Scrapbook
Scrapbook Anti-Bush Sic-ness at the Washington Post Except when they want to ridicule someone, reporters (or their editors) "clean up" the spoken words quoted in their stories. The stammers and...
...The stammers and ahems and false starts and missteps of a speaker—any speaker—look um, uh, ah, er, ridiculous in print...
...The beneficiary of all this is Nader, who in 1996 had one of his strongest showings in Oregon—a state that last voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 1984...
...This year's first presidential debate will take place Tuesday evening, oct...
...Slate's Scott Shuger took note of the Post's glaring sic in his column the next day and wondered, "If a candidate makes the same hones-for-homes mistake as 90 percent of the adult population, should he be sicma-tized...
...Hone in," though now acceptable to the permissive editors of modern dictionaries owing to its frequent misuse, is a solecism that comes from confusing the verb "to hone," meaning to sharpen, with the similar sounding "home in on," meaning to approach one's target...
...Dam breaching is now an almost sacramental act of nature worship among environmentalists...
...Pelosi and Hoyer are, if you hadn't noticed, Democrats, and thus their campaigns will be for naught unless the Democrats retake control of the House this November...
...When Nader and his running mate Winona LaDuke campaigned in Portland's Memorial Coliseum at the end of August, some 11,000 cheering voters turned out and security had to turn several hundred people away...
...They're beginning to hone [sic] in on it...
...Molly Bordonaro, a Bush campaign official in the region, tells The Scrap-book that Nader's Portland headquarters has "tons of people answering phones and stuffing envelopes," while Gore's has "one guy sitting at a table waiting for the phone to ring...
...Bush, in virtually every stop in the Northwest, has declared his strong opposition to dam breaching...
...His activities have, predictably, alienated a few of his fellow Republicans...
...If there is a Gore administration, perhaps they'll do better than they would otherwise if they read the essays in Present Dangers...
...Kitzhaber returned the favor by endorsing Bill Bradley during the oregon primary and campaigning heavily for him...
...Here's a partial list of Post bylines that have appeared over "honed in on" in recent years: Thomas Boswell, David Broder, Edward Cody, Ceci Connolly, Ann Devroy, John Feinstein, Tony Kornheiser, George Lardner Jr., Myra MacPherson, Courtland Milloy, Liza Mundy, Steven Pearlstein, Tom Shales, Phyllis Richman, and Jonathan Yardley...
...Gore's troubles in oregon include his chilly relationship with popular Democratic governor John Kitzhaber, architect of a state health plan that required a federal Medicaid waiver, which Gore opposed when he was still a senator...
...Further complicating Gore's oregon campaign, and fueling Nader's, is the vice president's unwillingness to reveal his position on tearing out dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers...
...Somewhat unfairly, Boehner became the punching bag for House Republicans following the debacle in the 1998 midterm elections, and lost his slot in the leadership...
...And of course it's because worthies like this can't get it right that the dictionary editors have thrown in the towel...
...Post defense reporter Bradley Graham deserves special recognition for bungling the expression in a March 1999 story on "a new missile topped with a 'seeker' for honing in on a target...
...They may well want to do that, but Boehner won't necessarily be the beneficiary...
...If there is a Bush administration, this book should be its policy planning bible...
...Must Reading Good news: Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy, edited by our own Robert Kagan and William Kris-tol, is now available...
...Gore has avoided saying where he stands...
...3. For instant analysis—well, almost instant—you can turn to our website, www.weeklystandard.com, in the wee hours of late Tuesday, or Wednesday morning for the late risers...
...The book is available from bricks-and-mortar and online booksellers, or it can be ordered directly from the publisher at www.encounterbooks.com...
...If he's not careful, he won't be getting it back...
...Thus it was a particularly snappish bit of bad manners by the Washington Post last week to offer the following selection from a George W. Bush appearance on Hardball: I look forward to finding out the facts, but someone is sweating bullets right now...
...There's also been grumbling over his failure to contribute more money from his sizable campaign treasury to the House GOP's campaign committee...
...Kitzhaber announced his support for dam removal earlier this year...
...Not to hone the point too fine: The Post owes Bush an apology...
...By the way: In the dozens of times the hone/home confusion has been perpetrated in the pages of the Washington Post—whether in its own writers' words or the words of subjects being quoted—only once, when it served to make George W. Bush look foolish, was sic inserted...
...That sic represents extra exertion by the Post to spotlight a Bush error...
...A former chairman of the House Republican conference, he's begun scheming to become the next . . . minority leader...
...Extra...
...The volume, published by Encounter Books, consists of essays by 15 luminaries ranging from James Ceaser and William Bennett to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, on topics ranging from China to the Middle East to morality and American foreign policy...
...The answer in this case is obvious: no...
...Four days later, only 300 handpicked supporters showed up for a Gore-Lieberman "town hall meeting"—about the same number as the Nader supporters picketing outside...
...That's right, Boehner apparently thinks a GOP loss of the House is likely enough to plan ahead, on the assumption that his colleagues, once in the minority, will want to replace their current leadership...
...House Republicans have had a good chuckle over this, but don't tell that to John Boehner of Ohio...
...The Next Minority Leader...
...One of the more amusing spectacles during this otherwise una-musing session of Congress has been the willingness of representatives Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer to launch campaigns for House majority whip...
...Nader's Kind of Place The Nader campaign has been something of a dud ever since Al Gore started imitating it at his convention...
...They wonder why the master fund-raiser turned down a personal request by House speaker Denny Hastert to co-chair a campaign committee charged with helping the GOP preserve its House majority...
...Extra...
...But the Green party candidate could still tip a state or two to Bush...
...A quick glance at Nexis shows a veritable honor roll of the paper's own reporters have failed through the years to achieve the same purity of expression they now chide Bush for falling short of...
...Which is kind of like homing your blade to a fine edge...
...Consider Oregon, where Bush is competitive with Gore, and Ralph Nader is getting upward of 5 percent of the vote...
...The Posties were behaving badly in subtly mocking the candidate for a usage error that is rampant in their own ranks...
Vol. 6 • October 2000 • No. 4
