Following up.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the awful columns of Tim Goeglein, special assistant to the Worst President Ever, who writes for my alma mater. However, for some reason his stuff isn’t archived, so I couldn’t quote from one. Readers, we’re in luck — he has a piece in the paper today.

This is the first sentence: Though summer does not officially arrive until late June, we Americans are confident the summer season really arrives Memorial Day weekend and extends to Labor Day.

This is the last sentence: It is a stunning question indeed.

It’s not much better in between. Note camouflaged reference to the late Pat Buckley. Why do I do this to myself?

Posted at 1:07 pm in Media |
 

33 responses to “Following up.”

  1. brian stouder said on June 6, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    Why do I do this to myself?

    I think that in order to be a truly great blogger, a person has to be a sort of theatrical literary bulimic; first gluttonously taking in all sorts of punditry and opinionating, and then disgorging it in an artful way for one’s guests!

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  2. Danny said on June 6, 2007 at 1:31 pm

    I think what Brian is trying to say is, “Thanks for the yummy puke!” He probably speaks for all of us.

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  3. LA mary said on June 6, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    There’s a whole big web of mediocrity out there producing works by the painter of light and Thai food made only with white meat. This guy is part of it. Slightly snobbish and very middlebrow at the same time. Love the Pat Buckley name drop. I wonder if Tim ululated when Pat died.

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  4. Scout said on June 6, 2007 at 1:54 pm

    Wow, that was completely unreadable. HOW do these untalented hacks get their jobs? Not to mention, keep them.

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  5. LA mary said on June 6, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Scout, he’s working for W. That guy mangles the language every time he opens his mouth. He probably thinks Tim’s a genius.

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  6. Dorothy said on June 6, 2007 at 2:13 pm

    “The pastness of the past” ???? Who the hell edited that piece?!?!?

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  7. brian stouder said on June 6, 2007 at 2:18 pm

    Well, I wanted to know what indeed the stunning question was, and scrolled down to

    The pastness of the past never seemed so real as it did that afternoon. Where goeth the time, the ancient poet asked with such fervor. It is a stunning question indeed.

    hmmmmm. First, I thought he said ‘the pastiness of the past’ – which was puzzling; and then, it seemed to me that really – shouldn’t ‘the ancient poet’ have ‘askethed’?

    Anyway – suffice it to say I can see why this stuff isn’t archived!

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  8. alex said on June 6, 2007 at 2:18 pm

    A conservative through and through. Why, he can’t even be bothered to pick up a new book or reflect on a new thought.

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  9. nancy said on June 6, 2007 at 2:57 pm

    Actually, what bugs me the most about him is that he doesn’t name-drop. The guy works with the president of the United States at a key moment in history, and he writes about “Our Town.” I don’t expect state secrets, but would it kill him to tell us one thing we might not have read elsewhere in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel? Deliver an insight based on his extraordinary access? Or just not bore the shit out of us? He never even says Pat Buckley’s name, he says “Patricia.” I only know it was her because I saw his name in a roundup of tributes to her when she died back in April.

    But that lead sentence: What graceful construction. And what a piercing insight. It is a stunning sentence indeed.

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  10. LA mary said on June 6, 2007 at 3:08 pm

    Speaking of a-holes, the consultant has been fired. He had burned through the department’s entire annual budget in five months, mostly by billing the hospital for services rendered by his wife’s company.

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  11. Danny said on June 6, 2007 at 3:15 pm

    Hey, alright man. Dorothy is cussing too now! She said H – E – Double-hockey-sticks. 🙂

    Sorry, I know I’m reachin’. Stanley Cup finals tonight.

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  12. danindy said on June 6, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    Are you sure his teenage kid didn’t write that as a middle school english paper??!!
    He is sooo typically Fort Wayne conservative! I’ll even bet he shops at Wal-Mart and his favorite restaurant is Applebee’s. I do not regret ever moving out of that city.

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  13. brian stouder said on June 6, 2007 at 3:32 pm

    To paraphrase the old joke – 95% of the people shop at WalMart, and the other 5% are lying!!

    I will cop to having a penchant for franchised restaurant chains. When we go to Indy (as the young folks and I will for F1 qualifying) a stop at Max & Erma’s is on the agenda, and if we go to the Columbus Zoo, at some point we’ll be at Macaroni Grill…having a chain of places that the kids will like is a good thing.

    Here in FWA – we like the locally owned Cebolla’s; used to eat at Flanagans all the time (free icecream sundae for the kids); and Logan’s has lately been a favorite.

    The southwest Logan’s is in the same extended shopping complex as the southwest Walmart, where my lovely wife and I spend way, way more money than we can possibly realize

    So shoot me!!

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  14. LA mary said on June 6, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    There are no Wal Marts anywhere near me, so I never shop at Wal Mart. I was in one once in Colorado in about 1988.

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  15. alex said on June 6, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Maybe he’ll publish a tell-all when he’s outta there. He’s officially Bush’s liaison to the James Dobson crowd, and what a dirty job that must be for a social-climbing neocon Buckley toady.

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  16. 4dbirds said on June 6, 2007 at 3:46 pm

    Nancy, do you have an opinion on Craig Wilson? I have a very casual two degrees of separation from him although I wouldn’t recognize him if I bumped into him.

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  17. LA mary said on June 6, 2007 at 4:03 pm

    I just re-read the column. What tripe. It reminded me of Firesign Theatre in some ways. The Church of the Presumptuous Assumption.

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  18. nancy said on June 6, 2007 at 4:04 pm

    Craig Wilson? I don’t know any baseball players.

