The Thesis Problem

In an attempt to conquer his ongoing thesis issue, Reinhard asked a question at the outset of his article on Thursday. I will quote:

"What accounts for Rosa Parks' special place in American history? The sheer magnitude of what this seamstress precipitated by refusing to move to the back of a Montgomery bus -- a 381-day bus boycott organized by a little-known Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, a Supreme Court victory that struck down second-class status on the public bus system and, ultimately, the rebirth of a region and nation enslaved by Jim Crow? Of course."

Of course, I was not the only one who had to read that sentence twice to understand what Reinhard grammatically meant.

The dash makes the reader think that the question has been answered, and reinhard is breaking into another thought. We should know better by now.

Reinhard and his clunky grammar. It is one way to make yourself stick out on the editorial page--but not the best one.

Cut and paste, cut and paste...

Reinhard's latest piece of crap is three short mini-editorials that really have nothing to do with one another. Apparently, as Reinhard was cut and pasting from the latest RNC memo, he couldn't find enough filler to string them together into one column.

Article 1
My favorite part was when he described the "taxpayer-paid politicos law." It is reminiscent of his use of "en passant" the other day. Unfortunately this use is not contradictory, but it is incorrect. Most normal people (who understand English grammar, which would qualify them to work in the newspaper business) would have said "taxpayer-paid politician law" or "political law."

Not Reinhard. In order to make up for his 7th-grade comprehension of the English language (why fund public schools anyway?) he likes to throw in big sounding words and use them incorrectly.

"Politicos" is a plural noun for politician. The closest approxamation to what Reinhard said was "the taxpayer-paid politicians law."

The object of "taxpayer-paid" is "law," while the noun describes what kind of law it is. "Political" is a good adjective to use to describe the noun "law," while "politician" would be an adjectival use of a noun. But plurals cannot generally be used as adjectives, and especially not here.

Article 2
Using SAD as a cutesy acronym could have merit in an editorial, but it is a SEASONALLY affected disorder, implying it comes around yearly. None of the issues Reinhard tritely terms "SAD" to conservatives (Meirs' nomination, gas prices, Katrina) happen yearly, and his metaphor becomes useless and pointless. I would advise Reinhard to leave off the metaphors and stick to similes, but he wouldn't understand the grammatical terms.

Article 3
I am genuinely confused by the inclusion of the "stirring" announcement that a Catholic high school was closing its prom. I can only assume that since his article was title "Conservatives, Campaigns, and common sense" that this must be the common sense part--but he devotes less than 150 words to the subject, giving him enough time to describe the situation and praise it, but he does not bother to justify it or argue for it in any way.

This goes back to Reinhard's problem with a thesis statement. Editorials are read because the author states a premise, brings up all sorts of facts or quotes, and then uses them to defend the thesis that they have stated. This is why these are called opinion pieces.

The rest of the Opinion section is full of writers who can craft arguments to defend positions they have stated; Reinhard sticks out as the least talented writer on the staff. He is not capable of what is demanded of high school English students.

He does not state an opinion in this article. He does not craft an argument. At best, he collects dittoes from the Conservative Movement. You could get as much from flipping past Fox News a few times every day.

People don't read the newspaper to relive the joy of flipping through channels they dont want to watch. They read the newspaper (and, more importantly, the editorial section) to examine issues and to observe debate. Reinhard has no skills in this arena, and I can offer no more eloquent proof than the editorial printed under his name today.

En Passant indeed

Reinhard's newest polemic rant is about the inadequacy of positive coverage in Iraq. This could not be because there is a distinct lack of positive events, Reinhard claims. "Why are our successes there given the silent treatment?" he bemoans in Thrusday's Oregonian, which featured the Trial of Saddam Hussein on the front page.

Silent treatment, indeed.

This is classic Republican hyperbole: claim that what all the ditto-heads are repeating is getting no coverage, and shame the media outlets into letting them repeat themselves ad nauseum. Unfortunately, this tactic works.

Rather than deconstruct every point in his article, as I am usually wont to do, I will merely question the most glaring, obvious linguistic cock-up in the article.

