Fraters Libertas

Clarifications and Corrections

Nick Coleman commentary continues to flower all over the Internet. Today Power Line reports on their efforts to correct some of Coleman's misstatements of fact. They of course do a devastating job of presenting their case and don't need my further assistance.

But one key issue they object to was Coleman's remark that they speculated on his wealth, which they apparently never did. The Star Tribune's Reader Rep justified this by saying others did speculate on his wealth and Power Line linked to them. Leaving the coherency of that argument aside, the description of that other site matches Fraters Libertas (among others, I'm sure). We have been linked to by Power Line and we have included references to Coleman's perceived wealth (including comments in the satirical Newspaper Newlywed series).

To lend some background, for those unaware, our perspective was (is) that Coleman's hyperbolic, chronic criticisms of Minnesotans for not doing enough for the poor were colored by the fact that his current socio-economic status doesn't lend credibility to his perspective. The fact that Coleman probably earns far more than we do, and more than most Minnesotans, made his harsh criticisms of those unwilling to raise taxes or increase soscial spending, seem woefully unjust. It's true, "rich" is a subjective term. But it's an opinion met by the reasonable standards we applied.

Also, last week National Review's Kerry Spot linked to a post we did on Nick Coleman's career history, including references to the similarities of his resume with that of his step mother, Deborah Howell. Coleman vociferously objected to this characterization - to National Review, not us.

Jim Geraghty does a good job of responding to him, including appropriate recognition for an inaccuracy in the post, that Nick Coleman worked for the same paper in Minneapolis that Howell did. Coleman's comment

1) My "stepmother", Deborah Howell, worked at the Minneapolis Star when I worked at the Minneapolis Tribune. I never worked for the Minneapolis Star. The papers were completely separate until their merger in 1982.

The statement appearing on Fraters Libertas about Coleman's employment at the "Minneapolis Star" was a mistake - therefore, arguably, so was a further elaboration about his career being in "lockstep coordination with that of his stepmother." It's incorrect and we apologize for the error. A correction will appear in that archived post.

(Note, my online source for that information proved to be wrong, or at least imprecise. They referred to his employer in 1973 as "the Star Tribune." Mea culpa - I could have used an editor! Or at least a second source.)

As to Coleman's scurilous, incorrect, character assasination of us as:

.. a scurrilous blog published by anonymous character assassins

and

... vile slander from the sewers of the Internet

I guess we'll consider that a quid pro quo. Or an E Pluribus Unum. Or something.