Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Snark, or Utter Cluelessness from the Post?

I'm thinking snark. For the non-junkies, here's the backstory - Congressman David Dreier, Delay's successor as Majority Leader (at least for now) is widely rumored to be gay. Actually, really, he's gay. Everybody knows he's gay. His chief of staff (a man) lives in his house. They're a gay couple. Everyone knows this.

But it's not official, for obvious reasons, because the guy is an important Republican poo-bah with Senate ambitions, so he's officially neither gay nor straight, he's just Congressman David Dreier whose chief of staff happens to be a man and live in his house.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So, knowing all this, now read this very strangely-headlined story in tomorrow's Post.

Yeah. They don't put italics in headlines, but if they did, couldn't you see this headline becoming:

Dreier a Different Kind of Republican

Also, note the last line of the piece:

"A native of Kansas City, Mo., Dreier is unmarried."

If this is just a coincidence, and the editor and reporter just have no idea about the rumors that Dreier is gay, then it's just sort of a funny coincidence. If it's not a coincidence, and it's supposed to be this weird sort of in-joke, I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's probably harmless, but it seems like what a character in a journalism-themed version of "Days of Thunder" might have called "low-down, shit-ass journalism."

And if NASCAR won't call it that, I sure as hell will.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
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markfromireland said...

Stirling Newberry has a piece on this over at bopnews.com

Anonymous said...

Looks like Dreier now doesn't have the job.

San Francisco Chronicle article about how Roy Blunt is getting the job - Dreier is only assuming a few of DeLay's duties.

There are quotes relevant to your discussion though --

"I don't think of him as a member of the social right," said Bruce Cain, head of UC's Academic Center in Washington. "He's ... a more secular, business-oriented Chamber of Commerce kind of Republican."

A proponent of free trade, a friend of the technology industry and an opponent of House GOP efforts to ban same-sex marriage, Dreier was attacked in his last campaign for not being sufficiently anti-immigration.