Are They Drunk?

Sometimes an editorial is so bad that you have to assume it was written after a wild office party. 

Here's the Tribune opining on the political reaction to the state's revenue shortfall.  This sentence looks like it's from one of those "Bad Hemingway" contests.  Surely the Tribune is joking. 

Naturally, politicans and staffers, — whom we finally rid ourselves of when the Legislature ended its session snatched this excuse to get back up on their soapboxes, either to downplay the shortfall’s significance (in the case of Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief financial adviser) or to demand the air-conditioning be fired up again at the Capitol so the 90 legislators can get back to grandstanding about their pet project or peeve (as in Rep. Russell Pearce, apparently taking to heart our advice to show some versatility if he intends to run for Congress).

My spelling skills aren't great, but I think "politicans" needs another "i."  And where does the other "--" go? When you set something off with those little dash marks, you need two sets.  But even when I fix the spelling and punctuation, the sentence still makes no sense. 

I was about to give that sentence my award for "Worst Sentence of the Year" until I read this one. 

Once things came to a head and cumulated in last year’s property tax election, politics and me-first sentiment displaced reasoned debate about the proper approach to the city’s future, not allowing anyone to conclude anything more specific than Mesans don’t like new taxes.

Cumulated?  Surely they were going for "culminated," but "culminated" is so awkward in that context I'm not sure.  And what's up with that dangling clause at the end?

And what does this mean?

The decline of the real estate market and other trends don’t auger well for this year, and if the bleeding isn’t stopped now, officials might be backed into a corner a few months or years from now; they might feel compelled to tap into the state’s “rainy day fund” to save nonessential but popular programs, or those difficult to stop funding for in the middle of the year.

I understood the sentence until the last phrase.  What the heck do they mean by "or those difficult to stop funding for in the middle of the year."

That sounds like Borat "Cultural Learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan."

There is no way that newspapers can afford to hire writers who have qualifications as high as most bloggers, so they are going to have to compensate by paying strict attention to detail in order to avoid embarrassing errors.  Or maybe they should stick to punch at those office parties. 

Comments

[Dewey]

ALL YOUR NEWSPAPERS ARE BELONG TO US. Who out there is still paying money for this stuff? Not anyone I know, that's for sure. This "expert analysis" reads like dripping condescension from a petulant (and stupid) 11-year-old. Which, come to think of it, it may actually be. Maybe somebody's kid swiped the company laptop?

[muckraker]

It was probably written by the new publisher.

[Michael Marizco]

Wow, what in the hell is going on over there?
Check out this sentence:
"Once things came to a head and cumulated in last year’s property tax election, politics and me-first sentiment displaced reasoned debate about the proper approach to the city’s future, not allowing anyone to conclude anything more specific than Mesans don’t like new taxes."

I don't have a clue what any of this means, but I'm pretty sure cumulated should have been culminated.

WEB SITES RULE! Some anyway.

[Aaron]

I had no idea that Yoda was hired by the Tribune....or is it Gary Busey...I have no idea but the BAC had to be high.

[Surprised]

Hopefully they'll get charged with EUI (editorializing under the influence.)

[Dewey]

Or how about Excessive Use of Metaphor Without a License:

Metaphor 1
...back up on their soapboxes...

Metaphors 2a and 2b (a twofer!)
...demand the air-conditioning be fired up again at the Capitol...

Metaphor 3
...grandstanding...

Metaphor 5
...came to a head...

Metaphor 6
...don’t auger [sic] well... (although it would take an auger to bury all these metaphors)

Metaphor 7
...if the bleeding isn’t stopped...

Metaphor 8
...backed into a corner...

Metaphor 9
...tap into the state’s “rainy day fund”...

Now I know why they needed a drink.

[Faith]

I'm glad I read the entire post before clicking the link because it made me laugh out loud at the first line of the editorial.

"We on the Tribune Editorial Board have a fair amount of experience now writing about government budget shortfalls...."

Really? You'd never know it to read this monstrosity.

[Travis]

Someone once told me that individuals come to a committee, each with a perfectly good color and combine them all until they come up with a brown mess. Perhaps the editorial board brought together a group of individuals, each with a perfectly good sentence, and they combined them until they came up with this swirl of editorial brown stuff.

[special agent johnny utah]

Translation of the final phrase: "...those programs for which it is difficult to terminate funding in the middle of the year."

[Joe Baby]

Get ready for a US District Judge to order additional ELL expenditures for this paper.