For the second time this week I’m going to criticize a Worldnutdaily columnist not for the content of what they’ve written — though the content is almost always terrible too — but for how bad their writing is. Having given weekly columns to a minivan full of quasi-celebrities and has-beens, the WND is now stuck with paragraphs like this one from former MLB pitcher John Rocker:
The human psyche generally and most times unintentionally must consider feelings, emotions, current circumstances and “gut” instincts when determining heads or tails as it relates to an important pending choice. Most times these intangible sources that affect our ability to decide are simply and collectively referred to as “heart.” When cold truths and logic tell us to go right, occasionally our hearts override, and a left turn is made – sometimes for the better, more often than not, however, to our detriment, leaving us weeks, months or possibly years later reminding ourselves what case blatant logic had presented.
Holy run-on sentences, Batman. It doesn’t get any better:
Looking back at the facts that were/are undeniable regarding now-President Obama’s pre-presidential life, nothing leading up to the election of 2008 would have given anyone the reality on which to base an argument as to why Barack Obama was up to the task of fixing the problems that existed within the world’s largest economy, managing the most powerful military ever known to man or successfully dealing with a host of other concerns that were and in most cases still are of great importance to many in our society. To formulate a decision based solely on the grounds of fundamental logic would have told anyone that an individual who possessed no academic legacy, had authored no significant piece of legislation at the state or federal level, functioned at the rudimentary task of “community organizer” in his not-too-distant past, while having strong ties to known terrorists such as Bill Ayers and America-hating characters such as Jeremiah Wright, could not aptly perform the duties that would be demanded.
Yet, while considering the many facts that should have made this man an almost laughable candidate, against all logic he was elected our 44th president. So why, or more importantly how, has a man who has draped himself in mediocrity his entire existence risen perhaps to the pinnacle of mankind?
A man who became famous mostly for saying bigoted things about people on a subway is calling a man who was editor of the Harvard Law Review mediocre. You can’t make this shit up. John Rocker would need several promotions to become mediocre.
24 comments
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Marcus Ranum
October 20, 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Journalism is dead, and has begun to smell.
John Hinkle
October 20, 2012 at 11:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s really not that difficult to figure out, Mr. Longsentence. Could it be his opponent was Palin comparison?
Pierce R. Butler
October 20, 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
At least Rocker, or his tone-deaf WND editor, seems to know the difference between “affect” and “effect”.
I shudder to think of hearing Rocker try to give a speech.
bryanjohnson
October 20, 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Looking back at the facts that were/are undeniable regarding now-President Obama’s pre-presidential life, nothing leading up to the election of 2008 would have given anyone the reality on which to base an argument as to why Barack Obama was up to the task of fixing the problems that existed within the world’s largest economy, managing the most powerful military ever known to man or successfully dealing with a host of other concerns that were and in most cases still are of great importance to many in our society.”
Good lord, this sounds like a high school freshman trying to sound all academic-y. Awkward prepositions poppin’ up like 9th grader acne…
ArtK
October 20, 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Clown car. Definitely a clown car. Only not intentionally funny.
slc1
October 20, 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You know, some of the same comments were made about Abraham Lincoln, particularly his competence to direct a major war, given his total absence of military experience. This as compared with his opponent, Jefferson Davis, a graduate of West Point, officer in the Mexican War, and Secretary of War in the Pierce Administration.
The upshot was that Lincoln became a great war leader whose grasp of military strategy was not equaled until Grant became the commanding general of the army. Davis was totally incompetent as a military strategist, his personality being more suited to the seminary then to the state house in Richmond.
The difference between the two men was that Lincoln had a fine mind while Davis had a mediocre mind at best. In military matters, there is no substitute for a fine mind. As MH has pointed out, President Obama has a fine mind.
Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
October 20, 2012 at 12:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah I’m with others on
…1. Minivan is way too small
and
…2. A significant role (roll? the publishers might have rolled them to get them to work with john rocker) for the editors in producing that. The thing that gets me is that despite the laborious run-ons, a literary excess which I, myself, would never indulge, many of those longer sentences actually convey meaning, albeit in a fashion that requires unreasonable mental work in connecting earlier clauses with later ones, and thus are at least in theory coherent.
