Still counting. Christine Gregoire and Paul Berendt were so busy pouting about Dino Rossi’s publicity grab this week that they missed a chance to exploit it.

Democrat Gregoire and Republican Rossi are fused in a dead-heat ballot count for governor of Washington. While waiting for the official results to be known, both need to be making plans for taking office in a couple of months.

In fact, both are doing just that. But when Rossi went public about it Tuesday, naming his transition team at a press conference, Gregoire and state Democratic Chairman Berendt criticized the move. “Presumptuous,” said Berendt.

If they’d been alert, however, Gregoire and Berendt might have pointed out that Rossi campaigned on a platform of bringing change to Olympia by ousting career government mentalities – yet five of his six transition staff choices have served on the staffs of one or more members of Congress, two have served multiple terms in the Legislature and one has worked for at least four state and local agencies.

Maybe a week’s inactivity has left the campaigners a bit off their game.

PC doesn’t stand for personal computer. When women and members of minority groups complain about being portrayed with unfavorable stereotypes in movies, TV shows and advertising, the standard response from some quarters is: “Political correctness run amok!”

Now Internet provider Verizon is under fire for a DSL ad that depicts a technologically inept father being shown up by his teenage daughter’s computer skills. Joe Kelly, executive director of an advocacy group called Dads and Daughters, calls the ad “outrageous” and wants it halted.

Kelly claims that the spoof reinforces “deeply entrenched cultural attitudes – that fathers are second-class parents.”

But we wonder, is he trying to dispute the doltish image or confirm it?