    If Tim Goeglein writes anything — and I seriously doubt he will — I wonder if he’ll tell us how his Tim Reads the Classics project turned out.

    Final trivia note: He was the White House’s designated mourner at the Falwell funeral. That musta been a hopping affair.

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  19. LA mary said on June 6, 2007 at 5:21 pm

    He was the midlevel staffer?

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  20. nancy said on June 6, 2007 at 5:27 pm

    I guess so. His job is to be the liasion between the far-right constituencies (i.e. religious groups) and the West Wing. I think he works in Rove’s office, actually. So that probably constitutes “midlevel.”

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  21. Connie said on June 6, 2007 at 5:54 pm

    Brian, I’m not lying. I decided several years ago to never patronize Walmart again, and I haven’t.

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  22. 4dbirds said on June 6, 2007 at 6:52 pm

    No not that Craig, this Craig. http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/2007-06-05-final-word_N.htm

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  23. Colleen said on June 6, 2007 at 6:52 pm

    So, um. What was the point of that little essay? Why publish it….what part of the newspaper’s mission did it fulfill?

    Blech.

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  24. Cathy D. said on June 6, 2007 at 7:23 pm

    Stunningly, and scientifically, meteorological summer actually does start June 1, and meteorological fall, September 1. Whether we Americans want it to, or not.

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  25. nancy said on June 6, 2007 at 7:26 pm

    Wilson is new to me. Based on first impressions, I’m … unimpressed. However, I always give columnists the benefit of the doubt and figure I caught them on a bad day. I’ll keep watching for him and give you a more informed opinion then.

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  26. brian stouder said on June 6, 2007 at 8:08 pm

    Brian, I’m not lying. I decided several years ago to never patronize Walmart again, and I haven’t.

    Many years ago, when WalMart was new in Fort Wayne, I disliked them; the whole mega-store thing just rubbed me the wrong way. But in time they won me over. They generally always have whatever we want, and it really always is priced right.

    Truly, I think the only difference between the WalMart corporate colossus and every other big player (such as Target and Costco) is that WalMart has more successfully reached their goals.

    By way of saying, I think I understand the anti-WalMart impulse among some of us consumers; and I’m almost sure I understand the anti-WalMart impulse amongst their corporate competitors.

    One thing about WalMart that flat-out won me over, though, is that the neglected (and red-lined, I say) southeast part of Fort Wayne lost it’s mall, and their Target promptly shuttered their store, and pretty much all the other businesses and restaurants in that corridor boarded up – other than K-Mart(!!).

    But then WalMart rolled in and dropped one of their world-class super-stores on the ground where the defunct and boarded up mall used to sit; and then Menards ponied up and built another large store on the same site; and several restaurants built there too. I have read that WalMart actually has a business strategy of going into economically distressed areas, and taking advantage of whatever tax abatements and other incentives can be had, and then building stores and warehouses.

    I can see this strategy in action in southeast Fort Wayne, and it is a marvelous site to behold

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  27. Colleen said on June 6, 2007 at 9:43 pm

    Brian…while I’m not a Wal Mart fan, and DO try to avoid it when possible, as a resident of the southern part of the Fort, I was excited when they decided to build on the Southtown site. I knew it would beget more and more business, and it looks like that’s what’s happening. And judging from the crowds and the seasonal items that seem to get snapped up as fast as they are put out (we found NO plants at Menards or W-M, and that was BEFORE the frost date), there’s plenty of money on this side of town for recreational shopping.

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  28. brian stouder said on June 6, 2007 at 9:55 pm

    there’s plenty of money on this side of town for recreational shopping.

    Absolutely!!

    Years (and years!) ago, I worked at the Maloley’s supermarket at Hessen Cassel and Paulding – and the place did a GREAT amount of business. It changed hands, and continued to do well, and they expanded the facility. But long before WalMart or any other big store came into the area, that whole shopping center shutdown. People who live in that area (including my mom) have to travel several additional miles to get to the Southgate Kroger – which ALSO is always busy busy busy (in fact, that Kroger expanded, and rejuvenated the whole Southgate complex)

    Southeast Fort Wayne has plenty of money to spend, and yet (it seems to me) decisions were made that the money in that area should flow elsewhere (exemplified by – but not limited to – Target’s massive rebuilding of their northern stores, and closure of their southern one)

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  29. John said on June 7, 2007 at 6:48 am

    “Medieval staffer” still has me chuckling.

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  30. Kim said on June 7, 2007 at 7:29 am

    On Goeglein: What crap! But, really, what telling crap. His favorite book and favorite play have these adulterous/liquor-fueled/husband-dominates-wife undertones that typically get overlooked by a certain segment of the population — one Goeglein apparently represents with vigor.

    It does read like a jr. high lit crit, which makes me want to search the Cliffs Notes for both and do a little compare and contrast. Imagine plagiarizing Cliffs Notes as an adult, and getting caught! The thought makes me happy, I confess.

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  31. LA mary said on June 7, 2007 at 9:34 am

    Check Sparknotes online as well. That’s what kids use now instead of Cliffnotes.

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  32. Kim said on June 7, 2007 at 11:32 am

    Wonderful idea!

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  33. Jim said on June 7, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    If you’ve ever known Tim Goeglein, you would know that name-dropping is his stock-in-trade. He’s been doing since he wangled his way into his own 5-minute television show when he was about 14 on the fledgling channel 55. Don’t get me started on how he name-dropped his way to a state championship in speech in 1982. He’s using these columns to keep his name in the public eye for his shot at political office.

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