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!

18 replies on “Remember Nixon? Joel Connelly Does”

  5. Here’s one: the Port scandal. Do you really think that the Seattle Times would run a week long expose on the corruption at the Port? If the PI hadn’t run its stories, Mic Densmore would be sitting in a pile of taxpayer cash somewhere on a beach in Mexico laughing his pale ass off. It’s sad to see the only daily with balls in this town fade away to nothing.

  6. This is an excellent point. The news media, the P-I very much included, did not exactly cover itself with Woodward-and-Bernstein-style glory during the Bush Administration. Their absurdly non-critical coverage of the buildup to and prosecution of the Iraq War was shameful, for starters; and their non-coverage of the civil liberties issues surrounding the Patriot Act, and Bush’s abandonment of the rule of law in his freestylin’ “signing statements”, and their gross failure to explain the torture issue — oh, I could go on. But the media gave Bush a free pass on all of these things.

    Maybe if your newspaper had actually covered the news during the last eight years you wouldn’t be going tits up, Joel.

  10. Erica, Erica, Erica: Here’s how it works. If you call men MEN you should call women WOMEN. If you refer to men as BOYS then it is fair to refer to the women as GIRLS. There is no gender bias there, you’re merely being cute or silly or whatever by referring to adults as boys and girls.

    Referring to MEN & GIRLS: offensive
    referring to BOYS & GIRLS: not
    referring to MEN & CHICKS: offensive
    referring to DUDES & CHICKS: not

  13. Why shouldn’t Erica write about Joel? He’s a big deal in Seattle, isnt’ he? He deserves coverage, and yes, even ridicule from time to time when he writes nonsense like he did this morning. And she can defend herself God knows, but the point isn’t that Joel shouldn’t say “girls,” but that he feels he needs to point out that there are females in politics these days. Holy Jimminy Cricket, I hear the moving picture show talks now, too! What will they think of next? I was just impressed that Joel made a lightbulb joke and not a joke about how many people it takes to change the kerosene in the kitchen lamp.

  14. @10, she is obviously commenting on Joel Connelly’s remark that “girls too, nowadays” makes it sound like women in politics is some bizarre new trend.

    “Moms — and even some dads, these days! — love their children.” See?

  16. Connelly seems to be forgetting that Washington had a female governor for eight years starting shortly after he started at the P-I. Remember Dixie Lee Ray, Joel? And of course Patty Murray’s been in office for 17 years. When exactly did “nowadays” start, anyways? What do you call someone who mentally resides in a time period before he was born?

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