[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.
Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, in the process of telling the Democrats that they need to damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead, drops this gem:
Charles Kraut-hammer doesn’t represent any swing voters.
Not having the print edition of Newsweek handy – like pretty much the rest of America – I don’t know if this is reproduced there. But I’m curious: is the ethnic sneer there Alter’s, or his editor’s? I suspect it’s the latter, actually, but you never know.
Moe Lane
PS: What? No, actually, the Democrats should totally listen to Alter. Really. Please.
Crossposted to RedState.
Careful, Moe. Probably that was auto-inserted at the end of a line, then something was added or subtracted and the hyphen remained.
I shall provide them with precisely the benefit of the doubt that they provide others, Dan.
Precisely.
I’m also starting to get the usual pushback, faux-concerned edition. Apparently some people don’t like having their own being done unto as they have done.
(pause)
Well, that sort of makes sense.
Isn’t a kraut-hammer used to make sauerkraut? It is Oktoberfest time. Maybe he was referring to that? (not)
Sure, benefit of the doubt . . . that it was not intended to appear as printed. But, given the level of invective directed toward Obama’s opposition by members of various media, including Newsweek, over quite a period of time, why should we not assume that Alter or editor thought it?
Interesting times.
Oops! Jumbled fingers.
But they have layer after layer of checkers and editors. Leaving in a hyphen like that by accident is something you see when it’s amateur hour. How could that possibly happen with a nationally known columnist that’s been around for decades?
So which is it?
1. Newsweek is amateur hour
2. Newsweek feels purveying cheap ethnic slurs is ok in the right circumstances
The only question that I have is which option would be more damaging to their bottom line. What do you think?
This is Newsweek’s droll attempt to be relevant.
Maybe, the hyphen was put in to jam the article against ad space, and some advertiser changed his mind.
The other thing that just grabs ya, (similar to Anita Dunn’s reference to Lee Atwater), even if these people ‘know the names,’ they’re clueless, absolutely clueless of, let’s say, what a living Lee Atwater could’a done to them.
Krauthammer’s name is not hyphenated. But it could be those elites are so enamored of everything european, hypenating names is in their elitest dictionary?
Meanwhile, why would Krauthammer care? Doesn’t Nixon’s rule still apply? Get mentioned ‘above the fold,’ and it doesn’t actually matter what they say.
Or Reagan’s rule. Make sure you look good in the visuals.
So, are they accusing him of being an anti-German bigot?
Stupid question of the day: You haven’t been listening to the TJH, have you? Just indulging my curiosity.
If so, I’ve been a listener since 2000. If not, pay it no heed–frequency analysis and coincidence, nothing more.
Horatius: I’m guessing you mean the Thomas Jefferson Hour? I’m guessing that because the Turkish Journal of Haematology doesn’t seem to quite fit. 🙂
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/TJH
…if so: nope, never heard of it before tonight.
Too much can be read into a misplaced hyphen. Not having seen the dead tree version of the story, it may be nothing more than a hyphen to justify the line, ie., to turn it because the proper noun was simply too big to fit without being broken up.
Years ago, when i worked at the new York Post, Sharpton & Co. raised a huge stink over just such a typo. It was an editorial waffling on about the need for democracy in Africa or some such worthy snore-fest. In any case, the automated typesetter “tripped” on the word “countries”, doubling up on some letters and emitting others.
The result, as it appeared in the paper was “leaders in African coon trees”.
It was entirely innocent, but that didn’t stop Sharpton arrriving with busloads of rent-a-mob protesters, all screaming that it was evidence of the Post’s inherent racism. Attempts to explain that it was evidence of a cash-strapped newspaper in need of a new a typesetter and some sharper-eyed proof readers fell on deaf ears, needless to say.
“Benefit of the doubt.” That’s what the MSM was unwilling to give Rush regarding alleged racist quotes. F
Those stray hyphens get into my stuff every now and then. I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.
What’s wrong exactly with hammering kraut?
I’m not sure about the hyphenation excuse. I looked his other articles and there were more ragged edges with large unbroken but breakable words. If I had to put money on it…
It’s a carry-over from the typesetting for the print edition. Happens all the time in the transition from typeset to webset.
Commenter Dan Collins was first and rightest. This is simply an orphan hyphen, without significance.
And yet, there’s an ethnic sneer in a Newsweek article.
Let’s give Newsweak the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they missed the orphaned hyphen because they were too busy flushing imaginary Korans down imaginary toilets.
When I read the article, I didn’t notice the hyphen at all.
What I did notice is the strict adherence to a paradigm no longer in place.
Who actually gives a ripping farg about what the GOP thinks anymore? Or the Dems for that matter.
We have a political class that is so far beyond caring about what we, as voters, think that it’s become a joke.
I don’t give two bits about what some Newsweek pontificator says.
I want someone to say “Stop!” to the prolific government spending for the “sake” of me and mine.
If you have a Kindle you’re very used to these discretionary hyphens that become “un-invisible” during various data conversion processes by publishers that depend a bit too much on automation without proofreading. Depending on the publisher, they either appear as hyphens, or they just beome spaces and the word becomes two words.
If Newsweek is trying to use regex to automate the conversion of its print edition to the Web, then this kind of thing is expected. But don’t dispair: The tipping point is close where the Web version will be the original and the print version will be grepped from the Web.
I love all these people saying ‘give them the benefit of the doubt’. How many of the ‘real’ news outlets call the Tea Partiers teabaggers (har har har)? Lets face it, when it comes to sophomoric slurs, swearing, completely overwrought invective and ad hominem attacks, there’s only one side in this thing.
I have pointed out articles in TIme and Newsweek to both my dentist and OB/GYN that has resulted in them stopping their subscriptions. Unfortunately, Time and Newsweek doesn’t believe anyone is allowed to cancel, so they keep sending it.
I asked my doctors — do you agree with these radical theories? Having awesome PRIVATE health insurance, they realized they needed my business more than they needed to be tools of the radical MSM.
Unless they’re fans of Hogan’s Heroes reruns who under the age of 40 is even going to know what it means?
It’s likely true that this is an orphan hyphen.
However.
These people are bullies. Giving bullies the benefit of the doubt (“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean to trip me that time – he was just stretching his leg!”) does not work to amend their behavior. The only thing that works is to call them on anything doubtful and keep the pressure on so that they start to watch themselves.
If they didn’t mean this to be what it looks like at first glance, let them explain that and apologize for the mixup.
When in the hell has anyone hyphenated a proper noun?
Yes, the Thomas Jefferson Hour. Like I said, just indulging my curiosity—the phrase “Very droll” was used repeatedly recently on the show, and since it’s not a common phrase these days…
Anyway, do try out TJH. My highest recommendation.