The NY Times has trouble…
…with the concept of first name versus surname.
It’s hard, hard I tell you (hint to Times: “Scott” is the first name, “Walker” is the surname):
This was not an ordinary article, either, that just lacked an editor’s eye. It was an editorial, a type of article which, when last I checked, is written by the editors.
It’s been corrected now, without any acknowledgement or admission of the mistake. But I think it’s especially funny that the piece involves mockery of Walker’s claim of a drafting error (in fact, the title is “Governor Scott Walker’s ‘Drafting Error'”):
His [Walker’s] office attempted the ridiculous excuse that the pernicious editing of the university’s mission was simply a “drafting error” in the budget text…
Editors who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rhetorical stones.
Of course we all make mistakes, particularly if we have to churn it out day after day (don’t I know it!). But the odd thing about the Times’ error in this case is that it’s about a well-known politician. Scott Walker is not some obscure figure new on the scene. How could the editors not have realized that his last name is not “Scott”? Where on earth have they been?
[ADDENDUM: Ann Althouse eviscerates the Times both on substance and style.]
Furthermore, It is not uncommon for pre-schoolers to address their teachers as Mr. Dave or Miss Sue. Mr. Scott? This pretty much sums up the intellectual level of the New York Times.
There is a post about this on Ann Althouse’s blog. Read the post and the comments. One of the theories was that it was written by a Wisconsinite with an axe to grind and he was calling him Scott (pejoratively, perhaps) and that the editors came along and put in their customary Mr. without realizing what they were doing. Either way, Althouse is dismissive of the whole article as simply a case of bashing Walker because they don’t like him while masking it behind some high blown rhetoric.
Dehumanization prior to vilification, demonizing next ….
Here’s the Alt house post. It’s worth looking at and she is in Wisconsin so has some previous experience with the Walker-bashing crowd.
” Of course we all make mistakes …”
I don’t. All my errors are deliberate and meant to challenge the alertness of any potential reader. Especially the egregiously stupid ones that make me look really, really bad.
DNW,
Great riposte! No better defense than a good offense.
Editors who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rhetorical stones.
Hilarious. Pathetic of the NY Times but sadly typical.
All is unfolding as Neo has noted. Any Republican who looks to be a viable candidate draws fire.
The NYT better be careful or they will soon be accused of “genderism” by the esteemed institution of CUNY down the street. Not only do they get his name wrong, they use the very male honorific of “Mr.” Uh-oh
http://thefederalist.com/2015/02/09/title-nein-cuny-eliminates-sex-specific-salutations/
What do the universities intend to use in place of the standard gender-marked honorifics? Will they extend “colleague” to students? Or go with “fellow”? “Comrade”?
Ann Althouse’s theory of how the editor who, perhaps, added the “Mr.” didn’t realize that “Scott” was suppose to be a put-down is the most likely.
Which is kind of typical of The New York mindset; it doesn’t happen in Manhattan or on the West Coast, then it really doesn’t matter.
Just my two cents from one of the “bridge and tunnel” crowd. (New Yorkers’ term of contempt for those of us who live outside the city, yet, go into the city)
We are in, “Alice in Wonderland”
This could hurt Mr. Scott’s standing in the polls, even as Governor Walker skyrockets.
Beam us up, Scotty!
The left always telegraph what they fear. They fear Walker in 2016 more than they feared Palin in 2008. Put the gop establishment onto the dunce chair and we might have a winner in 2016. Walker/Sessions!
Put a Badger in the White House!
Walker will never get in. His college record will become the most important issue since global warming and campus date rape.
And will be dealt with buy the media in the same manner.
Ok, who’s the smart ass who wrote, “buy” in my comment?
Well, at least a straddle strike is plausible in this instance.
And it was intentional anyway.
DNW:
I actually think the college issue won’t gain any traction, and that it could even backfire with blue-collar Democrats, whom the Democrats need to retain in order to win in 2016.
neo-neocon Says:
February 10th, 2015 at 1:59 pm
DNW:
I actually think the college issue won’t gain any traction, and that it could even backfire with blue-collar Democrats, whom the Democrats need to retain in order to win in 2016.”
