This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

There’s no mystery why Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Michael Morgan faces five challengers on the city’s Aug. 18 primary ballot.

Morgan is dragging an iron ball and heavy baggage into his quest for a second four-year term.

The ball chained to his ankle is the reprimand he got in December from the state Commission on Judicial Conduct. The commission scolded him for making threatening remarks and discussing sexual matters with the municipal court staff.

The baggage is a broader public perception that the court has lost its way since it was created 10 years ago. Its troubles have included the commission’s severe 2007 censure of former Judge Colleen Hartl, who subsequently resigned.

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This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.

Port of Tacoma: Re-elect Connie Bacon

The last two years have not been great for the Port of Tacoma.

First came the bust on the port’s $21 million gamble to buy up land near Maytown in Thurston County to build a rail yard. Then port officials fumbled cost estimates for a shipping terminal that helped lure NYK Line here from the Port of Seattle.

Those missteps, coupled with the economic downturn that cut deeply into the port’s cargo volume, have been big setbacks for a port that just a few years ago seemed to know no limits.

In May, 47 port employees received letters notifying them that their jobs had been eliminated. Soon after, a third of the port’s staff declared a no confidence vote in the port’s executive director, Tim Farrell.

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Harvard Prof. Henry Gates' tussle with a Cambridge police officer has the chattering classes arguing over whether it proves:

a) America remains saturated with racism.
b) Gates was "playing the race card."
c) The sergeant was a bully.
d) They're both hotheads.

Bonus option: e) You can be one of the most prominent professors in the nation and the locals still won't know you from Adam.

Choices: a, a and c, b, or b and d. If you don't also choose e, you must be an academic.

I'm posting a lovely little point-counterpoint on the incident from two Washington Post reporters, Wil Haygood (black) and Neely Tucker (white). Haygood's is below; Tucker's is on the next post down.

By Wil Haygood
The Washington Post

I loved living in Cambridge, Mass., except when I didn’t.

And when I didn’t was when I had left my apartment late at night to walk to the all-night corner grocery store with just that $10 bill stuffed into my pocket, having left my wallet on the bookcase in the hallway.

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By Neely Tucker
The Washington Post

One of the common-sense rules of life can be summed up this way: Don’t Mess With Cops.

It doesn’t matter if you are right, wrong, at home or on the street, or if you are black, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim or whatever. When an armed law enforcement officer tells you to cease and desist, the wise person (a) ceases and (b) desists.

The End.

Like Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., I am interracially married, live in a predominantly white neighborhood, have a healthy respect for armed men wearing uniforms, and have had police come to my house in a confrontational manner, doing the job they’re paid to do.

It happened when our house alarm went off at 2 a.m. a few months ago, on a night the electricity was off and the neighborhood was dark as pitch. WANH!! WANH!! WANH!! It sent my wife and me leaping out of bed. I sprinted downstairs with a baseball bat, our Rottweiler and a flashlight to confront any possible intruder. I checked all the windows and doors, the dog yawned, and it quickly became apparent that there was a short circuit from a rear door.

My wife called the alarm company and gave them the code for a false alert.

=> Read more!

I can't help notice the juxtaposition between Washington's two behemoth manufacturers:

Microsoft announced today the imminent release of Windows 7 to a world long-tormented by its bloated, glitch-infested Vista operating system.

Meanwhile, Boeing still can't get its 787 Dreamliner off the ground. The Seattle Times reports today that a flaw in the wing design won't be fixed for another four to six months.

Two years after its maiden flight was supposed to happen, the only thing the jet can do is taxi pathetically around Paine Field.

Microsoft, of course, has the advantage of sending "beta" preview copies of its software to a legion of geeks who ferret out its bugs. Any volunteers for a test ride on a "beta" Dreamliner?

Our primary election endorsements continue Thursday with our two choices in the six-way race for Federal Way Municipal Court. Five candidates are challenging the embattled incumbent, Judge Michael Morgan.

We also endorse in the Port of Tacoma race in which two candidates are challenging incumbent commission member Connie Bacon.

Both editorials will be posted here by 8 tonight.

To read earlier election endorsements, click here.