Re: Journalistic Styles 101: Compare and contrast, plus "Name That Author"!

On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:57:05 -0000, Bernard M. Wrangle
<bernie@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

David V. Loewe, Jr <daveloewe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:18:30 -0000, Bernard M. Wrangle
<bernie@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
James Schrumpf <jaspammenotschrumpf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Excerpt #1:

"If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket
would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty
into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a
jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants
to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal.
He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a
trash bin.....Let there be no mistake in the history books about that.
Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in
the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without
ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--
except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him
mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship."

Except #2:

"Clinton's presidency now resembles a deranged version of La Ronde, in
which he staggers from one girl to the next without ever managing to shake
off any of their predecessors: if his aides hadn't stupidly revealed her
identity, Paula Jones wouldn't have sued; if she hadn't sued, he wouldn't
have had to give a sworn deposition admitting to the affair with Gennifer
Flowers; if he'd settled the suit, her lawyers wouldn't have taken
testimony from Kathleen Willey, the woman who says he groped and fondled
her on the day her husband committed suicide; if his lawyer hadn't trashed
the reputation of Mrs Willey's corroborating witness Linda Tripp, Miss
Tripp wouldn't have set about getting her revenge; if the President had
only managed to keep his hands off Monica Lewinsky, they wouldn't have had
to move her to the Pentagon, where she became friends with Miss Tripp; if
he'd been able to steer clear of Shelia Lawrence, Miss Lewinsky wouldn't
have become jealous...."

* * *

Discuss.

OK. Thompson's summation of Nixon was basic gonzo polemic, full
of HST's bile but never trying to be anything more than his
version of an ode. (And if you're familiar with Hunter Thompson,
you should recognize the respect for Nixon woven throughout the
extreme distaste.)

I don't know who wrote the Clinton polemic, but it's chock full
of bull*** "facts" that have no bearing on Clinton's administration
except as seen through the only people who cared about his fake
sex scandals: the Republicans and beltway insiders who resented
him for his success.

Neither graf is provably true, but only the first might be.

You don't agree that serially pissing a string of individuals led to
President Clinton's impeachment?

No, of course I don't. That's ridiculous. Gingrich was talking
about impeaching Clinton

Did it get ANY traction?

way before any of that testimony was bought by Scaife.

He "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky"?
That was made up by Scaife?
--
"Many receive advice, few profit by it."
Publius Syrus
.

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