Blumner's "Freeby" not worth it

In October of 2007, the editorialist/pinata for the St. Petersburg Times Robyn Blumner implied that editorial columns such as hers constitute the "vegetables" of the news, presumably meaning that while not necessarily tasty, it's oh-so-good for you.

After last week's column extolling the virtues of Buckwheat groats and the current column recycling past columns, perhaps her writing should be re-designated as a cereal. I hope I do Boo Berry no injustice with the comparison.

Maybe it's that there is only a little more than a year left on the tenure of the worst-ever president-vice president combo in American history. Or maybe it's because the electorate appears less susceptible to fear-mongering and more responsibly attuned to prosaic bread-and-butter issues. Or maybe I've been so beaten down by the Bush administration's mass destruction of everything I value in my country - individual liberty, shared prosperity, honesty, integrity and competence in government - that there is nowhere to go but up.
(The St. Petersburg Times)

A Blumner column without a Bush-bash is nearly an oxymoron. One wonders whether Blumner was conscious at all during the Clinton administration. Blumner often gets rolling toward the point of her column with a few meandering paragraphs like that above. Perhaps that should be expected where the newspaper built a reputation for favoring soft and narrative leads.

The real point Blumner wants to make is the bestowing of her annual Freeby awards, which appears to be something of an excuse (at least in this case) to recognize some of her favorite columns from the past year.

Hilariously, Blumner starts with a rejection notice before she gets to the awards. She wanted to give one to the Democratic-controlled Congress for its role in restraining Bushitler (Blumner didn't use the term, but it wouldn't surprise me if she thinks it).

Their efforts failed to earn her seal of approval, so she went with her column from July--Stephen Abraham's role in the complaint that foreign nationals outside customary U.S. jurisdiction don't have adequate Habeas Corpus protections. The award to Abraham was "much-deserved," albeit apparently not worthy of presentation until after she mocked the inability of the Democratic Congress to earn one as a gimme.

I took a brief shot at that column way back when.

James Comey and John Ashcroft got runnerup consideration (apparently there's only one Freeby per year) for--what else--opposition to Bushitler.

Or maybe the whole "Freeby" thing was just a distraction from the theme of the column, which concludes:

As to 2008, it should hurry up and be over, so our country can start healing. Only when Bush is back clearing brush in Crawford, and Dick Cheney, his inconstant heart and Halliburton millions are away from the levers of power, is a better America remotely possible.

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