The other day, after I referred to John McCain and Sarah Palin as “immature jerk[s],” NMC fretted off-blog about that language, suggesting it could alienate some readers. Well. Read Dana Milbank’s account of what Sarah Palin and her crazed followers said and did yesterday in Florida, and then tell me “immature jerk” is over the line. I hereby up the bid to “fascist maniac.”
You foloers who care about the Republican Party — hadn’t you better get on the phone to your highest-placed party contacts and demand that they get McCain-Palin straightened-up before they completely ruin you all?
I hope those heels are the pointed toe type-she’s gonna need ‘em to kill the roaches she’ll be bringing out with all of this garbage.
Andrew Sullivan gets the picture too.
But . . . um . . . Steve Schmidt missed something.
Actually, the line is this: Show don’t tell.
Telling someone that a public figure is an immature jerk is a waste of breath. Demonstrating it so the reader thinks to themselves “what an immature jerk” means you’ve convinced someone. I don’t think “telling” advances the conversation much but “showing” does.
NMC, consider then WaPo’s and comment #2’s showings.
TPM’s Greg Sargent just talked to Dana Milbank, who says:
The base and its candidates may be “riled,” all right, but no way that “good” applies to any of them.