Liberal Talk Radio

It’s been argued — plausibly, I think — that the current sectarian violence plaguing Iraq was not inevitable. There was a leadership vacuum after the invasion, followed by a calculated series of attacks by Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni groups designed to pit various sects against each other. Bush was paralyzed and couldn’t decide what to do one way or another, and so the internecine flames were fanned and fanned until we arrived at the current state of affairs.

In other words, the longer you wait to pick a solution, the harder it becomes to choose which solution to pick. Arguments pile up, pro and con, on both sides, opinions harden, and compromise becomes more difficult.

And so it’s become with the fight over what to do with Seattle’s crumbling Viaduct. To wit, check out the comments section of yesterday’s P-I article. Typical P-I articles generate maybe a dozen comments. This one’s already at 96 and counting.

I don’t want to be accused of nutpicking, but it’s fair to say that this long, drawn-out process, has created a situation where lots and lots of people are going to be angry and disappointed no mater what option ends up getting chosen. And it’s not to say that there’s any good way around this. Sure, Gregoire could have been more forceful in her decisions, but the fact is that the Mayor and the Governor strongly disagree on this issue. So of course there’s going to be a public fight. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s what happens next that makes the difference.

In that light, I expect Governor Gregoire to recommend a “surge” of 20,000 additional PR flacks in an effort to claim victory.