Punditry can be a demanding avocation. Today, for instance, I tried to pen something about Glenn Beck, Wisconsin, the Koch Brothers, and the infinite capacity of American’s to be deluded into voting for their own oppressors, but it just didn’t come together. All that work, and nothing to show. The article will remain forever embedded on my ISP’s server as a humble draft, never to glow on anyone’s screen but my own.
So, instead of inflicting a piece of crap on the world, I’m going to make fun of someone else’s piece of crap. Today’s Day contains an op-ed piece by one Michael A. Pace, a six term first selectman from Old Saybrook, CT., who uses up a goodly amount of choice Day real estate to defend himself from unspecified attacks from unidentified persons with an incomprehensible apologia. I read the whole thing and I can’t figure out what he’s talking about. Don’t take my word for it. Read it for yourself. If you can figure it out you’re a smarter person than me.1
But his screed is not merely content free. In the process of saying nothing, Mr. Pace brutally attacks the English language and leaves it for dead. I don’t use a grammar checker myself, but I heartily recommend that Mr. Pace try using one. Consider the following attempted sentence, picked more or less at random:
Scratch the surface and you may find those who stay out of public view, but who sponsor and contribute to bad behavior, for they have personal and political gains at stake.
Or this one, which qualifies as a real sentence, but doesn’t really say what I think Mr. Pace intends:
Well, the reality is that my administration has resolved issues that had long gone unresolved, dividing the town and costing it huge sums of money.
Personally, I can see why his opponents are complaining, if he has resolved issues by dividing the town and costing it huge sums of money.
Now, I confess, when I read this column I experienced a strange ambivalence. My first reaction was: “I hope he’s a Republican”. But I immediately checked myself. That would be an unkind thing to wish on the good people of Old Saybrook: 12 years of administration by a Republican idiot. Democratic idiots may not be great, but they’re marginally better than their Republican peers.
On reflection, though, I ended up rooting for him to have an “R” next to his name. That way, I wouldn’t have to even consider giving him a pass. Besides, I don’t live in Old Saybrook, and if they continue to elect this guy they deserve what they get. So, I resorted to the Google (the Day did not specify his party affiliation) and I found that he does indeed reside in the party of Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin, the natural home of the proudly ignorant.
I would be extremely interested to know why the Day printed this unintelligible crime against language. Were they lending him some rope to hang himself, or are there levels of meaning there that I can’t see?
- Let it be known that, not wanting to commit a grammatical faux pas, particularly in a piece such as this, I consulted the Google to settle the burning question of whether I should use the word “I” or the word “me” at the end of the footnoted sentence., only to find that the subject is one that is heatedly disputed. After much consideration, reading and cogitating, I decided that “me” had better support, and anyway, it sounds better.?
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