Time (And Money And Publicity) Heals All Wounds

It was just three short months ago that McBride took umbrage with a piece that was in Milwaukee Magazine. She was upset because they gave one of her arch-rivals, Eugene Kane, a chance to get a shot in at her, without offering her a chance to rebut Kane's remarks. (Gee, that sounds a lot like the Fairness Doctrine, and we know that can't be good. Wink, wink.)

She was irked enough to even write a letter to the magazine to express her displeasure.

Now, in the November issue of Milwaukee Magazine, there is a feature story about Lo Cha Thao. (The magazine is available at a store near you, or you can go here, to see if they've put up the new edition yet, which they hadn't done at the time of this writing.)

If you haven't already guessed, the piece is called Cloak & Dagger, and was written by our own McBride. I guess they have made up and there are no more hurt feelings.

I am not going to go into a full critique of the article, especially regarding how accurate it may or may not be. If the gentle reader wishes, they may read it and research it for themselves. I would imagine that it is fairly accurate as far as the facts go.

However, there are three specific items I would like to point out. One is where she she has the following paragraph:

It was a "shocking" story, some news accounts suggested. There is talk of getting Clint Eastwood interested in a movie. And some are now calling Thao the "Hmong Jack Bauer," alluding to the heroic counterterrorism operative in the TV series "24."

Given McBride's acclamation of Jack Bauer, it would be interesting to know who the "some" are that refer to Thao thusly. (And not everyone finds Bauer "heroic", but that's besides the point.)

The second point is when she describes State Senator Dave Zien as "madcap". (I had thought of making a quip about taking offense at the phrase madcap [get it, mad cap-capper], but will pass on it given recent events). In the technical definition of the word, madcap might be appropriate. But others might feel the term to be a bit light-hearted for the reality.

The third, which I doubt McBride is personally responsible for, is the biographical blurb of McBride that they have in the front of the magazine, in which they have listed among her accomplishments of being "an award-winning Web commentator." The only Web award that McBride had listed on her site would be the one from Blognet (which had been #1, then #11, and now has been removed from her site).

As I said, I doubt this was McBride's doing, but the work of a lazy intern. But I would also like to point out that Whallah! is a Pulitzer Prize Nominee. So there.