First of all, lest you accuse me of being too tough on poor Joel Connelly, I will note that I am not the first Stranger writer to address today's column, which argues that the P-I, unlike the Seattle Times, is a vital source of information that leaves its "imprint on the community, and on the region."

I agree with Connelly (blow that one up and print it out, Joel) that competition among media is a good thing. But could he really not find a single example that happened more recently than 30 years ago? Connelly's column reads like a time capsule from the Watergate era (ironic for a guy who just one week ago wrote that most of Crosscut's writers were too "long in the tooth"); most of the people he cites are, in fact, literally dead. Connelly's old buddy Nixon makes an appearance (one of more than a dozen Nixon name-checks in Connelly's columns this past year), as does Dixy Lee Ray (elected governor in 1976), Charles O. Carroll (King County Prosecuting Attorney in the '50s and '60s), and John Paul II (who became Pope in 1978 and died in 2005).

I'm not saying a venerable old paper shouldn't celebrate its past and mourn its lack of a future, but limiting yourself to events that happened before many P-I readers were born doesn't exactly make the case that the paper is a vital, necessary part of the community.

Finally, allow me to leave you with his final paragraph: "It's not about us as scribes. It's keeping the big boys — girls, too, nowadays — honest."

There are women in politics nowadays?! Next thing you know, they'll be driving cars!