The Democratic Party wants GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi to denounce the Building Industry Association Washington because of BIAW's latest diatribe against Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire and her administration.

Something about columnist Mark Musser and what he said in the March Issue of Building Insight, the BIAW newsletter. He compared the state Department of Ecology to Hitler's Nazi Party.

(By the way, as I was writing this, Rossi walked into my office. He's making the rounds at the press houses in Olympia. So I showed him what I was writing. "Who's Mark Musser? Never met him," Rossi said.)

Anyway, in its January edition the BIAW said the governor was “a heartless, power-hungry she-wolf who would eat her own young.” But it's only now that the Democratic Party is taking offense at that characterization of their governor.

Something tells me the "she-wolf" part wouldn't really bother the governor. The "heartless" and "power-hungry" and "eat her young" probably would, though.

What the Gregoire camp really needs is more colorful support from its own bunches of acronynms. You know, the WEA, the SEIU and AFL-CIO.

It would make for better theater.

Here's the official condemnation of the BIAW:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kelly Steele
Rossi Should Reject and Denounce the BIAW

Ultra-conservative, right-wing group that has built Rossi’s political career from the ground up has crossed the line

SEATTLE – Republican Dino Rossi should immediately reject and denounce the hateful, extremist rhetoric being used by the ultra-conservative, right-wing Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW). Rossi’s top backers opened 2008 with class, labeling Gov. Gregoire “a heartless, power-hungry she-wolf who would eat her own young,” in a column in their January Building Insight newsletter.

But in the BIAW’s most recent March newsletter hate-mail, BIAW “Stormwater Field Representative” Mark Musser kicked it up a notch – reiterating and defending a recent comparison of the state Department of Ecology and environmental leaders to Hitler and Nazi Germany.

[More:]

“Knowing my parallel would illicit screams of protest—how politically incorrect of me to mention Hitler and Nazis in the same breath as DOE or the environmental lobby—I explored the actual connection between environmental extremism and Hitler’s Nazi party.” [Page Eight]
Also in the March edition, organization President Brad Spears baselessly asserted that mainstream environmental leaders supported the recent arson carried out on the 2007 Street of Dreams homes outside of Woodinville.

"The older folks in the mainstream enviro groups silently applaud this new and novel approach: If you build it, we will burn it. It's the next natural step in the environmental movement." [Page Two]

“Republican Dino Rossi’s ultra-conservative, right-wing backers have crossed the line, and Rossi has a responsibility to publicly reject and put an end to these attacks,” said Washington State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz. “These tactics have no place in our politics, and Rossi should immediately reject and denounce them, refuse the BIAW’s endorsement and sever his financial ties to the organization and its members.”