The Wandering Eye

The Eye offers sincere apologies for being so late to pick up on this, but right-wing columnist David Reinhard has left The Oregonian.

Oregon Democrats and Republicans are dividing along classic ideological lines in response to the state's calamitous predicted budget shortfall.

 
Mike Dugan has been mentioned as a likely choice for US Attorney for Oregon, but it seems the Deschutes County District Attorney isn't too interested in the job.

 
The Eye will never be able to understand why anybody would want the job, but 15 people have applied for the late Bill Friedman's seat on the Bend City Council.
 

Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber says he'd be interested in a Cabinet post in the Obama administration, but so far the Obama transition team hasn't contacted him about one, at least publicly.
The Associated Press reported last week that Kitzhaber "has been mentioned as a possible secretary for either of two departments: Health and Human Services or Interior."
Kitzhaber, an avid fisherman and a former emergency room physician, has an intense interest in both the environment and health care reform. Putting together an Oregon salmon recovery plan and expanding the Oregon Health Plan were two of his biggest achievements in the Legislature and as governor, and he has continued to push for national health care reform through his Archimedes Project.
Kitzhaber told The AP he hasn't been contacted by Obama's transition team but would be open to taking either job if it was offered.

Lovers of Bend's Badlands Wilderness who have been waiting for years to see it designated as a federally protected wilderness area will have to wait a little longer: Congress won't be able to get around to it during the current lame-duck session.

Lovers of Bend's Badlands Wilderness who have been waiting for years to see it designated as a federally protected wilderness area will have to wait a little longer: Congress won't be able to get around to it during the current lame-duck session.

We may never know whether Oregon's new senator-elect voted for or against letting renegade Sen. Joe Lieberman keep his key committee chairmanship. But Merkley's office made it clear to Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein that Merkley wasn't happy about it.

Wandering around downtown Bend the other day, The Eye dropped in at a local business we have been patronizing for the past five years or so and asked whether the local real estate bust and the national Great George W. Bush Depression were affecting business.

The tanking commercial real estate market in Bend has caught the attention of Calculated Risk, one of the world's most prominent finance and economics blogs.