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.
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.
posted by platon at 3:32 PM
5 Comments:
Aside from all of absolute garbage hyping the Iraqi constitution, there is another part of the piece that struck me like a 2x4 to the head
He blithely follows this:
...but not the other countless moms who support what their sons died fighting for in Iraq?
with:
(After all, didn't NPR report another bombing or slug of U.S. casualties there?)
Way to trivialize the mom's sacrifice's that you champion you pinhead.
THE biggest story is the president could conceivably be indicted for treason of war crimes, surely he is more than guilty. And Reinhard slobbers in a prozac stupor how "good" how "really great" it's going, it's "hard work" and it's "going good"
Not the vapid stupidity of what he writes, it is what he writes about, and when he writes it, that shows his pattern of plagiarizing the talking points his amoral warmakers use, lockstep like a nazi.
Don't think his hurtful slap of falsehoods is his own idea, and you can argue him out of it.
Don't think his editors miss his shame on them, and you can moralize them to fire him.
Reinhard is as much a stooge for anti-American supremacists hiding from view, as Judy Miller has been. In both cases see their junk journalism is entirely condoned by, and speaking for the paper's publisher.
If you would remove Reinhard, indict his publisher who is cause for his offenses.
- Here - is a report of another dope-editorial columnist who wrote the same column Reinhard copied the same day. In Philadelphia, his diocese of origin.
October 20, 2005
The "Stinky Inky," Part 2
By Walter C. Uhler
Were one to read Davis Merritt's recent book, Knightfall: Knight Ridder and How the Erosion of Newspaper Journalism is Putting Democracy at Risk, he or she would realize that the reasons for The Philadelphia Inquirer's deterioration extend far beyond the irredeemable right-wing slop that so often besmirches its Commentary page.
Merritt's insights take on added significance, given the recently announced editorial staff reductions that have shaken the Inky. But they must await my future evaluation, because the Inky's stinky Commentary page of October 20, 2005 demands an immediate response. Stinky? Yes, simply consider its outrageously uniformed and insipid right-wing essays by Kathleen Parker and Jonah Goldberg . . .
First, a cheerleading Ms. Parker asked why no newspaper headlines read: "Iraqi democracy takes bow to standing ovation, global applause." After all, "What matters is, they voted. They went to the polls and practiced democracy."
...would have you share her scorn for the media's unjustified, "glass-half-empty" emphasis on Iraq's voting irregularities.
But, such observations entirely miss the point, which is: "Why would The Philadelphia Inquirer publish such frivolous right-wing crap?" The mind boggles when contemplating the contempt with which its editors must hold its readers!
It is going to be oh so fun reading and reacting to Reinhard over the next few months.
Oh, you had best believe....
it will be fun. Stay tuned.
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