NOTE: I started this fisking Friday night, but then I lost Internet access and wasn't able to post it.
How do you know Nick Coleman has completely lost his journalistic marbles? Well, I mean, besides by reading virtually anything he writes. I'll tell you how: he quotes a commenter from Craigslist.org.
After the appalling murder in Uptown of Michael Zebuhr, a visitor who died after a street robbery on March 18, Twin Cities blogs and discussion forums zeroed in on the likely culprits. The killers, many agreed, were Somalis.
Or, as one enlightened soul put it in a posting on craigslist.org, "dirty somali ....." I've deleted the expletive he felt free to use.
Now, Coleman has had it in for bloggers since before he could write his name which, according to my trusted sources, was about three years ago. But, honestly, the man should know better than to lift a venomous quote from a blog or forum and hoist it up as proof of ANYTHING. I mean, how freakin' LAZY CAN YOU GET? While he's dishing up the hateful comments from blogs and forums, maybe he could amble on over to Democratic Underground, where he can REALLY bathe in hateful rhetoric.
I would like to introduce that fellow to some Somalis I know. But maybe he would rather pass. Mr. Big Mouth was wrong: Police have not arrested any Somalis in Zebuhr's murder. Instead, they have arrested a number of good old born-in-the-USA Americans.
This is what Nick Coleman has been reduced to. . . matching wits, such as they are, with a commenter on Craigslist.org, hoisting this commenter's bigoted brain drool up as if it's indicative of people's attitude in general. This from the man who once complained of demagoguery?
What we almost had here was a 21st century lynching: No one ended up swinging from a tree, but some people were definitely in the mood.
Oh, for crying out loud. Right, Nick. Yeah, whatever. According to some Internet commenters, the moon landing was staged, Kennedy was shot by his wife, and Princess Diana was assassinated by Rudy Giuliani. In other words, Nick, you have no business whatsoever putting any stock at all into what some crazy dumbass commented on some forum. A lot of people on the Internet are bat-shit insane. That's your story. Film at 11.
"I was worried about something like that happening," says Omar Jamal, head of the Somali Justice Center, who met with Uptown residents after the shooting. "If I had turned on my radio and found out that a couple of Somalis were killed out of vengeance, I would not have been surprised."
Except, you know what? It didn't happen. There's no story here. None. Without the nutball Craigslist.org comment to draw from, Nick's swatting at air.
As for the rest of the column. . . well, it's Nick Coleman, so what can I really say? He can't think, and he can't write, but we've known that for years.
Posted by Ryan at April 7, 2006 10:36 PM | TrackBackI have kind of a mixed response. I see something like this and I think, "My god, what an idiot."
Then I think, "There's no good reason I shouldn't be able to get this man's job."
There was a whole thing about this in Star Wars, I think.
Posted by: Joshua at April 12, 2006 04:12 PMIs Nick the newspaper owner's son or something? That's pretty much the only reason I can see him keeping his job.
Or he's got some good dirt on the owner or EiC?
For a good laugh, read the Craigslist rants sometime. Some of them are pretty damned funny. But then, some are sad and ugly.
Posted by: Johnny Huh? at April 13, 2006 04:25 PM
Stumble It!
