Tuesday, June 16, 2009

It's About Time ...

... that someone in the MSM told it like it is about Newt Gingrich.

Now, if we could only get teevee "news" booking people to read newspapers.

(h/t: Arielle Fleisher/Wonkette) ← gotta be a pen name, right?

6 comments:

Kevin Robbins said...

From the LA Times?

You have to go pretty far outside of Washington to get a sane opinion.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

What needs to be understood BJ, is this is good news. It means no "respectable" if there is such a thing, republican wants the leadership mantle of the party. They all know it's best to hide in shame in their safe districts and let Newt take the blame for the next wave of republican defeats.

bjkeefe said...

@ex: Yeah. But it's a step.

@T: Good point. I think there is something to this idea, that at least some of those in the GOP who are comparatively sane, and have ambitions, are letting guys like the Newt represent for the time being.

As John Sandford has observed, you can always tell who the leaders are in Washington -- they're the ones at the back of the herd.

TC said...

Picking nits, Brendan, but you're such a stickler... the conjunction "like" governs nouns and pronouns. The equivalent word when introducing phrases and clauses such as "it is" is the conjunction "as". According to Strunk and White (the holy writ) it should be "telling it as it is."

bjkeefe said...

A fair bust. I have trouble with this one, because I do know (usually) when I should be using as instead of like, but my ear frequently insists, "No one talks like that (as that? ;^)) these days."

This is particularly so in the case of phrases that have practically become idiomatic; e.g., Winston tastes good like a cigarette should, or, as in this case, Tell it like it is.

In more formal writing, I'd hew more closely to the S&W line, but when writing conversationally, I usually go with what sounds more natural when said out loud.

Thanks for trying to keep me honest, though.

TC said...

A fast and clever comeback, but "that" in the sentence "Nobody talks like that" is not a phrase or clause, so "like" would likely be correct. Incidentally what part of speech is "that?" Maybe it's part of an understood clause so that "as" would be correct? Nobody talks ... as those people do or ... as that person does. When you substitute "that" for a whole clause, does it become a pronoun or a noun? If so, Smith and Wesson are right again. :-)

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