"Something more than a stingy en passant acknowledgement would seem in order."

What?

This obscure chess move, which relates to a pawn being allowed the opportunity to pass an opponent when it is on the 5th rank, but risk capture on a square that it skipped, is not known to many. Knowing the phrase myself, I can see it as an abuse of both the English and the French languages, and a perversion of the greatest game of logic as well. How fitting that Reinhard should choose to screw all three.

En passant is not used by the passing pawn that looks backwards to the invisible square. It is by the pawn that wishes to go diagonally forward into the invisible place that his opponent has jumped over. Reinhard is intending it to mean a backward-looking, retrospective glance. But that is not the character of the move or of the phrase. By misusing it for his intended purpose, he has done another one of his ironic blunders, accidentally landing his metaphor squarely where he is, rather than where he claims to be.

"Something more than a stingy en passant acknowledgement would seem in order."

Something more than an acknowledgement of a point that nobody is currently on, while you jump onto that unused square and rant and rave about it. Yes, that was your column today, Reinhard. En passant indeed.

Reinhard is a Greedy Bastard

We all knew that Reinhard was a greedy, selfish Republican. The extent to which his greed could overtake his sense of common decency, however, was not seen until Sunday's article.

He completely ignores the purpose of the Portland City campaign finance law. He does not mention the new ability of people to run for office regardless of their financial prospects. He only proposes wasting city money because, well, he can.

Simply because there is a loophole in the system that would allow someone to take advantage of it is not reason enough to take advantage of it. Reinhard does not propose running for city council in order to try and win, but only to be a drain on the city's finances.

Way to go, fiscal conservative.

Ignorance
Reinhard ignores some basic facts about the campaign finance program:

1- The law is meant to help people of limited financial means to run, not rich and greedy bastards like Reinhard.

2- The law provides money for advertising, posters, commercials, and the like, the costs of which are too high for the poorer candidates to supply. Reinhard proposes using all of this money on doughnuts; presumably, he is not fat enough.

3- While mentioning the requirement for access to city funds (1000 people donating 5 bucks to your campaign) he does not propose doing this in his own campaign. Presumably, he understands that after his editorial this Sunday, nobody would give him money so that he could waste taxpayer funds.

By ignoring this last point, he tries to overlook the flaw in his argument: the law is constructed so that jackasses like Reinhard can't jump on the ballot just to waste money.

Faulty Thesis
Reinhard suprisingly used a thesis statement at the beginning of his article. Bravo, dittohead; the next step is to make a thesis and defend it.

The thesis is that in a left-leaning city, a right-wing zealot can use city money to run for office, even though he has no chance of winning.

He uses this thesis as proof of the program's futility, but does not address the main purpose of the program: to allow everyone to run, and put their ideas into the mainstream, regardless of clout or finances.

Isn't it a good thing that people who would otherwise not be listened to can get a forum for their ideas with this law? Any reasonable person would see this is an advantage of the program, but Reinhard uses it as the centerpiece reason why the program is flawed, without actually defending it.

Instead, he makes an assertion, and moves on to his poor attempt at satire.

Now, on to the quotes:

Moment of Candid Hypocrisy
"Suffice it to say, this is not an easy pot of free dough to pass up."

Just like a Republican. Milk the government for funds whenever you can, and then bitch and moan about having to pay taxes.

Unforgiveable Writing Flaw
"That's particularly the case for someone who thinks this money should go, instead, to vital -- and we're constantly told 'under-funded' -- government services. Or someone who believes, with Thomas Jefferson, that 'to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinion which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.'"

This sentence pair leads one to believe that the money should instead go to Thomas Jefferson. Still having trouble with that subject-object pairing, Reinhard?

Surprising Moment of Truth
"My fellow Portlanders, I am that man, and it would be sinful and tyrannical to compel our city's lefties to fund the propagation of my right-wingery."

I completely agree. It is sinful and tyrranical that in order to get the city';s only daily newspaper, I have to fund the propagation of his right-wingery.

Fire this hack, editors of the Oregonian. Find a conservative with some actual writing skills to replace him.

