Complaints against Eickmeyer dismissed

Republican-backed complaints against Democratic state Rep. William Eickmeyer of Belfair have been thrown out by the Legislative Ethics Committee.

The board, in a decision released this week by its attorney, Mike O'Connell, found no basis for the allegations brought by Mason County activist Mary Hrbacek. She is a former county Republican chairwoman and worked with the campaigns of two Eickmeyer opponents.

Readers may recall this separate example involving bogus claims made about Rodney Tom during the campaign as well. Of course, such tactics seem to have had little effect. Eickmeyer won easily, and Tom moved up to the state senate.

I don't have an easy solution to the problem of this kind of misuse of the ethics complaint system. As Eickmeyer noted in The Olympian article today:

"It's nothing more than to be able to ask the question, 'are you under investigation?' " Eickmeyer said.

And no, both sides don't do it. It's yet another example of how little regard for the truth that some Republicans have. Fake sex offender postcards, lying robo-calls, bogus ethics charges--it's all part and parcel of the Rovian madness that has infested the GOP for far too long.

I'd like to believe that there will be some voices in the GOP who will call for an end to the scummy tactics their operatives and activists employ, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Most likely things will pick right back up when the 2008 campaigns are in full swing. If people expect civility in politics they can more carefully examine how the Republican Party conducts itself. When progressives make noise and expose untruths, that is not swift boating.