On Wednesday, Democratic congressman Brian Baird, who is currently in his sixth term representing Washington’s Third District, announced that he would not seek re-election in 2010.

It was a move that immediately kicked off a flurry of speculation, specifically because his statement regarding his retirement offered no explanation, express or implied, as to why he would not be seeking re-election, noting simply that:

“The time has now come to pursue other options, other ways of serving. Hence, I am announcing today that I do not intend to seek reelection to Congress in 2010. This is not an easy decision to be sure, but I believe it is the right decision at the right time.”

Baird later clarified that his reasons for retiring were entirely personal. Speaking to the AP’s Matthew Daly, he said “I find it is increasingly difficult to spend the time I need with my family and at the same time do the job that needs to be done," and indicated that his decision was not motivated by the prospects of a potentially tough 2010 re-election. Per the AP, Baird said "I am quite confident I would win re-election," while underlining that he’d been in the business of running for Congress for 14 years, beginning in 1995. He most recently won re-election with 64 percent of the vote. Baird, who is the father of young twins, reiterated that "This is right time for my family, and I will find a new way to serve the country in the future."...

Here's a shocking piece of news for you, out of the Evergreen State. Gov. Chris Gregoire, she of the magical 33% approval rating, appears dead set on sending the same plummeting through the floor, to less-popular-than-Dick-Cheney type levels. How so, you ask?

Well, today, she's basically announced that she's going to be seeking... wait for it... a big, fat tax hike!

See, Washington under Gregoire's leadership has gone from a pretty sound fiscal situation under Gary Locke (you know, a real centrist Democrat on fiscal issues) to having a big $2.6 billion shorfall under Gregoire. Now, to be fair, this isn't all her fault-- whenever the economy slides, revenues are going to slide, too. The problem is that Gregoire, previously in her time as Governor, decided to go on a spending spree, throwing caution to the wind and, well, look what happened. Yup. She's got a big hole to fill, and it looks like she's going to try to get ahold of more money than taxpayers can't really afford to part ways with in the current economic climate. And she's going to attempt to drum up support for her tax increase with the budget she released today ("Budget Part I: The Horrifically Scary Budget from Hell") which contains a boatload of painful spending cuts (and I mean that genuinely) and which she has been forced to put forward because as the Seattle Times reminds us, "the governor is required by law to draft a budget that is balanced using existing revenue."

What does today's budget cut? Per the Times:...

Via Marc Ambinder, it seems that there's a little poking-fun email circulating among White House staffers focused on Politico's shortcomings as a publication. It doesn't sound to me like there's a full-on war being waged by the White House Comms staff against it, just a bit of innocent teasing, but still, there's obviously some disgruntlement or at least bemusement, including apparently about the fact that Politico might be "more obsessed with personality than policy." 

Look, every publication, including this blog (and Marc's and Ben Smith's and anyone's else's or indeed the site or publication that hosts any such commentary), is bound to have some deficiencies.  About all I can say about this is that I'm exceedingly glad that the White House press folks have figured out, 11 months into a presidency and in many cases after a couple of years of campaigning for it, that this isn't, you know, this.  That should be a helpful insight for them to have as they proceed with undertaking media relations on behalf of the President of the United States over the remaining three years of this term. [intro]