Ditto, dittohead

Not feeling that his article last Thursday properly conveyed his complete lack of ability to prove a point, Reinhard has returned to the editorial pages of the Oregonian with another contradictory article.

The headline: "How doth thou disappoint me, Miss Miers?"

The opening paragraphs: a veritable thesaurus, a waste of space using dozens of adjectives for disappointment.

The body: Get over it, Conservatives. Bush made a good pick.

The conclusion: The Right is sounding as wimpy as the Left.

Got that?

Most editorials (at least professional ones, where newspapers pay people to print their opinions) involve a statement of position, and then arguments supporting that position. Many times, a headline is used to convey the position that will be argued. Reinhard's editorial does not bother with anything so trite; he rants on both sides of the issue, never taking the time to argue for either.

As I asked one week ago today, the last time he printed an article on harriet Meiers, how does Reinhard feel about her? This article seems to be another draft of his Thursday article, offering nothing new, and is just as flawed: it has no functional thesis, and does not bother attempting to craft or defend one. This guy is a joke.

Writing Flaw #1
Reinhard uses 9 synonyms for two words in the first paragraph, without any attempt to have repetition serve his point. It is merely a way to inflate his word count.

Writing Flaw #2
The third paragraph switches point of view 7 times. Is this a neutral article about what conservatives think? or is this about what Reinhard thinks? Comparing the two needs separate paragraphs. Situating them in alternating sentences is jarring and juvenile.
(Did you see that? Proper synonym usage. Both "Jarring" and "Juvenile" added to my point. Make note, Reinhard.)

Doublethink Attempt #1
Reinhard describes the "conservative commentariat" as "whining and narcissism. There's an unbecoming air of 'we know better' superiority and arrogance. There's the snarky snideness and condescension when it comes to Bush. And, finally, there's a failure to offer viable alternatives."

Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with Reinhard. This is what I see anytime I turn on Fox News, or read Reinhard's editorials. But he follows this up with, "It's all so very Air America."

This is nothing new. Conservatives have been whiny, narcissistic pricks since Reagan was inaugurated, and refusal to listen to viable alternatives is a hallmark of the Bush Administration.

Cataloguing well documented (but often ignored) Conservative flaws in order to chalk them up to the faults of Liberals is a bald-faced attempt at doublethink.

Doublethink Attempt #2
"One of conservatism's attractions has always been its adult acceptance of the world we find ourselves in rather than a juvenile insistence on the world of our fantasies."

Greedy bastards like Reinhard fantasize about a world where no one pays taxes, the rich keep all of their money, and they don't have to pay wages to the lower classes that they live off of. They have been fantasizing about this for decades.

Now that this sick fantasy is coming true, they are deriding anyone who wants "wages they can live on without starving" or "schools to educate their children" or "health care so they don't die" as liberal fantasists.

The truth is that conservatives are the fantasizers, and its attraction was never about taking the world as they found it. It is attractive to greedy, rich bastards because they want to keep as much of their own money as possible, humanity be damned.

Writing Flaw #3
"Sorry, but Bush has earned the right to want his pick to have a good shot at confirmation."

Another one of those sentences that has to be read a few times to understand, because Reinhard has difficulty in constructing "subject-object" pairs.

So, Bush has earned the right...to want something. He has not earned the right to have something, but he has earned...the desire. No one can begrudge him this desire; after all, he has earned it.

Conclusion
I will now bring all of my points together, and relate them to my thesis statement, visible at the beginning of this article. (Take note, Reinhard--basic article writing skills.)

Reinhard's laughable attempt at an editorial is a waste of space on the Oregonian's pages. They could have explored another issue, or the Meiers appointment from a new perspective. Reinhard merely offers another confusing ramble on two sides of the issue, without arguing any specific point.

Why does such an intellectually vibrant city as Portland have such an idiot on the pages of its newspaper?

juris PRUDE ence

What, exactly, is the problem Reinhard has with pornography?

