McKay's mortal sin: honesty

I think I know why John McKay was fired.

It wasn't because Western Washington's ousted U.S. attorney did a bad job, as the Bush administration has claimed. It wasn't because he's a closet Democrat. And it wasn't because he's too liberal. (If you think that, he'll be happy to regale you with the many virtues of the USA Patriot Act.)

No, McKay, a lifelong Republican, got canned because he's a burr in the butt of politics as usual. He's always been so — a stickler who relishes telling it as he sees it, no matter if it's to his bosses, who least want to hear.

In e-mails released last week, they dubbed him insubordinate, a troublemaker. That's what they call you in Washington, D.C., when you care more about a principle or two than you do the game.

McKay got this way as a kid growing up on Capitol Hill. His parents would lead him and his 11(!) brothers and sisters through Socratic dinner debates, calling on them to hash out the issues of the day.

This isn't the first time the "McKay Way" has gotten him in trouble. In the '90s, he headed the Legal Services Corp., a nonprofit agency formed by Congress to give civil legal help to people who can't afford it. People such as evicted tenants, women beaten by husbands, seniors denied Social Security.

Republicans wanted to cancel legal aid. They saw it as taxpayer-funded liberal advocacy.

I was a reporter at the Capitol. I kept hearing about this Republican from Seattle who was crusading for aid to the poor. What was fascinating — and what seemed to most inflame some Republicans — is that a guy from their party was using GOP talking points against them. He would insist it was bedrock conservative philosophy that the justice system be open to everyone.

It was good theater. At one meeting, a congressional staffer got personal: "How can you call yourself a Republican?"

McKay retorted: "You better get over this ridiculous idea that helping poor people makes you a liberal softy."

Flash forward to today's prosecutor-purge debacle. Some Republicans again were angry at McKay. Again it's because he wouldn't be a cog in the party machine — because he refused, as U.S. attorney, to launch a criminal probe of the 2004 governor's election.

"I was aware I was receiving criticism for not proceeding with a criminal investigation," McKay told Congress this month. "And, frankly, it didn't matter to me what people thought. We work on evidence, and there was no evidence of voter fraud or election fraud. And, therefore, we took nothing to the grand jury."

It didn't matter to me what people thought. The people he's talking about are his fellow Republicans. That attitude right there is why he was fired.

He wouldn't go along to get along. So he's been told to move along.

I bet there's nothing illegal about his firing. The president had the right to do it.

But it's often said about the nation's capital: What's truly scandalous there isn't what's illegal. It's the everyday.

Like another straight shooter being drummed out of government. Just for shooting too straight.

Or as they call it inside the Beltway: being disloyal.

Reach Danny Westneat at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.

Information in this article, originally published March 25, 2007 was corrected March 27, 2007. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that John McKay grew up on Queen Anne. He grew up on Capitol Hill.