Fraters Libertas

Mr. Yuck, Stand By

Expatriate Minnesotan Chuck (currently residing in Oregon) writes in to say I may have let the Star Tribune off the hook too quickly yesterday, regarding their use of "seize on" to characterize the Bush administration's referencing the UN Oil for Food Scandal to help justify the invasion of Iraq.

Dear Sir,

Regarding the post, 'Yes, They Have No Bias (Today)', the semantics of the Strib article are curious, indeed. The explanation you received provided some clarification and justification for the usage in question. However, the underlying precept that the Oil For Food hubbub was unknown prior to the Iraq invasion in March 2003 is simply false. It was very well documented. Kenneth Pollack, the former CIA cranium wrench and current Brookings fellow lays out the case in great detail in, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (Random House, 2002). Just one example of many, I'm sure.

Keep up the good work. I enjoy you guys! Too bad about the Gophers, Vikings, etc.

I like that "Too bad about the Vikings and Gophers" sign-off from Chuck. It's timeless. At any point in the last 40 years, one Minnesotan could write that to another and it would be entirely appropriate and fully understood.

Regarding Chuck's other assertion, that the Oil for Food Scandal was publicized before the invasion of Iraq, I cannot personally verify it. I didn't read Pollack's book, although it sounds fascinating, and I can find no corroborating excerpts on the Web. Furthermore, in order to comprehensively prove the term "seized on" was biased, one would have to show that the Bush administration was using this justification prior to the invasion. My admittedly cursory Web search provides no evidence of this. And neither does my steel trap-like memory of the administration's rhetoric preceding the war.

Dear readers, it does pain me to defend the Star Tribune in this manner. But in this high stakes game for the hearts and minds of the general public, our standards must be high. Yes, higher than even the Star Tribune. For if I was employed by them, all I would need to do is claim "a guy named Bruce" told me the evidence existed.

By the way, I'm about 58% convinced Nick Coleman made up "a guy named Bruce" in his column yesterday. Coleman provided full names for other unfortunate shoppers he ambushed and badgered at Cub Foods on East Lake St. Why does "a guy named Bruce" merit any less journalistic rigor?

And the scenario was a little too perfect for reality. Nick's belaboring the point that people don't care as much as he does for a murder victim, and then some guy arrogantly pulls up in a truck, parks on the exact spot where the victim laid, and he happened to be listening to a right wing radio blowhard? Please. This kind of miraculous coincidence and broad stereotyping is reserved for only the hoariest of clichéd Matlock episodes (the reruns of which are very popular among people in Nick's age cohort).

Speaking of broad stereotyping, Greg (proprietor of What Attitude Problem?) writes in with further skepticism about Nick Coleman and "Bruce":

I don't know, man. I was under the impression that any guy named Bruce was probably gay and therefore couldn't be listening to a rightwing blowhard on the radio. He would have had to have been listening to a leftwing blowhard, and that would have put him smack in the middle of Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan on KNOW 91.1 FM. And frankly, Neal's hardly what anyone would consider a blowhard. I mean, come on, the guy's on NPR. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

I don't know about that either. I am unaware of any statistical correlation between the name "Bruce" and alternative lifestyles. If Greg can run that down for us, it could be the key piece of evidence against Nick Coleman in a Jayson Blair like fraud case. And the basis for a class action defamation lawsuit against Nick Coleman by all city of Minneapolis employees named "Bruce."