In his Sunday article he does not explicitly deny his own use of pornography. The reader is left to assume, then, that he does view pornography on some limited level. (Watching cable and seeing the Rockstar billboard count as low-level pornography, don't they?) The level of ponogrpahy that Reinhard finds acceptable, and views on a daily basis, is left to the reader's imagination.

Yet he describes "live sex shows with masturbation and sexual intercourse" as "nauseating."

Logical Flaw #1
Because Reinhard finds an extreme form of pornogrpahy to be nauseating, it should be illegal, he concludes.

If someone wants to masturbate in front of someone else, that is not against the law. Voyeurs abound; people pay to enter the Ace of Hearts, a club where they can have sex in front of each other. These acts are not condemned by Reinhard's nausea.

It is only when someone pays someone else to engage in this viewer/viewee relationship that "nausea" has set in.

Reinhard's problem, then, is that someone is making money off of this relationship, not that the relationship exists. He never addresses this monetary linchpin to his nausea in his article.

Logical Flaw #2
Reinhard finds the length of the judicial opinion to be proof of the shaky ground it stands on.

The distance from the Bottle Bill "can be measured in the length of the majority opinion. It says something that it took 21 dense pages to show" the majority opinon, Reinhard writes.

Justice De Muniz's short dissent, Reinhard continues, is obviously more logically coherent, since it is shorter. Sound bites encompass the complexities of a case much better than long winded opinions, it seems.

Of course, this is coming from a man whose favorite argument consists of "You're wrong. I'm right. End of story." This logical flaw is not surprising in Reinhard, but is noteworhty because of its patent absurdity.

Logical Flaw #3
Reinhard says this judicial opinion is what people "do best if they lack restraint or common sense: reason their way into anything they want."

This coming from a dittohead? You're looking mighty black there, Mr. Kettle.

Logical Flaw #4
Reinhard proposes a constitutional amendment to ban live sex shows because "you need not be a Victorian-era Oregonian to understand that such conduct demeans viewer and viewed alike."

Now we must ban all activities that are demeaning? With a constitutional amendment?

That is the exact reason why the Oregon Supreme Court ruled the way it did. We cannot legislate morality. Anybody in power would then have the arbitrary authority to decide what is moral and immoral, and what is legal and illegal.

I find that Fox News "demeans both viewer and viewed alike." Does that mean there should be a constitutional amendment banning Fox News?

About Face, Dittoheads!

Reinhard has proved me wrong--in a very humorous way.

Instead of reacting how I predicted and ejecting glowing praise for Harriet Miers, Bush's latest Supreme Court Nominee, in his Thursday article Reinhard has obeyed the latest RNC marching orders to act disappointed in the pick.

But the rest of the article is filled with glowing praise about Miers' qualifications. What gives? Is she a good nominee, in Reinhard's view, or isn't she?

LOGICAL FLAW 1
He starts the article with his usual parroting of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and when he begins putting forth some actual arguments...they are all in favor of Miers.

"There is, for starters, the statement she made Monday," he says. He quotes her statement and follows it with, "Those words mean something," praising her perceived judicial ideology. Okay, are you happy about Miers or not, Reinhard?

LOGICAL FLAW 2
Reinhard cites "the fear conservatives have about the paper-trail-free Miers," which seems to be the point of his article. His headline was, after all, A DISAPPOINTING PICK. So she is a disappointing pick, right?

Wrong.

"A few things suggest those fears may be unfounded," he says, and then goes on to belittle the fears that are supposed to be the purpose of his article in the first place.

LOGICAL FLAW 3
Reinhard ends the article by quoting Leonard Leo, executive of the Federalist Society, and pointing to his praise of Miers as reason that conservatives should like Miers. Wasn't this article about...a disappointing pick? Could Reinhard, maybe, cite some reason she is disappointing?

Nope. "When Leo talks, conservatives should listen and cheer up a tad. Even in their legitimate disappointment."

So Reinhard has successfully accomplished two contradictory goals in this article: he has dutifully followed the RNC right-wing talking points, and he has blindly embraced Bush's pick for the Supreme Court.

Why does the Oregonian continue to employ someone who does not even understand the concept of a thesis statement?

