Syl Jones Writes, Syl Jones Wrong

The Strib's second most hateful writer (only because Nick Coleman writes more often), Syl Jones gives us this piece of reasoned, thoughtful prose in today's Star Tribune.

The point of it, (if he actually has one) is that there is no leadership in this country and what leadership exists is morally corrupt. His "proof" is to give a laundry list of complaints that are pretty much the MoveOn type-laundry list:

• Tim Pawlenty's "No New Taxes" pledge (as if MoveOn actually even notices MN)
  
• Bush "lied" about WMDs in Iraq (Not proven. Best conclusion from the facts, he listened to intel folks - not just ours - who believed they were there.)
  
• We liberated the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan
  
• Bush gave the press the middle finger (disproven in this video from The Political Teen, as long as one can tell the diffence between a middle and index finger. Maybe Syl can't.)
  
• Donald Rumsfeld told an unpleasant truth about war in general - "you go to war with the army you have and not the Army you want".
  
• Bob Novak "outed" Valerie Plame. (Scare quotes because it apparently was common knowledge among the press that Plame worked at CIA, and Novak apparently cooperated with the investigation sparked by his column. Hardly the act of a "prince of darkness".)

This looks a lot more like a litany of complaints about an administration he dislikes than evidence of moral decay. He didn't seem to think that moral decay involved oral sex in the Oval Office, so I have trouble understanding what standard other than a partisan one Syl is using. He doesn't mention such insignificant items as kickbacks and bribery in the Oil for Food program, for example. Is it just because it was administered by the UN, thus making corruption moral?

He complains the current administration is vulgar. This after referring to Karl Rove as a "Turd Blossom" and Ann Coulter as a "skank". Even so if the administration does have a "vulgar" edge, where would GWB get good taste instruction, Syl? From Howard Dean and Sid Blumenthal?

Did I mention the Star Tribune could improve its quality by an order of magnitude simply by firing Syl Jones and Nick Coleman (Like Janet Robert did, in Nick's case?) Not that it would improve the rest of the paper, just that it would provide the Strib less exposure to ridicule.