It's a tie (Jack Bog's Blog)

In the race for Most Offensive Comment of the Month by an Oregonian Columnist, David Reinhard and Renee Mitchell have finished in a dead heat.

Reinhard was huffing and puffing on Sunday about the Janet Jackson Breast Incident. It's the end of civilization as we know it, lack of morals, etc. etc. -- the whole William Bennett deal (without the compulsive gambling). Then old Dave let fly this little doozie:

It's times like these that I think Osama bin Laden and his Islamic fundamentalist pals may have a point about American culture.

Nice, eh? I'm sure the families of the victims of 9/11 jumped off their couches and saluted to that one. I remember when a guy named Bill Maher said something like that. That was right before he lost his job.

Mitchell can have a way with words, too. Here's the lead paragraph of her take yesterday on the City of Portland's planning process for the St. Johns neghborhood:

Portland planners are poised to break the skin of the pimple on the city's backside.

Another beauty. Bound to make friends and boost circulation in North Portland.

I guess with talk radio so down and dirty, the folks at The O must be thinking that they have to rub a little of that on themselves to get people's attention any more.

Either that or someone's putting something funny in the water cooler over there. The public editor just got a new weblog. Don't expect too many posts this week; I think he'll be busy with other things.

Comments (7)

It would hardly be unheard-of for David Reinhard to be in the running for this award, of course. I didn't read that particular column because, well, when you're 1500 miles away and The O's website is terrible, you don't read the newspaper much.

But I've always been impressed at the gap between what he claims to be, that is, decent and genial, and what he actually is, which is neither of those. I think they feel obliged to keep things 'lively,' as they used to be the ones who carried Phil Stanford.

Posted by Wes Meltzer | February 10, 2004 9:20 AM

Don't be too hard Sister Renee, aspiring rap artist, Jack. After all, you seem to see eye-to- eye with her on such issues as Measure 30, local pols, and the Portland Streetcar.

Posted by Terry Olson | February 10, 2004 12:23 PM

Yeah, but her foul language is the straw that broke the skin on the pimple on the camel's backside. Not with my morning yogurt, please. And can you imagine what would have happened if an Anglo-American reporter had called the Sabin neighborhood a pimple?

Posted by Jack Bog | February 10, 2004 12:29 PM

It still amazes me that people can go on and on and on about Janet Jackson's Breast, and not mention one small peep about Englishman Streaker's Schlong. Yes, in that very same Super Bowl game, with millions of people watching, a man jumped out from the stands, ran onto the field in the middle of play, and ran around the field with his..erm, "footballs", waving to and fro. So, when an unintentional boob stunt (yes, the black fabric was supposed to come off but the red fabric was NOT -I used to work for ESPN and still have reliable sources for the true skinny in sports) happens, and anyone who has a Tivo can tell that it was unintentional (on the part of Janet anyways) as her face was a clear giveaway -she's just not that good of an actor to fake being suprised as hell, and on the other hand an absolutely Planned and Intentional baring of all, full frontal everything swinging around in the breeze, yet somehow people go all moral on the unintentional BREAST? I just don't understand that. What, are penis' perfectly 'moral' for our children to engage in viewing on a Sunday afternoon? Does this not seem a bit odd, this dichotomy?

Posted by pdxkona | February 10, 2004 12:29 PM

The Oregonian's Op-Ed pages are boring because Portlanders are so earnest and humorless.

I know it's hard to lighten up and enjoy life when you live inside a rain cloud, but you folks really should give it a try.

Posted by Mossback | February 13, 2004 9:06 AM

Richard (Mossback),

Well, there's always the Mercury. :)

Posted by Michael J. Totten | February 13, 2004 9:14 AM

Yuck - the Mercury News is at least as earnest as the Boregonian. When Joanne Jacobs worked for them it wasn't, but that's over.

Posted by Mossback | February 14, 2004 12:26 PM