Vacuable

Among Twin Cities conservative pundits, I'm not among the City Pages' harshest critics. Oh, I've torn them the occasional new one, but I've also cut them some slack over the years; they have historically done a great job of reportorial blocking and tackling on the kinds of stories you just don't see in the dailies. There are some good writers still there.

Or the last time I read them there were. Hard to say, to be honest - I also very rarely read the CP any more.

Rambix is tired of giving breaks - and I can see why:

Back in the day, City Pages had some redeeming value. They reported stories the MSM wouldn't touch; many of which were very insightful, interesting, and just plain fun to read.

Those days are gone, as I noted in this post from 7/6/05. The weekly paper's crack reporting has morphed into propagandizing for liberal, socialist, and "alternative lifestyle" causes.

The City Pages of today also exhibits an unseemly envy of conservatives. No opportunity to demonize the right is lost. Having no positive values of their own to uphold, they try to fill their moral vacuum with hatred and bile directed at those with whom they disagree rather than challenge their opponents on substance. This is the modus operandi of the left.

The latest targets are big: Powerline and Governor Pawlenty.

The source - since the exit of Mark "Norwegianity" Gisleson from the paper's blog - is fairly predictable:

City Pages writer Mike Mosedale took the time to pick out a particular word which has appeared in Powerline a number of time: "execrable".

Yes, that's the point of the blog entry: To point out how many times the word "execrable" has been used by the boys at Powerline.

Rambix quotes a Blotter piece by Mosedale:

An execrable fetish at Powerline

The boys at Powerline have fallen in love with the adjective "execrable." They just can't stop, um, excreting the word. Maybe this is due to a garden variety case of pundit fatigue. Between their daily blog posts, regular cable TV appearances and ceaseless efforts to combat the sinister forces of liberalism (not to mention their day jobs as high powered attorneys), Minnesota's leading conservative bloggers certainly keep a very busy schedule. They probably don't have the time to pry open a thesaurus in search of a synonym. Or maybe their use of the term is simply symptomatic of being in a state of constant indignation--an affliction evident to even the most casual Powerline reader.

Rambix:

This is important stuff. Thanks, Mike. Can we expect a follow-up report on the frequency of use of the word "the"?

Oh, we can do better than that.

Perhaps a report on, say, "angry white" (42 occurrences)? Or "Angry White Guy"? (32 dings)? Or perhaps all 18 instances of "Whitebread"? (this last never actually referring to bread made from bleached wheat, by the way).

"Suburban" pops up 11,600 times in the CP - and not always in re the Suburban World theater.

By the way, Mr. Mosedale, I personally overuse the word "vacuous". And I'm about to do it again.

Posted by Mitch at April 22, 2006 05:19 PM | TrackBack