Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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I read this this and was surprised by... how small Minnesota Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman is. What a nasty little man.

Powerline, as readers of this site know, is one of the hottest right-of-center blogs, declared "Blog of the Year" by Time magazine. Apparently the Powerline guys have, in the past, dismissed Coleman's column as the work of a "partisan hack."

Coleman's volcanic response? The Powerline guys "pretend to be family watchdogs but they are Rottweilers in sheep's clothing... pursuing a right-wing agenda cooked up in conservative think tanks funded by millionaire power brokers... They should call themselves "Powertool." They don't speak truth to power. They just speak for power... They go by "fantasy names" that are apparently "compensating for" something.

(I'm sorry, did a mainstream media columnist just allege that his blogger critics are... deficient in their reproductive organs? This guy makes Dan Rather and Bill O'Reilly look like the epitome of class and cool.)

Coleman is just warming up when he gets to his "compensating" comment. He beats his chest and brags that he "covers the news fairly" while the Powerline guys are “extreme media” who are the real “partisan hacks.” You see, back in 1990, he wrote something critical about a Democratic candidate and his supporter, the publisher of the paper. (Ooooh. Non-partisan bonafides, from a fresh example a mere fourteen years ago! That Coleman, he keeps it real!) Anyway, the Powerline guys “know nothing that happened before last Tuesday.” They “have no commitment to serving the public” like Coleman has. They “are only interested in being a megaphone without oversight, disclosure of conflicts of interest, or professional standards.” They are (gasp) fellows at the Claremont Institute, which “seems to be obsessed with gays and guns” and (double gasp) likes Rush Limbaugh.

Readers are probably tiring of Coleman’s “attack, attack, attack” column, but he continues: The Powerline guys are “the spear of a campaign aimed at making Minnesota into a state most of us won't recognize,” unless you’re from Alabama. (As we all know, Alabamans are inherently evil.)

The Powerline guys are “trying to tear down” what Coleman’s ancestors, Irish sod busters built in the 1850s. Coleman has had poorly-paying jobs in the past, which nullifies any Powerline criticism that he could be a “limousine liberal.”

Then Coleman broadens his attack to include, “a daisy chain of right-wing blogs that is assaulting the Mainstream Media.” This daisy chain - which, I presume, would include the site you’re reading right now - “are so hip and cool they can make fun of the poor and the disadvantaged while working out of paneled bank offices.”

Coleman also writes that Powerline “campaigned shamelessly for awards, winning an online "Best Blog of 2004" a week before the Time honor” and “shilled for votes.” They “posted from work” (how Coleman knows this, I have no idea) and “slimed Sen. Mark Dayton.” (No specifics on which post “slimed” the senator - maybe this one?) Coleman also writes, ominously, that Powerline “sells thousands of dollars in ads” including t-shirts with Republican slogans. (Just how does the Minnesota Star Tribune make its money? Advertising has nothing to do with Coleman’s salary?) Coleman concludes by writing, for the seventh time in the column including the headline, that they are… “extreme.”

Whew.

Just how bad a column can you turn in at this paper before some editor there says, “Eh, not your best work, go back to the drawing board”? Was there not one editor at the Star Tribune who was willing to say, “You know, Nick, an entire column alleging that your critics have small reproductive organs could come across as a bit on the petty side. Could you put in a paragraph or two about some blogs you like?”

Every writer has his critics, and every blogger has his issues and targets that get under their skin and stir up the passions. I’m as guilty of it as anybody. (COUGHratherCOUGHwonkette- COUGHoreillyCOUGH.) But if I ever turned in a piece as packed-to-the-gills with nasty “I hate my critics” name-calling as this one, I hope Kathryn would utilize her in-case-of-emergency tranquilizer dart gun. (To say nothing of the heck Mrs. Kerry Spot would raise.)

Does anybody at the Star-Tribune think this column came across as petty, small, nasty, immature, snide, arrogant, and/or all-of-the-above? (Besides, one suspects, Lileks?) Is Coleman’s column space really attracting and interesting readers of that paper, or is it turning into his personal platform to mock and deride his critics in a manner that they can’t respond accordingly? It's not like either Powerline guy gets a column running opposite Coleman's.

I'm not a huge fan of boxing, but I remember when Mike Tyson bit off Evander Holyfield's ear. It was the moment that Tyson’s days as a serious boxer were over, and he was revealed as more of a wild animal than a professional athlete — he couldn’t compete with Holyfield under the rules of the game, so he turned to a nastier, darker, more brutal route.

Coleman has taken on the Powerline guys in the past, and apparently come up short. So he’s going for their ear instead.

UPDATE: Wow. A reader reminds us, "Nick Coleman's father was among the most powerful men in the state, including four terms as Senate Majority Leader, from 1973 to 1981. His step mother, Deborah Howell, worked at the Minneapolis Star from 1965 to 1979, rising to the post of City Editor. In 1973, Nick was given a job as city hall reporter, for the Minneapolis Star. In 1979, Deborah Howell moved to the Pioneer Press serving as Managing Editor, then Executive Editor, until 1990. In 1986, stepson Nick was given a columnist position, at, guess what, the St. Paul Pioneer Press."

Talk about your political-media aristocracy. No wonder he's so enraged by a bunch of no-name bankers building an audience comparable to or surpassing his and stepping onto his turf. He was born and bred for this role of Media Prince, and these peasants are acting like his equals!

Of course, it could be worse. The targets of his rage could be just a bunch of guys wearing pajamas.

UPDATE: Note Coleman's objection and a correction to which paper he worked for in 1973 here.

[Posted 12/29 11:50 AM]