WaPost Columnist Hates Florida?

January 31, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

I have never seen, from a supposedly serious media establishment, a more hate filled rant against a particular state in this great country than this screed against Florida in the Washington Post. Granted, writer Libby Copeland has spewed hate filled rants in the past, but this one is particularly mean-spirited. Copeland seems to hate the elderly who’ve moved to Florida, she hates the business community there, appears to scoff at the asylum seekers from Cuba that settled there, and claims that all dreams die there. And what does it all boil down to? Al Gore’s loss in the 2000 election, naturally! At this rate, I’d suggest she not vacation in Florida in the near future after this slam on everything Sunshine State.

Ostensibly, Copeland is using the fact that Florida is seemingly the end of Rudy Giuliani’s road to the White House as the excuse for her evisceration of the state. According to Copeland, dreams are dashed in Florida just like Rudy’s were. She warns us to “Beware of the Sunshine State, Where It’s Easy To Get Burned,” and thinks that Florida’s good days are behind her, stranded in the 1970’s, “since those were the good days for Florida.”

But it is obvious, really, that Giuliani has little to do with her disgust with Florida because he makes such a brief appearance in the long hit piece. In fact, of a 16 paragraph piece, Rudy’s name only shows up in the first and the last two paragraphs. So it’s plain that current political analysis is as far from her mind as can be and that beating up on Florida is her main goal.

Copeland’s disdain for the state is palpable. Some of Copeland’s slams, and there are quite a few, are as follows:

According to Copeland, Florida is:

A place of “land scams”
Florida “continually betrays us” (”two words: Al Gore,” she says)
It’s a place where dreams are “dashed”
The only good days for Florida were the 1970s
It’s “tough on people” in Florida
It is “hell” to live there
The Everglades are dying
Politicians are “weird” in Florida

… and those are just the direct barbs. She also offers some underhanded snippiness and some vague slaps on top of those more obvious slams.

And she really loved the “dreams dashed” angle, here. She employs the lament three times.

Florida is the place for dreams… And for having your dreams dashed.
(Dreams dashed.)
So much for dreams, fading like the weak winter sunlight in a place far from Florida.

Now it’s possible that Copeland is trying for sarcasm, or wry humor… though fails miserably. With the style she attempted, it seems that she imagines herself to be the next Dave Barry — if the old one were gone — or maybe a less informed P.J. O’Rourke with her offhandedness. Unfortunately she merely comes off bitter as opposed to amusing, blinded instead of probing.

But, like I said, her main complaint goes all the way back to the 2000 election. I guess that with Gore’s loss there, it soured Copeland so on the state that she has nothing good left to say about it. In this, she is little different than most lefties in this country who are still bitter that Gore, the wooden former VP and current globaloney high priest, failed to beat Bushitler in 2000. Her sunshine disappeared that gloomy day never to return.

Florida is the place for dreams, political and otherwise. And for having your dreams dashed.

(Two words, as if they needed to be mentioned: Al. Gore.)

Yes it all comes down to her crying in her beer over the loss in 2000… STILL.

Of course, Copeland has raised eyebrows with her poisoned pen in the past. See her attack of Monica Lewinski that so many thought was just mean and lacking any merit for a little example of that.

Upon reflection, one wonders if Copeland turns to the pen as a replacement for a good therapist and feels compelled to spew her vitriol every so often like a release valve. Too bad, the rest of us are at the other end of that opened spigot from the acid vat of her soul. She must be such an unhappy person.

Sad that she tries to bring the rest of us down into her her private hell. Also sad that the Washington Post doesn’t just ask her to hire a therapist instead.

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston