function, and be prepared for a deluge. Steve really had no use for Sawant. Neither does the Seattle Times.
In an editorial published on Wednesday, May 13, 2021, Seattle’s principal newspaper ripped Sawant’s lack of principles and urged readers to sign the recall petition against her:
“It’s hardly surprising that Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant dragged out a straightforward ethical charge for more than a year — and contested the situation before the state Supreme Court — before admitting she did wrong. Contrition is not in her political arsenal. …
“Sawant admitted … May 7 what the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission charged in February 2020: that spending … city money to tout a ‘Tax Amazon’ ballot initiative used city resources for campaigning, breaking a well-established prohibition. Sawant spent month after month arguing that she couldn’t possibly have known the ban applied to initiatives even before the paperwork is filed. That thin claim of naiveté fits with Sawant’s sorry history of stretching credulity. …
“Sawant has been elected three times to the council and has had ample time to learn the city ethics code. She is paid a professional salary and has a professional staff. Yet even after being specifically told in January 2020 she had crossed the line, she stubbornly kept putting public resources, including her section of the city website, toward campaigning for the cause.
The ethics settlement included … no evidence Sawant learned from the experience. In a ‘Why I settled the ethics complaint’ web posting, she denied ‘willful’ violation, puffed a smokescreen of what-aboutism by describing actions of council members and candidates in years past …. Voters must focus on the issues despite her stamina for spewing rhetorical fog. This isn’t about the former council members … or ‘the political establishment’ …. This is about a council member who … cannot admit responsibility …. She has shown repeatedly since the 2019 elections that voters should reconsider her fitness for office. … Her socialist beliefs don’t make her a bad officeholder. Her actions do.”
Read the entire editorial here.
Me? I don’t expect human beings to be perfect. But there should be limits to how much imperfection we tolerate, especially in public officials. But we seem to now live in times when policies are all that matters, and character no longer does. I agree with the Seattle Times: Voters should consider fitness. If enough of us ignore bad character to get the policies we want, our society won’t have much of a future.