Mostly for financial self-interest?

Josh Feit collects his several blog posts into one Stranger article that administers a smack-down of the Seattle Times Editorial Board for their bad--really bad--endorsement of Millionaire Mike!™ McGavick.

Read it, and just try to tell me it doesn't raise your blood pressure. Mike! comes down on the wrong side of almost every issue that the Editorial Board had previously written about:

So, the question remains: What does the Seattle Times like about McGavick? In fact, I challenge the Seattle Times to add up the issues on which it agrees with McGavick (based on its editorial, I count two: storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and repealing the federal estate tax) and measure them against issues on which it disagrees with McGavick (I count eight: the detainees bill, gay marriage, ANWR, gun control, net neutrality and media consolidation, teaching intelligent design in public schools, the war in Iraq, and Social Security).

Furthermore, the Times agreed with, and even praised, Maria for her positions on important issues like media consolidation and net neutrality.

So what the heck is going on here?

How about greed? McGavick supports Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen's pet cause: repealing the federal estate tax, which would affect just about 0.2 percent of Americans. Fourteen Washington families with estates valued at $10 million or above would benefit. The Blethens own 50.5 percent of the Seattle Times, estimated to be worth $900 million.
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Given the Seattle Times' record of coming out against virtually all McGavick's signature issues, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the edit board abandoned its convictions for the financial self-interest of its publisher's family.

You know, I am open to alternative explanations, and some part of me really wants to believe that Frank Blethen would have the integrity to put himself above the level of greed suggested by Josh's analysis. But the evidence is pretty damn overwhelming!