Prediction: Another Fawning

I will laugh my ass off if Reinhard's next article is what I think it is.

Harriet Miers has been nominated to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Within the next few days Reinhard will surely appear on the big O's editorial pages, telling us what a qualified nominee Miers is, how great she would be as a judge, and how awful Democrats are for suggesting anything to the contrary of what Bush thinks.

Predictability is the finest hallmark of mediocrity.

Get a room, Reinhard

Reinhard's latest editorial is another dreamy bootlicking session of another court nominee named Roberts.

This time, instead of fawning over John Roberts, Reinhard is getting all gooey-eyed over Jack Roberts, a former Lane County Commissioner and potential Oregon Supreme Court justice. The biggest qualification, Reinhard says, is Roberts' holding of a partisan political office.

This, coming from the guy who said "President Bush makes clear he doesn't want them ("judicial activists") in the federal judiciary; he opposes judges who legislate from the bench." link

So on the state level, partisans are okay? While it may warm Reinhard's heart that Jack Owens gives lip service to "closing the door on (his) partisan political career," pardon me if I take note that Reinhard would react differently to these same words from a Democrat's mouth.

If Diane Linn was up for the job, and ejected the same statement from her mouth, Reinhard would be howling, "How can you just ignore your partisan tendencies? Her position on the court will herald judicial activism, gay marriage, and before you know it we'll be eating babies for high tea!"

Reinhard is willing to ignore this contradiction becuase the candidate in question is Republican, and conservative judicial activists are okay in his book. This must be why he has already determined "John Roberts proved such a good pick for the US Supreme Court" before Roberts has even sat to hear a single case.
How can he be sure of John Roberts' fitness for the job, giving him a passing grade before he has done anything in the job? Because whether Roberts performs with restraint, as he mentioned he probably would, or he becomes a zealous partisan, as is possible in Bush's top picks, either way benefits the conservative movement, and works for Reinhard's ideological goals.

This logical flaw pulls the rug out from the rest of Reinhard's argument, a pandering support of Jack Roberts. He says judicial activists are bad, but while both Roberts and Roberts have the siginificant capability to be judicial activists, it doesn't matter whether they will be or not; they still get a passing grade from Reinhard, because they will be activists for his team or they will be fair. Either way, the RNC wins.

Because this argument is so weak, he cannot fill an entire editorial with it, and has to spend a profligate amount of time bashing democrats. While this is certainly one of Reinhard's favorite pasttimes, why does he bother centering the article around a flawed argument supporting a Republican, when he could just unabashedly rant and yell about Democrats, and leave it at that?

"Oregon is crying out for fresh leadership," he says, and then he derides the Democrats for not supporting the current governor, and avidly looking at replacements. Oops.

"It's hard to imagine a more depressing commentary on this state's leadership deficit than a recent story in The Oregonian. A week ago Saturday, Harry Esteve reported that Democrats were sounding out former Gov. John Kitzhaber to run against Gov. Ted Kulongoski in next year's Democratic primary."

This is the depressing commentary? Kitzhaber is looking at running for governor again, to replace an ineffectual governor? A depressing story would be that no one was even looking at replacing the ineffectual governor. Reinhard is depressed because the Republicans can't find a decent candidate that appeals to Oregon voters.

Then he gets in the requiste cheap shot--"What's their plan if Kitzhaber passes -- a "Draft Neil Goldschmidt" movement?"

If an old Republican official was around to run, you can bet Reinhard wouldn't be poking fun. He would be pulling out another saliva-smeared editorial of praise, doing his local best to make Oregonians think that Republicans aren't selfish bastards that don't give a damn about them.

That's what gets me the most, I think, about Reinhard and his rhetoric. He is working on propaganda to make people he doesn't care about think that rich men really do care. If he can successfully fool enough people into believing his crap, then he can really take advantage of the dupes. Slash public school funding, health care, taxes, and every ounce of government he can, so that he can get even richer.

Republicans are just mean people who don't like to share; and you can tell by looking at their poorer rhetoricians, like Reinhard.