Drinks and Conversation, a Little Drive, a Profane, Drunken Tirade Four Hours Later...

We failed to notice yesterday, among all the hubub over Councilman Richard McIver's arrest on domestic violence charges, a post from Seattle Weekly political reporter Aimee Curl. McIver remains in jail and has claimed he'll be pleading "not guilty" to the charges. Columnist Robert Jamieson Jr. is taking him to task in today's P-I stating, "For his sake, that stance had better just be a legal formality before coming clean -- or a typo. Otherwise, his career is toast." Declaring any careers toast might be a bit premature, but it's clear the situation isn't good for either McIver right now. His wife is recanting, to some extent, but the initial impression that he allegedly "repeatedly grabbed his wife by the throat and arm during a profane, drunken tirade in their South Seattle home early Wednesday," seems to be sticking.

Previous to the "profane, drunken tirade," according to Curl's blog post yesterday, McIver was having drinks with her and discussing various stories related to the City Council, after which he drove her home.

We met at the College Club around 5:30 p.m. to catch up on a few things related to stories I'm researching. We had a couple drinks, chatted about policy issues, wrangling over the budget, the upcoming election. After we'd covered all-things Seattle, we talked about our experiences in Washington D.C. (I moved back to Seattle from D.C. to take this job in February.) McIver was there in the late 1970's, early 1980's working for the National League of Cities. He spoke glowingly of his wife of 33 years, Marlaina Kiner-McIver, a graduate of Howard University Law School who moved them to the nation's capitol so she could take a post with the Carter Administration as a lawyer for the Housing and Urban Development Department.

McIver offered to drive me home and seemed in good spirits when he dropped me off on Capitol Hill around 7:45 p.m.