The Slate Irrelevantism Of The Day; Update: The Slate style guide
posted at 9:25 am on March 21, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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I guess I would have caught this before Mark Steyn if I paid more attention to Slate. Jacob Weisberg bravely spoke Truth to Power for the last eight years by writing his Bushism Of The Day column, in which he would catch our president torturing syntax and waterboarding vocabulary. Now that power has passed to the Democrats and Barack Obama lives in the White House, where has Weisberg decided to focus his Truth to Power efforts?
Why, on George W. Bush, of course:
“This is my maiden voyage. My first speech since I was the president of the United States and I couldn’t think of a better place to give it than Calgary, Canada.”—As reported by the Associated Press, Calgary, Canada, March 17, 2009
In the first place, I’m not really sure what’s wrong with that sentence. I might have said “Calgary, Alberta,” as I would not say “Minneapolis, America”, but that’s hardly an egregious error, either. If that’s really the level to which Weisberg has to stoop to exercise his particular strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome, he needs to find a hobby, preferably one with soft implements and rounded edges.
Besides, no one at Slate seems to have informed Weisberg that Bush stopped being President two months ago. It was in all the newspapers; maybe Weisberg was too busy scraping the bottom of the barrel for Bush quotes he could scorn to notice. Bush isn’t the story any more, which we all saw this week when President Barack Obama compared AIG to a terrorist suicide bomber and made a tasteless comment about the Special Olympics.
So when will we see the Obama-ism of the Day at Slate? Or does Slate want to proudly announce its irrelevancy on a daily basis by indulging its primary BDS sufferer indefinitely?
Update: After thinking about it for a while, I decided to check Slate’s own style guide by doing a search for references to the city of Sydney in Australia. It’s the capital of New South Wales, and so should be referenced as Syndey, NSW … at least according to Weisberg’s criticism here, right? Well, judge for yourself:
- Joel Achenbach, June 2008: Sydney, Australia.
- Travelbox, April 2007: Sydney, Australia
- Jack Shafer, March 2009: Sydney, Australia
- David Plotz, August 2000: Sydney, Australia
And the piece de resistance:
- Jacob Weisberg, Bushisms, March 2009: Sydney, Australia.
Slate articles with “Sydney, NSW”: 0. Slate articles with “Sydney, New South Wales”: 0.
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Comment pages: « Previous 1 2
calbear:
Guess I should have refreshed the page before I posted!
JM Hanes on March 21, 2009 at 6:02 PM
Sigh. Slate. Might as well lambast HuffPo, too. Since we’re into stupid futility. Think for a moment. You are now stalking a person who made a career out of stalking George Bush. If you were after the next Dahmer or Gacey I could understand it. But run-of-the-mill nutcases? The last election proved there are over fifty million more. No challenge to that – none at all.
BrideOfRove on March 21, 2009 at 6:45 PM
And by the way – Bush and McCain are pretty well known for their sly mockage of Obama. Since Obama gave HIS first speech as president in Canada, I love that Bush gave his first speech as NOT president in Canada. Remember when Obama went to Germany and McCain went to German town or something. It.Was.a.JOKE!
I’m loving these diplomacy digs. My favorite last week was Mexico’s back slap to Pelosi over the trade wars.
BrideOfRove on March 21, 2009 at 6:50 PM
As a heap of rubbish, Slate is one of the best.
jaime on March 21, 2009 at 7:41 PM
And just to clarify … Calgary isn’t even the capital city of Alberta – Edmonton is. As a Canadian who resides an hour from Calgary I am quite comfortable with ‘Calgary, Canada’.
dormain on March 21, 2009 at 7:55 PM
Remember the song Glory Days by Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen?
There you go.
madmonkphotog on March 21, 2009 at 9:16 PM
Fascinating. So, what’s up? This Jacob dude won’t give back your CDs or something?
Ronnie on March 21, 2009 at 10:41 PM
Something really horrible must be going on behind the curtain,..pulling every distraction they can.
christene on March 21, 2009 at 10:57 PM
Even the Oprah message boards are getting tired of Oprah’s obsessions with The One.
Obama and The Joke
PattyJ on March 22, 2009 at 12:25 AM
I’m not sure if this has been mentioned…
…but maybe Slate is making fun of the fact that the first public speech made by the new President of the United States…
…was made in Canada (instead of in the U.S.)
Religious_Zealot on March 22, 2009 at 6:55 AM
It is not clear why he posted this “Bushism”. It wasn’t because of Calgary, Canada though since right after the quote it contains the same
What you have to do is read the quote while filled with rage, then anything becomes a Bushism (even if Obama says worse).
GardenGnome on March 22, 2009 at 3:34 PM
Could be. They seem confused about who is president of France.
jonsten on March 22, 2009 at 11:03 PM
Weisberg may, MAY mind you, be sneering at the fact that the first speech is outside the US. In that case he has nuanced himself into a corner. Believe it or not Bush may have been making a joke and the Bush sense of humor is too much for Weisberg. Ffffsshhewww. Right over his head.
curved space on March 23, 2009 at 4:31 PM
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