Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Garrison Keillor Presents

A Prairie Home Companion Special Election Night Poetic Commentary

Reverend Jesse Jackson and New York Times Publisher Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger

Invoke the Bard of New England

With the Frost There Comes a Thumpin’

First Reading

“Sobbing in the ‘hood on Election Evening”

(Apologies, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”)

Recited by the Reverend Jesse Jackson

These exit polls, portending woe,
Don’t mean that I’ll be eating crow.
I warned him, made it crystal clear
The race was always his to blow.

His counselors must think I’m seer
Because I said he’d lose last year
When all he prized was Kobe steak
And flailing at that little sphere.

My urban base is stunned awake;
What will the new Man give—or take?
As is my wont, I’ll school the creep
And show the world he don’t know Jake. (more…)

If you live in Chicago and your only source of news is the venerable Chicago Tribune, it would take you a while to figure out that something happened in Massachusetts Tuesday night. One would think that an editor might place a story with the following lead – oh, I don’t know – front page, top of the fold, maybe?

In a stunning blow to Democrats, Republican Scott Brown ended the party’s half-century grip on the Senate seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy, coming from nowhere to give the GOP the crucial 41st vote needed to thwart President Obama and his agenda, possibly starting with healthcare.

It ended up on page fourteen.

Allow me to repeat: page fourteen. An election that stunned both parties, sent a thundering message to the President and his party, threatens the very existence of the signature piece of legislation that this administration – and the Chicago Tribune – believe is vital to the health and welfare of Americans is a story that, in the judgment of what used to be the beacon of Midwestern values, less important than finding Asian carp DNA in Lake Michigan yet again. (more…)