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Thursday, April 6, 2006

Much Ado About Law School

Posted by on April 6 at 12:55 PM

There’s an intense blog-spat going on today between SoundPolitics and Horsesass over the academic history of eastside Democrat Darcy Burner.

As a highly interested observer, I’d say David Goldstein at Horsesass has done a pretty good job of smacking down the hyperventilating Stefan Shrakansky over at SoundPolitics. But now it looks like I’m being drawn into this fight, all because of one sentence in this profile of Burner that I wrote for The Stranger.

From: Stefan Sharkansky

Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:13:37 -0700

To: Eli Sanders

Subject: just curious


Eli,

I know you’re a huge Darcy Burner fan, but I’m curious. In your “FIGHTING MOOD” article last month you wrote:

18 months ago, she decided it was time to pursue her interest in politics and retired from Microsoft in order to focus on a run for Congress.

Did she tell you that she was going to UW Law School?

cheers
Stefan

I fail to understand why Burner’s law school attendance is a big deal, other than the fact that her alleged failure to finish law school before running for Congress (if it’s in fact true) could be rolled into the current Republican attack-meme that casts Burner as a lightweight.

Sharkansky is suggesting that Burner intentionally hid her law school years from me and others, but the truth, Stefan, is that law school never came up when I was talking to Burner and her campaign staff for my story.

Why did it never come up? If you think Burner’s alleged law school experience would be something for a person to be ashamed of, I can see how you would come up with a storyline that has her hiding this experience from the public. But in reality, there’s no shortage of successful politicians with unusual academic records (see, for example, Greg Nickels, who dropped out of college to pursue politics, or our current president, for that matter). And because of this, I doubt Burner’s been keeping her law school records in a campaign file marked TOP SECRET, dreading the day when someone like Sharkansky would begin looking into this part of her past.

It seems more likely to me that law school never came up because Burner (whose resume already includes Harvard and Microsoft) didn’t want to do exactly what Sharkansky accuses her of doing in another context: inflate her resume.

Smart, talented, accomplished people don’t brag about things they haven’t yet finished, Stefan. That’s not evidence of a cover-up. It’s evidence of confidence in one’s other accomplishments, and plain old social skills.

But I’ve sent an email to Burner’s campaign requesting clarification on all of this, and will let you know when I get an answer.


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Okay Eli,

I am sure there are plenty of Stranger readers who are microsoft employees who can clarify that a program manager is not an Executive at Microsoft.

As Darcy has fraudlulently inflated this part of her resume, why don't you discuss exectly what an executive at Microsoft is defined as... or does that contradict the blind support you are throwing towards Darcy?

Eli...

"It seems more likely to me that law school never came up because Burner (whose resume already includes Harvard and Microsoft)"

It never came up? Wow, throwing those softball lobs again? Are you sure your not Jeff Gannon under a new pseudonym?

I think the problem, Eli, is that you made her hiatus out to be one thing, when it was really something completely different.

It's another case of you and her handlers putting words into her mouth, and this is a case where the words you spoke on her behalf were completely untrue. Shark is, ironically in this case, a horse's ass, but he's got a point here: this sort of shit damages campaigns.

If she keeps letting everyone else do the talking for her, those talking heads may do more damage to her campaign than they'll help her.

I don’t think the word “executive” is misleading as she’s used it, and I’m not a blind supporter of Burner’s. If you read the bio info on her website, it describes her position as a “lead manager for an initiative to change the way software is built.” If anything, Burner’s using a generic word that she thinks would be generally recognizable to the average voter. That’s not resume inflation. If she had called herself VP of Whatever, and wasn’t VP of Whatever, then we’d have resume inflation.

I always took it to mean that she was in some sort of management level position.

Granted, Eli did take the step to link to this whole debate, but…I just don’t think this is a big deal at all. The fact is that dems are frustrated with Reichert’s performance and voting record, and given the expected profile of this year’s election, it’s not surprising that their leading candidate is getting some hype. Reichert supporters know that it’s a bad press month (quarter?) for Republicans and are grasping at straws to distract the conversation.

