October 25, 2004
Double Standards in the Twin Cities
While skimming a few of the blogs on the list to the right, I ran across a post at Power Line about their ongoing love-in with Star-Tribune columnist Nick Coleman, and their disagreements with him over Mark Dayton's suitability for office. There was a line pulled from Coleman's latest snivelcolumn that caught my eye:
The scion of a wealthy department-store family, Dayton sometimes seems wide-eyed, has a stiff, formal manner and sometimes stumbles over his syntax - making him a popular target for right-wing hatchet bloggers and operatives.
Hmmm, comes from a wealthy family, ocassionally odd mannerisms, a bit inarticulate, and often ruthlessly attacked by his opponents? Sounds like someone else I know.
Although I am not going to go through all of Coleman's previous columns, I wonder if he has commented on Bush with the same kid-glove treatment he gave Dayton. The Power Line guys refer to Coleman as a reliably partisan hack, so my money would be on a double standard. Anyone who has read all of Coleman's output and would like to comment is more than welcome to share with the rest of us.
Of course, dealing with double standards is nothing new. They have come into play in such topics as Sexual Harrassment (David Wu vs. Bob Packwood), Resume Padding (John Kerry vs. George W. Bush), Malfeasance in Office (Bill Clinton vs. Richard Nixon), Dereliction of Duty (Janet Reno vs. Donald Rumsfeld) and a host of other issues. However, they're only worthy of saturation coverage if the politician has an (R) after his name.
posted on October 25, 2004 08:02 PM
