After years of challenging Jim McDermott, Joel Connelly’s calling for Seattle’s absent representative to step down. Perhaps the final straw for Connelly was McDermott’s recent loss in a years-long court battle against House Minority Leader John Boehner over leaking Republican triage strategy to the press. Connelly, in today’s column, lines out a lot of the same issues I analyzed earlier this fall– and makes an excellent point:McDermott’s “amen corner” will entertain no criticism of our quixotic man of principle in Congress. And Seattle needs re-education on potential benefits of having an effective liberal doing its business in Washington, D.C.I can attest to this given the amount of hate mail I received following the October feature. This is also why I’d be surprised if McDermott does in fact decide to leave office. He seems to have no shortage of vocal support from a constituency that’s long forgotten what it means to have true representation in Washington, he, by all accounts, is having a grand time being back in the majority, and he’s got a pile of legal bills to pay.