That’s not something I’ve come to expect from John Rocker.
frankb
October 20, 2012 at 12:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So being on the same civic committee means strong ties, does it? Also I would say that John Hagee has Jeremiah Wright beat on America-hating, as well as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and D. James Kennedy.
Rodney Nelson
October 20, 2012 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
frankb #8
Falwell has given up America hating, on account of being dead.
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
October 20, 2012 at 1:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Technically, the quoted material doesn’t contain any run-on sentences. Mind-numbing verbosity, on the other hand . . . .
carolineborduin
October 20, 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And he did it in only four sentences!
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
October 20, 2012 at 1:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Journalism, sacrificed at the altar of opinion.
bobmunck
October 20, 2012 at 1:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed, Obama was President of the Law Review. There are several editors each year, I believe. A minor point.
xmnr
October 20, 2012 at 1:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
John Rocker had a 13-22 record and a 3.42 ERA, so he knows something about being mediocre.
caseloweraz
October 20, 2012 at 2:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“The human psyche generally and most times unintentionally must consider feelings, emotions, current circumstances and “gut” instincts when determining heads or tails as it relates to an important pending choice.”
You must, that is you have to, are required to, unintentionally consider this: existential non-existence in the context of subliminal consciousness.
In other words, “unintentionally must consider” is words at war with one another.
“Most times these intangible sources that affect our ability to decide are simply and collectively referred to as ‘heart.’”
Heart, gut, it’s all just innards, innit?
More seriously, I think his use of “heart” springs from his belief, a belief widespread among the Right in 2008, that Obama had somehow seduced the majority of the electorate into believing him a political Messiah.
godlesspanther
October 20, 2012 at 3:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Good clear writing is the result of good clear thinking. I do use mixed metaphors occasionally. I do it intentionally for the purpose of humor.
“The human psyche generally and most times unintentionally must consider feelings, emotions, current circumstances and “gut” instincts when determining heads or tails as it relates to an important pending choice.”
This is not intentional humor, it’s unintentional stupidity.
sebastianmarch
October 20, 2012 at 3:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unfortunately, this idiot is probably going to get his wish, and the WND crowd will thank him for his brilliant analysis.
jayarrrr
October 20, 2012 at 3:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So what Rocker’s saying here is that the old Demented poster child for Low T, Mr. Grumpy Getoffmylawn, would have been better for us why?
Oh, lemme guess, it’s that white skin thing again, ain’t it?
No minivan, definitely a clown car.
Makoto
October 20, 2012 at 4:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“So why, or more importantly how, has a man who has draped himself in mediocrity his entire existence risen perhaps to the pinnacle of mankind?”
He went from a single-parent home (at times, admittedly), is biracial in a society that still has racism issues across the land, to become the President of the United States. Isn’t that somewhat like one of the most amazing success stories you’ve ever heard of? Even if you take it as “went from mediocrity to PotUS”, that’s still an amazing tale of success from an average background.
And he somehow wants to frame this as a *bad* thing? Aren’t we trying to tell kids across the land “you can become anything if you try!”? Case in point – our current President.
enki23
October 20, 2012 at 7:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It never fails to amaze me that this “news” organization, which I presume wants to be taken seriously, gave a job to a guy who is famous (as a talker, anyway) only for being an especially nasty bigot.
dingojack
October 20, 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think he was trying for:
‘The human psyche generally, and most times unintentionally, must consider feelings, emotions, current circumstances and “gut” instincts when determining ‘heads or tails‘ as it relates to an important pending choice’.
Still, it kind of gets away from him at the end there (in a ‘wibbly-wobbley, time-wimey stuff’ sort of way)
.
Dingo
fifthdentist
October 20, 2012 at 11:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rocker definitely should enter the annual competition in which writers do their worst imitations of Faulkner.
Pieter B, FCD
October 21, 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Kudos to Marcus Ranum and Crip Dyke for making me snort aloud in a room full of people. Good thing I’d finished my coffee.
left0ver1under
October 21, 2012 at 9:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
- John Lydon (a/k/a Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) after the New York Post depicted John Rocker with the headline “Johnny Rotten” (c. 2000)