Sunday, September 7, 2008

Stupid is as stupid does

Meanwhile in breaking news from Norristown:

Gordon Glantz, managing editor of The Times Herald, published a perfectly predictable column slamming the GOP for a lot of things, one of which was stupidity.

Which was interesting, because Mr. Smarty Pants Managing Editor Glantz wrote in the next to last paragraph - "A choice of Jindal - a Native American no less - would have shown that the Republican Party still has some residual mojo. . ."

He meant Bobby Jindal, the Republican fellow those Good Old Boys down in Louisiana elected to be their Governor a couple of years ago.

To me Bobby Jindal being a Native American didn't sound exactly right, even though a politically correct fellow like Gordon Glantz said he was. First off, as a good Republican I have a mental picture of Bobby Jindal to go along with my mental appreciation of his policy positions, and in my mental picture Bobby Jindal is a good couple of shades darker than I remember Tonto and Cochise being. I was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of Native American who used to hold up his hand and say "How" when he wasn't shooting arrows at John Wayne.

Those gun toting racist Republican hicks out in Alaska elected the wife of a Native American as Governor a couple of years ago; but he's descended from kayaking Native Americans, the sort who used to hunt seals and walruses. The Republicans in Colorado elected a fellow descended from the sort of pinto pony riding, buffalo steak eating Native Americans Glantz was thinking of, but not Louisiana. I was pretty sure Louisiana Republicans elected a fellow who was born in this country but who's ancestors were Shrimp Vindaloo eating Indians, you know, folks who were from the Indian Subcontinent rather than from the Indian Territories.

But I like to be careful about such things; so I did a couple of clicks on this newfangled internet thingy that Mr. Glantz must not have heard about, to check my memory and my thinking. And then I wrote Mr. Glantz a respectful email:

"Only the Times Herald could have a managing editor who thinks Bobby Jindal is a "Native American" and is dumb enough to put it in a column.

Do you do your research before or after you neglect to check the headlines for spelling?

Another, less reliably leftist managing editor might have meant he was born in America. But you, of course, meant that his ancestors counted coup on white devils like Custer out on the great plains.

Turns out his ancestors, given his parentage, are a lot more likely to have counted coup on Mohammedans or British accented white devils over in old India.

Regards,
Sully

P.S. Love your 'stache, but I recommend you ditch the white jacket for a rainbow tie-dye. "

Me again - In the interests of fairness I shall certainly post Mr. Glantz's reply if he makes one. Incidently, since sending him the email I have reconsidered my opinion of Mr. Glantz's droopy at the sides moustache. On reflection it makes him look like an underdeveloped walrus, or else a walrus after the attentions of a pinniped version of Lorena Bobbitt. He should ditch the picture.

Update: My remarks above relate to the picture of Mr. Glantz in the print edition of The Times Herald. His column of Sunday, September 7th wasn't up on the website (as of September 7th). There is a different picture of him on the web. In that picture he doesn't have a Fu Manchu moustache.

Update - September 9th - In today's paper The Times Herald published a tiny little correction of this pretty big error on Mr. Glantz's part, given that he regularly writes about national politics. The correction reads. "In Gordon Glantz's column on Page A4 of Sunday's edition, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was incorrectly identified as a Native American."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was not "breaking news" but "broken news".

I can't imagine how anyone would think that Mr. Jindal is a native American. First of all, his name is:

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal

There's also a picture of him here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Jindal

Don't hold your breath about getting a response.

***

Sully said...

It was fun finding that. I almost regret sending him the email because now he will surely fix the column before he puts it up on the web. I would have loved to send the link to some folks.

Incidently, I changed the title and did some cosmetic rewriting of the post. I decided a while ago that I'm allowed to make changes as I want without notice as long as I'm not changing the essential nature of it isn't changed.

He probably won't respond, but if he doesn't I'll forward the email to the publisher and a couple of the other writers who have email addresses under their articles, just to cause some stir down there.

I'm a little frosted at them because they've never published a great picture I sent them a couple of years ago of my dad's old baseball team in their memory lane section.