Wisdom from the Horse's Ass

David Goldstein, who blogs on Horse's Ass as Goldy, is a Philadelphia-born activist who stumbled into politics in 2003 with a satirical statewide initiative to proclaim Washington's serial anti-tax initiative sponsor, Tim Eyman, "a horse's ass." A year later, he transformed his campaign website into a snarky, satirical, surprisingly thoughtful political blog, arguably the most influential freestanding and widely read liberal blog in the state. It was Goldy who broke the story about former FEMA Director Mike Brown and his disastrous tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association; it was Goldy who relentlessly covered adulterated Chinese food imports. It's Goldy who spars regularly with arch-enemy Stefan Sharansky of the right-wing blog Sound Politics (on the right in the photo).

Now he's writing a column for the Stranger's blog, Slog. His first piece ran today; it's a fascinating look at the relationship between the City of Seattle and tiny Pend Oreille County, morphing into an argument in favor of public spending on infrastructure (which is what socialism is all about). The result is a healthy dose of liberal gravitas for a publicatoin sometimes accused of being caught up in peripheral, procedural issues and missing the bigger picture of progressive politics in Seattle.