Ineffective Legislator Blames "Seattle's Elitist Attitude" for Spiking Arena Deal

There's one person left in Seattle who thinks Sonics owner Clay Bennett is on the up-and-up, and that's state legislator Margarita Prentice. It wasn't the fact that Bennett's ultimate goal was to take the Sonics to OKC that kept the team from getting an arena, according to her. No, it was "Seattle's elitist attitude."

Says Prentice:

I just think it's part of Seattle's elitist attitude that somehow or another we're too cool for sports.

Yes, if we weren't such anti-sports snobs we'd have three 60,000-seat football stadiums within five miles of each other instead of just the two.

Prentice was Bennett's main legislative shill for a proposal to build a Sonics arena in Renton--which, completely coincidentally, happens to be the city that Prentice represents.

The Renton "proposal" was, in my view, merely a bluff, with Prentice as the clueless supporter of a plan to try to scare Seattle into capitulating. You notice that Bennett's last appeal was to Nickels, not to the legislature.

Regardless, Prentice couldn't even get the proposal to a vote. It was a stunning failure for a long-time legislator who's chair of the powerful Ways & Means committee, which decides where money gets spent.

Sounds like Prentice is blaming society for her incompetence.

Is there elitism about sports in Seattle? Sure there is, from that cadre of progressives who've gotten such great results with their crusades against freeways, the Blue Angels, and Toby Keith. There's nothing elitist about recognizing when someone is bullshitting you.

Even your freeway-driving Blue Angels-lovers recognize that Clay Bennett needs a boot in the ass (it's the American Way). Why can't Prentice?