January 11, 2007

“No Matter How Much You Hate Bush…” (What’s Up With the San Francisco Chronicle?)

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Generally, I have a pretty low regard of the San Francisco Chronicle. I want to support my local paper but…I just can’t. It’s the flabby writing, the columnists who don’t pick up the phone, the mindless cheerleading of the wine and food industry, the substitution of PC bell ringing for real reporting on race or poverty, the subordination of the Chronicle‘s home page to the (also bad, and shamelessly clunky) SFGate entertainment portal…in sum, it tends to reinforce every stereotype of yuppie Bay Area solipsism. All of which I would forgive, really, if it just had some damn edge. Of any kind.

(Following exceptions noted: The Balco stuff, that was good. Ok, and the homeless series ; I’d take issue with pieces of it, even premises of it, but they pulled out some stops.)

But I digress. What the hell does this have to do with Bush?

Well, I’ll tell you. I was about to talk up a great piece by the Chron‘s D.C. Bureau Chief that was funny, to the point, analytical…but in the minutes that it has taken me to write this post, that story has fallen off the SFGate/Chron homepage. I dove into the architecture for more than 10 minutes…but I still can’t find it. So piece by DC Bureau Chief, on a decision by our fair leader to send more troops into Iraq, written for a city with strong feelings on the matter…can’t find it.

And that, in a nutshell, is the San Francisco Chronicle.

In my search for the missing Bush analysis piece, I did find following story, however: “New Year’s nightmare for visiting Yale singers“. Which is actually quite juicy, if you’re into local politics: Matt Gonzalez meets “Fajitagate” meets PacHeights scion deploying his peeps to beat up Yalies.

Though, on that last point, these paragraphs— “But witnesses said one of the uninvited guests — who happens to be the son of a prominent Pacific Heights family — pulled out his cell phone and said, “I’m 20 deep. My boys are coming. According to Rapagnani and others, the Yale kids barely made it around the corner when they were intercepted by a van full of young men.”—make me wonder why this “son of prominent Pacific Heights family” was not named.

And also, what’s up with Pac Heights boys rolling up on Yalies? They’ll all work for McKinsey one day…

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