Fraters Libertas

Dueling Blow Holes

The double axe attack of Doug Grow and Nick Coleman hasn’t had a lot of time to get in synch for their editorial barrage in the pages of the Star Tribune. After taking a sabbatical from lecturing us in the pages of the Pioneer Press, Coleman's just now easing back into the mix with his new column from Minneapolis. But already we’re getting the two part sanctimony of a couple of veteran performers.

Today it’s concerning the heart-breaking, infuriating case of young Dru Sjodin. Smart, ambitious, pretty college student. The light of the lives of so many who knew her. Now missing and presumed abducted. Everyone in Minnesota is hoping for a miracle, but the sadness of statistical reality hangs heavy as the days drift by without finding her. Out of this sadness also arises anger over the government’s gross negligence in allowing her alleged attacker, a repeat sex offender, to go free. Without any supervision.

Besides the filthy animal who committed this crime, others will be held accountable. No doubt the Governor feels the same emotions we all do and he feels the pressure to respond to the legitimate public demand for action. In press conferences he’s been looking ahead toward institutional changes (revised sentencing guidelines, conditions of parole, the death penalty) that will lessen the likelihood of this happening again.

And what do you know? Both Doug Grow and Nick Coleman have a big problem with that. And if you didn’t get your fill of elitist derision from Grow yesterday, you can have another does of it from Coleman today. First Doug Grow:

This must be how lynch mobs worked. A strong leader, reacting to anger, would work up the crowd, then, en masse, there would be a rush to the nearest tree. On Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, reacting to anger from a case that hasn't come close to being resolved, was calling for the rope. He said he would push for Minnesota to become a capital punishment state.

As a Minnesotan, as a governor, as a dad of two young daughters, I'm fed up with these stories where we have children abducted, women abducted, with a not very good system for resolving the issue," Pawlenty said.

Even though Minnesota is far different from the progressive place we used to know, this was chilling.

And now Nick Coleman:

In St. Paul, on the other hand, the politicians were pointing fingers and rushing to get in front of cameras, telling us how many daughters they have and reminding us that they have been in favor of throwing away the key all along and that if we have to kill 'em to get 'em off the street, that can be arranged.

The fact that none of them knows what happened to Dru Sjodin and that Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. has not been convicted did not stop their lips from flapping.

Sure, they use slightly different words and have slightly different angles of attack, but they’re saying the same thing. The Governor (and by proxy Republicans, electoral politics are never off the minds of these two) is using a tragedy for political ends and the death penalty is too barbaric for their refined sensibilities to contemplate.

It makes me wonder if with the hiring of Nick Coleman, the Star Tribune had to also hire a new editor, to make sure these two don’t actually submit the identical column on successive days. This person would schedule daily meetings between the two, encouraging them to pursue some different topics and different points of view. And then every night she hunkers down with a thesaurus and a bottle of Tylenol to attempt to inject at least some degree of originality into their work.

All sarcasm aside, let’s continue to pray for a miracle.