I'm a Microsoftie, and have been taking note of the press references to her as a "former Microsoft executive" for the past few months with growing unease, hoping they weren't coming from her campaign bio (they apparently were - the bio on her web site refers to her this way). The highest-ranking title I've heard attributed to her time at Microsoft is "group program manager" - which is not an executive-level position. To my knowledge, the company considers only director-level titles and above (director and senior director, general manager, corporate VP, and senior VP) to be "executive" posts. A group program manager most often reports to a product unit manager, who in turn reports to either a director or a general manager. Make no mistake - rising to the level of group program manager here is usually a significant career accomplishment, and would often qualify the individual in question for a VP-level job at many other smaller companies in the industry. So if she is mischaracterizing her role here or describing it in terms that are too simplistic so that people understand she had real responsibilities, it's really unnecessary that she do so. She can be proud of the level she did rise to.

And we, the general public, should be *excited* about any of this?

Oh my GOD, people! On the day we find out Libby claims his orders to leak Plame was CIA came from the PRESIDENT we are debating whether or not a wannabe congressional candidate was an executive or senior manager at microsoft? While the dems are constantly defending themselves for cutting the tags off their pillows the Republicans are getting away with bloody murder all over the place! Don't let Sharkansky and the other ditto heads get away with it! This is our day, let's blow those fuckers out of the water for once, ONCE!!! stop taking the bait.

Maybe Burner was thinking that putting all that confusing junk about what the precise delineation between "executive" and "group manager" is in the Microsoft world into her campaign bio was ugly and stupid, and went with the common English word "executive", which accurately describes what she did there. What Microsoft calls it internally is boring and irrelevant. Small-e executive is the right word.

Nice try Fnarf...

This is akin to an intern or production assistant leaving The Stranger and applying for another publishing job.

On their resume, they list their past experience as a production manger, art director, music editor, etc....

Bottom line, in the real world, this would be grounds for termination.

someguy -if you want to be taken seriously, you should learn the difference between "your" and "you're". Sorry, big pet peeve of mine.

Someguy -- no, it's not like that at all. "art director" and "intern" are completely different things. "Group manager" and "executive" are the same thing, in the real world. Not at Microsoft, but who cares what Microsoft calls things? If you think Burner was the equivalent of an intern at Microsoft, your understanding of the issue isn't any better than your understanding of English.

Why is it that every sentence that starts "Bottom line", with a comma, always finishes with a load of bullcrap?

some guy = some fool

"Why is it that every sentence that starts "Bottom line", with a comma, always finishes with a load of bullcrap?"

For the same reason that every post ending with, posted by FNARF is going to be absolute childish blather.

A Group Manager and an Executive are not even remotely on the same level.

BTW, if you are going to quote me, do it correctly, I said an intern or a production assistant...

What's with the Capital Letters All Of A Sudden? You're just wrong; you don't know what the words mean. And I did quote you correctly; you used the word "intern", and I quoted you. That's what the little " marks mean. Do you not know what the word "quote" means, either?

Go away, little man.

Who cares if she claims to have been Bill Gates' personal fluffer! Any swing voter conviced that this is some reason not to vote for her is obviosuly just as clueless and deluded as Some Guy and was probably going to vote red anyway. This is the WHO CARES news item of the day and we are swallowing the bait hook line and sinker. Some Guy, Sharkansky and all the other douchetards should be spending this day desperately trying to come up with excuses why THEIR president is outing CIA agents and getting away with it.

The actual issue here is that Darcy Burner said she left Microsoft to pursue politics whereas she actually left to attend law school, which in itself is not a direct pursuit of politics, last I checked. It was a dishonest statement, and the backpedaling statement sent to Eli today was just as dishonest. If what they told Eli was the truth, then why not just say so? Why hide that? Is it really bragging if it's the truth? As it stands, she just looks like another lying politician who changes her story to suit her needs.

This doesn't sit as well with voters as you may think.

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