Something's Got To Give?

Since I've spent most of my reading life in the Twin Cities, my exposure to the workings of local daily newspapers has been somewhat limited. The Star, The Tribune, The Star Tribune, and The St. Paul Pioneer Press are about the extent of it.

So I'm not sure how unusual the current situation at the Strib regarding Rachel Paulose, the US attorney for Minnesota, really is. In my own experiences, I can't recall anything quite like it.

On the one hand, you have Nick Coleman--local conservative bloggers' favorite punching bag--devoting no less than FOUR of his Star Tribune columns to largely baseless attacks against Paulose. On the other, you have his soon-to-be-only fellow Metro columnist Katherine Kersten writing today on The real Rachel Paulose:

By now, you must have heard of Rachel Paulose, the United States attorney for Minnesota. Critics suggest that she's barely qualified to be an assistant prosecutor in Podunk. And at 34, she's still wet-behind-the ears.

On top of that, detractors charge, Paulose is a partisan hack and a Bible-thumping evangelical Christian. They suspect that Karl Rove, that malevolent puppeteer, is pulling the strings to ensure that she dances to a militant Republican tune. How did someone so unsuitable become U.S. attorney? She didn't. Because that's not who Rachel Paulose is.

Now Kersten doesn't directly mention Coleman in her column, but he's been leading the charge against Paulose in the local media. Some of the words that Coleman has directly used or inferred to describe Paulose in his four columns on her:

"unqualified" "not ready for prime time" "archconservative" "fervent Christian" "callow" "ideological" "incapable" "partisan loyalist" "inexperienced" "incompetent"

Clearly Kersten's column in intended as a sharp rebuke to Coleman, even if it doesn't call him out by name. Coleman and Kersten have mixed it up before, but never in such an obvious manner. Again, my experience in this area is limited, but I wonder how common is it for a paper to have two columnists (on the same beat no less) essentially going at each other with hammer and tongs over a sensitive, highly charged political matter like this? I can't recall anything similar occurring in the pages of our local newspapers before.

Mind you, I'm not complaining about this. It's refreshing to have a voice like Kersten's counter the BS that Coleman has been spreading and in the pages of the same paper no less. I can only imagine what Coleman's reaction was to today's column (heh, heh). From what I've heard, Nick's not exactly the most even-tempered, easy-going guy in town.

However, I wonder how long the paper's powers that be are going to let this little interacine war of words play out. If they were smart (insert joke here), they'd let it go for a while. Nothing like a little conflict to attract attention and sell papers ("Coleman-Kersten battle continues, read all about it!"). They could run online polls on who has the upper hand, let readers chime in with e-mails and letters, and maybe even schedule a live debate between the two scribes.

But given the standard newspaper industry response, they'll probably ban both of them from writing further on the matter and schedule a meeting with a conflict facilitator so Coleman and Kersten can work out their issues and become better team players.