Ok two issues
1, no traction in general
2, backfire with blue-collar Democrats
Regarding 1. Try it out with your friends. If they know anything about Walker they probably “know” that he is an “enemy of unions” and lacks a university degree.
See whether they will admit he is “intellectually qualified” to be president, if not in their estimation, “ideologically”.
And really who needs traction when you have a media drumbeat that will continue forever regardless?
Regarding 2. What, blue collar democrats? They died off 20 years ago.
Do you think that the current population inhabiting that social niche, or the present version of it, i.e., people who acknowledge that they are not competent as a class to deal with their own medical issues, really will insist that someone like themselves [presumably] in one way, yet conservative in a way that they are not, is smart enough to be president?
Do you really think that they will say to themselves that: “Scott Walker a Republican, lacks some of the same credentials I lack. Now he is being attacked by the people I generally politically identify with for that shortfall, rather than on the issues. As a person who lacks these credentials, I feel slighted. I will stand in solidarity with Scott Walker, conservative, Republican, because it would hurt me if people said those nasty and slighting things about me.“
DNW:
I have almost no friends who would ever consider voting for a Republican, even if that person had five PhDs, so the first question is completely moot.
As for your second point—I didn’t mean those blue-collar Democrats who, likewise, are solid yellow-dog Democrats. I didn’t make myself clear enough, but I’ll clarify now by saying I meant the sort of blue-collar Democrat who ended up voting for Reagan, the sort who is more moderate and middle-of-the-road. There are far fewer of them than there were in Reagan’s day, but they still exist.
In summary: I think Walker’s lack of degree won’t bother conservatives and Republicans, and those Independents who lean Republican. Liberals and the left were never ever going to vote for him anyway. So for all those groups his lack of degree doesn’t matter one way or another. For the small group of what for want of a better term I’ll call Reagan Democrats, the criticism of him for his lack of degree could backfire and cause people to like him more. Not because they have degrees or don’t have them (although I suppose that could enter into it, too), but because they realize degrees are irrelevant as far as common sense and smarts go.
I think this shows that they dread Scott.
Say, Neo, old buddy old pal,
Thought I’d share this from this morning’s [e-mail] in box …
E-mail header:
Subject: Thursday’s Headlines: As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit
Date: 2/12/2015 7:18:24 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: email@e.washingtonpost.com
Body of mail:
The morning’s most important stories, selected by Post editors and staff – Thu., Feb. 12, 2015
View in your Web browser
TOP STORIES
Putin announces cease-fire deal with Ukraine
MOSCOW –European leaders announced Thursday that a cease-fire deal beginning …
Within NBC, an intense debate over whether to fire Brian Williams …
BEIJING – When Zhang Yufen’s husband finally admitted to having an affair and left her to live with his mistress, clearing…
CIA scales back presence and operations in Yemen, home of potent al-Qaeda affiliate …
As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit MILWAUKEE – Scott Walker was gone. Dropped out. And in the spring of his senior year. In 1990, that news stunned his friends at Marquette University. Walker, the campus’s suit-wearing, Reagan-loving politico – who enjoyed the place so much that he had run for student body president – had left without graduating. Read full article »
So it would be pointless to ask as to whether they judge that Walker is in principle as intellectually qualified to hold office as Teddy Kennedy or Joe Biden?
Would they refuse as an intellectual exercise on their part? Probably. They would likely say they’d rather have Alcee Hastings as president than Walker.
The Reagan Democrats, as literal Democrat Reagan supporters, prosperous skilled trades blue collar workers from supposed bellwether counties like Macomb County, Michigan, are either mostly dead now, or in nursing homes.
Some of their children, fewer in number proportionately, and either better educated having moved up, or worse off, having been shut out of a dysfunctional economy, may vote for Walker. But, if so, it will likely be because that they are pissed off at being played for fools by their own “catch the wave” naivete in voting for Obama.
Or not. A not-really-Cherokee Cherokee woman may excite their emotions and yearnings for government love just as much as Obama did.
Some people never learn or take responsibility for their own lives. That’s why they are Democrats in the first place.