The Washingon Post profiles Virginia blogger Greg Letiecq today, and even as an A1 below-the-fold feature of the sort they often runs on weekeends, it’s an odd read. It’s not that writer Nick Miroff can’t disguise his loathing of Letiecq’s website, Black Velvet Bruce Li — it’s that he seems to go out of his way to make it blindingly obvious to even the least perceptive reader that he really, really doesn’t like what Letiecq stands for, and it ultimately hurts the piece.
Here are a few of the unnecessary sneering asides that mar Miroff’s article:
“Fairfax County Harboring Illegal Aliens” was the title of a recent, and typical, Letiecq posting… …to dismiss Black Velvet Bruce Li as the rantings of a fringe extremist underestimates Letiecq’s reach and appeal… …fanning anti-illegal immigrant sentiment — and providing a venue for raw, sometimes bigoted views… …he points to his neighbor’s house, emanating loud salsa music, where he believes two “illegal aliens” are living. He doesn’t have proof of this, of course, but pronounces his assumption as fact anyway.
I could even be persuaded that Miroff’s reference to Letiecq’s “French Canadian” background is an underhanded effort to induce thoughts of hypocrisy in the Post’s “elite” readership.
Would the Post have cast Letiecq in such a negative light if he had been a liberal?
Actually, yes. On Saturday, April 15, 2006, the Post gave the same treatment to Maryscott O’Connor, who runs MyLeftWing.
Loud, crass and instantaneous… …can one person sitting alone in a living room, typing her fingertips numb on a keyboard, make a difference? … …on it goes, every day, around the clock, on Web site after Web site… …it is where O’Connor finished her evolution from lost soul to angry soul…
Even the accompanying photographs and opening paragraphs of each article are strikingly similar. Here’s Miroff today:
Illegal immigrant ice cream vendors might be spreading leprosy in Manassas. Prince William County has been infiltrated by “unassimilated marxist radicals.” Manassas Park police covered up the predations of five Hispanic men who gang-raped a woman in the street in June. These claims, among others, have been made in recent months by Greg Letiecq, whose popular blog, Black Velvet Bruce Li, offers “Blog-Fu for Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park politics” — often making up in passion what it lacks in proof.
And Finkel last spring:
In the angry life of Maryscott O’Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O’Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer. Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O’Connor’s reputation is as one of the angriest of all. “One long, sustained scream” is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.
But did Miroff pull actually his punches? One difference between the profiles is that Finkel quoted liberally (so to speak) from related blog postings, which were more lurid than the quotes O’Connor supplied. O’Connor: “I’m insane with rage and grief. But I also feel more connected than I ever have.” A Kossack: “I feel like I’m being molested everytime I hear [Bush's] voice.” In comparison, Miroff only alluded to unsavory comments on Letiecq’s website. Whether this is because the quotes were insufficiently awful or unquotable in a family newspaper, I can’t say.
So maybe Letiecq actually got off easy. Or maybe, considering how the leftosphere rose up in righteous outrage to defend O’Connor, Letiecq missed his opportunity to becoming a rallying point for immigration-focused bloggers.
Meanwhile, Letiecq is off for the weekend but has a note about the article on his site. As a non-resident of Virginia, I don’t read his site much and can’t evaluate Miroff’s assertions based on my own impressions. But if this comment section is at all representative, it does seem those elitist Posties can give as good as they get:
# Anonymous said on 22 Jul 2007 at 7:08 am: How can you tell you are in a French Canadian town in Maine? By the maple syrup taps on the telephone poles
Sometimes it seems as if the Post can’t cover bloggers as crazy people, they won’t cover them at all.
P.S. I’m not saying that the title of this post should be taken literally, but consider David Von Drehle’s twinned profiles of conservative Betsy Newmark and liberal Barbara O’Brien in July 2005. They were portrayed as pugilistic, yes, but certainly not crazy. Where did that article run? W12.
