Susan Hutchison Gets Along With Black People!

Growing up, KIRO 7 news was by far my favorite local news. Susan Hutchison and Steve Raible formed the powerhouse news team of my childhood summers. It's too bad that I had to grow up and find out that Susan Hutchison kinda sucks.

Reason number one: Anti-science. She served as a director of The Discovery Institute. That's the wacko little Christian think tank that came up with the cute little "textbook" Of Pandas and People. Being involved in that organization automatically qualifies as a nutbag. Science is our friend, Hutchison. She does say she is friends with Richard Dawkins, remembers arguing the merits of Jesus Christ with him. Of course, Richard Dawkins recalls it quite differently.

Reason number two: Anti-choice. Hutchison's modus operandi is not taking a stance on anything, but abortion has been giving her some trouble. The furthest she's been able to go so far is to say that she has "no desire to shut [county run clinics] down." Not particularly comforting.

Reason number three: She's a hardcore Republican. She donated to the Bush/Cheney folks in 2004, AFTER it was clear that they screwed everything up. And then in 2007, she donated to Mike Huckabee. That's not even a joke. She actually gave that guy money. And she's been a big friend to Dave "I caught the Green River Killer" Reichert. There's not a Democrat to be seen in the FEC record of her donating.

Reason number four: She's a liar. Back when she worked at KIRO, she sued the organization for age AND race discrimination for hiring a younger Asian anchor to replace her. Obviously, it was because KIRO hates white ladies and had absolutely nothing to do with the Raible/Hutchison nightly broadcast being the lowest rated among the Seattle evening news programs. While the office she is running for is officially nonpartisan, she clearly possesses the persecution complex shared by many conservatives. The troubling aspect is a campaign video that she released blasting KIRO and complaining that she was bound by confidentiality agreements to not speak about the facts of the case. Lawyers from KIRO AND the judge who ruled on the case have made it clear that she is not bound by that confidentiality agreement to speak about the facts of the case.

The Seattle Times highlights some of the funnier points from the documents the judge released:

She believed KIRO executives were out to get her when she was suspended for a week without pay in July 2002. The suspension came after Hutchison was denied a vacation request over the Fourth of July holiday, called in sick and went on a vacation to Bend, Ore., with her husband. "I was deeply humiliated and punished beyond belief for taking two sick days and there was a hatred there among the news director and the general manager," she said in a deposition.

She took medical leave Sept. 19, 2002 — and never returned to work before she was fired Dec. 20 — because she was "totally stressed out" by her situation at KIRO.

Hutchison called the mother of a college student who wanted to intern at KIRO and told her the station would be a bad environment for her daughter. The student's mother, according to a sworn statement, found the call from Hutchison — whom she had never met — "strange."

Hutchison alleged that John Woodin, then KIRO's general manager, was a "sexual predator" and had a "drug problem," according to the mother. Her daughter went ahead and worked at KIRO in the summer of 2002 and told her parents she "had no problems with John Woodin and had seen nothing to corroborate the accusations made by Susan Hutchison."

There you have it. KIRO punished just like they would have any other employee when they really should have been treating Hutchison like a princess. She then throws a tantrum and doesn't come to work for three months because she finds it so offensive that they had the audacity to punish her "beyond belief." As part of her tantrum and as an example of her professional work ethic, she called an intern and told her she would be in grave danger if she worked at KIRO.

That's just the kind of behavior that is missing in King County politics!

The latest polls show Hutchison with a lead, and Horse's Ass is predicting a very strong financial push from Republicans to help offset the party advantage held by her opponent, Dow Constantine...I think it's because of her "tremendous rapport...with people of color."