Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-That's All, Folks!

Seattle Weekly finally (1) has a center-right thought and (2) musters the gumption to run with it - itself an indication of how big the "Red" wave is anticipated to be - and Christine Gregoire's Washington State Ferry system just HAS to play censor (via Newsmax Insider):

Taxpayer-supported Washington State Ferries, part of the Washington State Department of Transportation, customarily offers passengers copies of a free Seattle-area newspaper, the Seattle Weekly.

But WSF pulled from all its ferries an issue of the paper featuring a cover illustration that depicts longtime Democratic Senator Patty Murray in a “meat suit” — draped in cuts of pork and sausage links.

The article about Murray — who is in a tight race with Republican challenger Dino Rossi — is headlined “Patty Murray: The Naked Truth,” and focuses on the “pork” that the senator has brought to her home state.

It discloses that Murray has secured earmarks worth $219.5 million for 190 projects in the 2010 federal budget — the ninth-highest earmark dollar amount for any senator.

Rossi has referred to Murray as “Pork Patty” in campaign materials, according to the Seattle Weekly article.

After learning that the issue was pulled from the ferries, Chris Kornelis of Seattle Weekly contacted WSF spokeswoman Marta Coursey, who said:

“We removed it because of the photo of Patty Murray. We thought it was distasteful” and “denigrating to women. It was not in keeping with what we want our customers to have in view. I thought it forwarded a disrespectful attitude toward a public figure.”

Kornelis pointed out that last year Murray secured $7 million in Recovery Act funds for WSF, and asked Coursey, “Is this just WSF sticking up for Patty?”

Coursey said: “No. It’s just a matter of putting a woman in a meat suit is just not something that we would condone.”

Gentles, if that SW piece had been about Sarah Palin, they could have depicted her in a three-way with a moose and an otter on the front cover and the only action WSF would have taken would have been to order up extra copies of the issue to hand out to passengers as they drove onto the ferries. But heaven forfend that free speech should survive "a disrespecful attitude" toward a "longtime Democrat".

Frankly, I think the pic disrespected the meat more than it did the wearer. As though the latter doesn't already do plenty to disrespect herself. Something about which Sorry Charlie Crist has become a leading authority: