Ohio papers lay out welcome mat for Kasich

It's been a terrible year for mainstream establishment newspapers. They  have faced endorsement options of death by   hanging or  by firing squad (Trump, Cruz) or by a happy wanderer (Kasich)  who  is the son of a mailman who has been trying to part the waters with his vision of the Pearly Gates.

So with  Tuesday's Ohio primaries approaching,  the Beacon Journal and Plain
Dealer (as well as a majority of the other Buckeye papers) urged Republican voters to support Gov. Kasich  with hospitable home state praise while ignoring many of his  warts.

I know.  They will argue that they had little choice, which, in this instance ignored the option of endorsing nobody.  The PD editorial writers  described their man as "an experienced leader who understands the art of compromise"  and a "compassionate conservative".

 Not really. Particularly for things  that matter the most to women,  gays, Planned Parenthood, schools, urban  budgets and climate change. Etc.

The BJ was a tad testier.

Although  conceding that  the  governor's hyper-self serving vision of his state "departs in many ways from  reality,"  it credits him with being "more the problem solver"   and concludes that he would be the "best candidate now in the mix to emerge  in July at the national party convention".

Aside from his squishy attitude toward climate change, moving back and forth on the topic, there's also his absurd views on public education.  He has said that since Ohio's charter schools, which are among the worst in the nation,  have worked so well, we might consider "charter  universities".

Please.  The University of Akron already has more problems than it is willing to admit.

Now I ask: Should "no endorsement" be an option rather than trying to create something from nothing?

GOP convention in Cleveland? Credit Democrat FitzGerald

Re-Posted from Plunderbund 



Days in Northern Ohio have become much livelier in the heat of summer.  The past week or so, for example, has produced three tornadic events:  A real tornado in Medina County, LeBron James' epic decision to return to the Cavaliers,  and, of course, the Republican eruptive choice of Cleveland for its 2016 national convention.

So far, the GOP hasn't found a way to blame the tornado nor LeBron's flight from Florida - a key battleground state - on President Obama.   But Marco Rubio is doubtless still working on it  in James' case, including it in a new immigration reform package that will ship him back to Miami in cuffs.

The most interesting  response, however, is how the mainstream media  virtually ignored Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the Democratic candidate for governor, in the symbiotic local effort to  lure all of those Republicans to the oft-maligned city on the lake.  The hometown paper, with one major exception, handed out huzzahs for the efforts by the convention bureau, Cleveland companies and the Cleveland 2016 RNC Host Committee, headed by Terry Egger, the PD's former publisher.

The Beacon Journal, on the other hand, delivered to its readers a puffy Page One story from the Washington Post that "affirmed the influence of Sen. Rob. Portman"  in the GOP's decision  under the headline "GOP's choice of Cleveland reflects power of Portman".   The Republican senator, the article said, "pushed for months for the city as the site". Hint:  Portman was again elevated as a potential presidential candidate.  For now, it couldn't hurt. Or could it?

(About presidential politics: The Columbus Dispatch, which appears to be torn between advancing Gov. Kasich or Portman as the paper's choice for the Oval Office, focussed on Kasich, satisfied  that the convention would be a perfect national stage to dramatize  the "revitalization and fiscal turnaround that Ohio's Republican governor, John Kasich has managed to pull off in a few short years...")

And as for Kasich himself, he had nothing to say at all to the Dispatch's  Joe Vardon who asked about FitzGerald's role.   Said the governor:  "That's a question - I'm not in the middle of that kind of question.  I have no answer to that right now."

That non-rsponse measures well against one of George W. Bush's when a reporter asked a question about a nominee:  " I would have to ask the questions...I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning."

And where was FitzGerald in the planning and rollout of the convention site?  It wasn't until veteran writer  Brent Larkin, who retired as the PD's editorial director five years ago, stepped up.

Summing up his column in the subhead over his commentary:  "Credit FitzGerald with leadership, vision in landing 2016 GOP convention."

Larkin noted that FitzGerald, with Positively Cleveland CEO Dave Gilbert as early as two years ago engaged in  planning for a convention proposal.  Wrote Larkin:

"And Republicans may  not like it, but FitzGerald, a Democrat,  deserves far more credit than any other elected official for the city landing  the GOP presidential nominating convention.  Anyone who tries to suggest  a public official other than FitzGerald is the father of this process is simply not telling the  truth."

Well, now.  Larkin's incisive observation certfainly bumps up against the PD's own editorial page think tank that recently devoted a full page to questioning  FitzGerald's  ''leadership".

Having worked  in the field with Larkin for years, I'll take his word for it.

Today's ever-vigilant press with Maureen Dowd thrown in

BROKEN NEWS!!!!!

Maureen Dowd,  she of the "liberal"  media, has become the New York Times' Op-ed version of Michele Bachmann.  Forever full of herself, she's been obsessing  against President Obama, most recently likening him to a "sad sack".  She's even gone so far as to say that Hillary might have to run in 2016 to "restore honor" in the White House.   Wow!   It all leads me to speculate on whether she might not have been included on the A-list of a White House dinner.

* * * * *

A long piece in the Plain Dealer about the life and times of  crusading Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine quoted his soaring reason for wanting to hold office.   "I ran for attorney general not just to hold office, " he asserted. "I ran for attorney general because I wanted to do things."  Noble. Still shouldn't the story also have included  at least one word that among the biggest things that  he's wanted to do was to slap down Obamacare  and company insurance coverage of contraceptives as the lawyer for all Ohioans?  Even women.

* * * * *

There they go again:  The Beacon Journal ran another op-ed piece by Richard Vedder, the conservative  Ohio University  economics professor emeritus who is being paid $150,000 a year to write his slants by an outfit named Donors Trust.  It is sort of a laundering operation that channels huge amounts of contributions to ideologically compatible "liberty-minded" charities.   Fine. But shouldn't the reader be told that? Vedder did disclose in his most recent column that a Forbes magazine ranking of college president salaries that he used for resource material was compiled by his own think tank.
I've long believed that if you want a strong college degree,  become a conservative economist.  There's money in it.

A way to survive education budget cuts

THE HEADLINE IN the Plain Dealer gave us more sad news about public education. It said:

City schools to cut 500 teachers, shorten day, eliminate classes

It's becoming an old story everywhere, as states severely cut back funds for public education.

As I've mentioned before, education is no longer a priority for the budget hawks, including those in Ohio.

I have a remedy.

Let's split up the students alphabetically. Everybody with a last name beginning from A to M can go to class for a half year; from N to Z, the remaining half year. The only criterion would be that the split would not interrupt the school's football season.

Such a plan would cut class size in half, reduce the number of teachers accordingly and dramatically shorten the lines at the school cafeteria.

Do you think this would work until we can come up with a plan to eliminate students and teachers altogether? Desperate times call for desperate solutions. Mention it to your state legislator and tell him or her that I sent you. Meantime, isn't there anything in the

Constitution that requires every politician to take an IQ test before they can file for office?

The Portman chant is under way

THE HEADLINE above Brent Larkin's flattering Sunday column in the Plain Dealer about Sen. Rob Portman captures the flavor of what will surely be the design of Ohio's conservative newspapers (the majority!) as the presidential campaign shambles toward the GOP convention:

"Safe, steady Portman looks like VP material"

Indeed, he does. Lean and unthreatening, even in a neatly pressed Republican establishment business suit, Portman has been the gleam in GOP eyes long before he was considered statewide as "safe" and "steady." His cheering section began in earnest when George W. Bush added the Cincinnatian to the first team, first as trade representative and then as director of the Office of Management and Budget - two words that now seem mutually exclusive considering the economic mess that Bush left his successor.

Portman resigned after one year on the job in order, he said, to spend more time with his family, although by 2007, the glow was dimming considerably from Dubya. In Portman's year at the OMB helm, the Federal deficit rose $469 billion.

Should we mention at this point that it was left to no less a conservative than Utah's Orrin Hatch to identify the Bushies' fingerprints at the scene. The forever-prim senator allowed that they wanted a "lot of things without paying for them." With Republicans in high offices and their wannabes, nothing ever changes.

Although it seems a tad early to be seeding the Republican ticket with entries that qualify as logical Veep choices, political writers become bored quickly without speculation in the political version of sports " bracketeers".

What does it all mean when it comes to the No. 2 slot on a national ticket? Unless the rules of engagement have changed dramatically, I can only report what I had heard a thousand times from the political deep thinkers as I traipsed after candidates, that veeps cannot help the candidate at the top, so their selection must be based on a running mate who can't hurt you.

Enter safe and steady Portman. But wasn't "safeness" one of the strikes that editorial writers used against ex-gov. Ted Strickland when they endorsed the other guy? Media rule: Don't look for consistency. Ever.

Camera-shy Josh Mandel' s black-suited guys

A SKIRMISH BETWEEN Josh Mandel's troops and an Akron Press Club officer caught the eye of the Huffington Post this week, which reported it in full. As noted in Grumpy Abe earlier, Team Mandel tried to shut down a photographer for the other side when the Republican U.S. Senate candidate spoke at the PC on March 1. It was an amateurish intrusion into standard Press Club practice of letting all sides record an event.

It didn't go well for the guy who is hoping to oust U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. Indeed it drew a sharp rebuke from PC Board member David Cohen, a University of Akron political science professor who was trying to manage decorum in the camera section at the back of the room. ,

"Mandel's staffers acted unprofessionally and were clearly trying to intimidate the folks that came to record the event," Cohen said. "They tried to prevent one individual from even entering the room until I intervened and also tried to obstruct their view with their heads and holding up pieces of paper until I told them to stop. "

Well, that's one way of using their heads in this instance because they simply don'thave a clue to understanding the freedom the club accords anyone who wants to video the event.

"Those folks that came to record the event, by the way, despite what has been reported, did not try to disrupt anything, " Cohen said. "In fact they did not say a word while they were recording nor did they ask for help while they were being harassed."

Every mature campaigner can expect trackers from their opponents and this was no exception. Cohen noted that when Brown spoke at a club luncheon on Jan. 6 his opponents would have been granted the same opportunity.

I happened to attend the Mandel program and noticed a very important-looking Mandel team in black suits moving about the room checking something or other (bugs?). They should have known better. And Mandel, the Repubican whiz kid state treasurer, wants to be a U.S. Senator?

Well, yes. So much so that the Plain Dealer reported that he flew to the Bahamas on Friday to speak at the payday lending industry meeting and held a fundraiser at the resort. The payday lenders who think nothing of charging borrowers preposterous rates? Tsk. Tsk.

The weed patch beckons for GOP first team

BACK IN THE 70s and 80s, when we spent a lot of time in Columbus covering the antics 0f Gov. James Rhodes, one Statehouse reporter came up with a defining term for Rhodes. The late Rick Zimmerman of the Plain Dealer, frustrated by the governor's absences during unpleasant moments like civil rights marches or protests about the state's shabby mental health system, would report that the governor could not be found. "He's in the weed patch," he said.

Zimmerman was not only a very good reporter, but also a cartoonist whose devilish drawings hung on reporters' office walls. In fact, when I left Columbus, he gave me a framed cartoon of tall weeds with a balloon above them enclosing the words "Good-bye, Abe" - James A. Rhodes."

It is preserved on the shelf above my desk.

Although Zimmerman has passed on, nothing demonstrates the weed patch mentality more than the guys who want to lead the country into another universe. It was clearly evident by the responses of the Republican candidates who want to dodge the consequences of criticizing Rush Limbaugh for carrying out a three-day assault on a young law student before finally apologizing.

As late as the past week end, candidate- of- interest #1 or #2 , Rick Santorum. asked to comment on Limbaugh's slander, bobbed - Honest! - "That's not my business." Oh? No one has stirred up the whole contraceptive issue more than Santorum during the campaign. Meanwhile, in a weaving reaction by Mitt Romney, he allowed as how "That was not the language I would have used." But we still await what language he would have used.

Some Rush dodgers shrugged that he was only dealing in entertainment, no real harm done. (Former GOP national chairman Michael Steele). Or, at worst, Rush's nuclear comments were...um..."inappropriate."

What makes all of this so inappropriate is the fearful shallowness of people who complain that President Obama is a patsy for our opponents around the world as the GOP crowd heads for the weed patch. I can only guess what my friend Rick Zimmerman would have illustrated about them.

Plain Dealer: Punting out of trouble

FOR ANYONE wondering why the Plain Dealer's veteran Cleveland Browns writer, Tony Grossi, was yanked from the beat forevermore, Thom Fladung, the paper's managing editor, offered his explanation on a Cleveland radio show. Grossi, he said, had declared on Twitter that Browns owner Randy Lerner was a "pathetic figure" and the "most irrelevant billionaire in the world."

Grossi's remarks were intended to be private but they weren't shielded, to his later dismay. If he had used the same language describing Mitt Romney, give or take several million, he would have been spared his demotion. But pro football is very big business and despite the paper's denial that the Browns front office had called for the writer's put-down, surely Lerner had a lot to say about it through one channel or another.

It the Browns were at least competitive over the past decade or so, the editors might have been excused for telling Grossi to go to his room. Does anybody want to defend the owner's relevancy?

Oh, Fladung did concede that Grossi was indeed a "very good beat writer" but that his next assignment at the paper still hasn't been determined.

Fair warning to Grossi's successor.

From gun control to a "gay" reference

THERE ARE CHEAP shots. And there are cheap shots. And unless somebody can offer some pro0f to the contrary, I'd have to conclude that Christopher Evans' puzzling attempt at satire on the Plain Dealer's op-ed page is, um, a cheap shot. First, I should tell you that Evans is an associate editor of the PD's editorial page, which would lead you to think that he should know better.

But in his most recent column dissecting a move in the Ohio legislature to make life more miserable for gun sellers, Evans gratuitously notes that a co-sponsor of the bill is "openly gay".

(He does add "not that there's anything wrong with that" - the old Seinfeld routine.

So I must wonder how he went from gun control to slipping in a reference to the lawmaker's personal sexual preference. If I am wrong about this, then I would have to settle on calling the feathery column a horrible attempt at humor.

Urban America arrives in Columbus

Ohio State hires Urban Meyer as the new football genius and so let us begin the new millennium in the Scarlet and Gray's iconic history. We can confidently tell you that is true because the morning papers reported it in headlines that would normally announce a war or a tsunami on Lake Erie. (See above photo in Beacon Journal)

Add this from the front page of the Plain Dealer:

After a difficult season, Buckeyes get their man

For a winner-starved sports crowd in northern Ohio (albeit, the OSU campus is in Central Ohio!) the media's overly-expressive reaction was based on the employment of a coach with a winning record in an earlier life that has now earned him a six-year contract worth more than $25 million. In some respects, Meyer is the new kid on the block to replace LeBron James, another icon who shattered his blessings by the fans in these parts by skipping town to Miami.

And now we come to what some people will call the apples-and-oranges section of this short Urbanized piece:

The Buckeyes hometown Columbus Dispatch declared on Page One: MEYER ERA BEGINS

But there were a couple of other much less prominent items on the same page, one was headed Parks have to wait for improvements, which reported that the Metro Parks could not upgrade their conditions because of state budget cutbacks; and another: Westerville schools eliminate 62 positions., the result of having to strip $23 million from the budget during these, eh...hard times.

I have a problem dealing with the two universes, folks. As a political writer for decades, I realized that - optimistically speaking - based on election day turnouts, no more than 50 pct. of the readers gave a damn about politics. As for readership, that may have been wildly optimistic.

So is it fair to ask whether the Urbanization of a college football team is worth so much notice in view of all of the other realities of the workaday world?

I think not, but I do follow the happenings in the sports world, even on days like today when I can't avoid it with my morning coffee.

Kasich & Co.: overreach, and then some

THE MORNING AFTER...

The unconditional surrender of Kasich & Co. to the voters on Tuesday was a textbook example of crushed political arrogance. The mismanaged Republican-led assault on public worker unions was DOA at the polls, but its demise has been widely anticipated from the day the opponents of Senate Bill 5 filed more than a million signatures calling for a referendum to repeal it. Even with the support of the state's two biggest newspapers - the Plain Dealer and Columbus Dispatch, which lamely tried to provide cover for the law - the ill-conceived legislation was destined to land in a pauper's grave with the clearly shaken governor offering a brief TV benediction.

Good! Since his arrival in the governor's office in January , Kasich has shown little patience for rational conversation with his critics as well as the public at large. Stripping public workers of their bargaining rights has been one of his planned fail-safe initiatives in attempting to convince the corporate world that status quo is not a term you would ever find in his dictionary. Yet there he was, no more than your average chastened pol, in the gloom of painful defeat telling us that the voters have spoken and he will now need time to reflect on its meaning. It's not likely his funeral oration will remotely approach Pericles' in content and vision.

Taking a longer-lasting hit was his triumphant exhuberance in gruff political engineering in the coming months. That also will be true of the Republican lawmakers, consumed by their own self-importance, who have left sound logic at the backstage door. Many will be on the ballot in 2112. At the same time, some current øbservers have noted that Kasich had operated on the weird notion that his anti-union handiwork would be so widely applauded that he could end up on the national ticket. Fat chance of that.

Meantime, the demolished Kasich power play has energized a once-musty Democratic labor base that is expected to have long memories. Sometimes it helps if you can depend on your opponents to lend you a hand. The unionists should be among the first to send the governor a thank-you card.

Should we still call it Labor Day?

SO ANOTHER LABOR DAY has passed, not with a bang but sorrowfully a whimper. The media told us of the bleak economy and in a couple of instances, still mindful of President Bush's quick fix, suggested that consumers could provide a glimmer of hope by going shopping.

The national h0liday was set aside by President Grover Cleveland in 1897, ten years after Oregon had declared a "Labor Day" to honor its workers. Until recently, editorial pages on this special day were dominated by grand salutes to the contributions of the working class to the strength of the nation.

My, how times have changed! Editorials in in the Plain Dealer and Columbus Dispatch went on and on about the state of the economy and how important it is now to find solutions. Interestingly, neither Kasich-friendly paper had a single reference to the governor's union- busting initiatives that will be challenged on Election Day. Nor could they. How hollow their words would be inasmuch as both oppose the repeal of Senate Bill 5, which severely restricts public unions.

Instead, the Plain Dealer hauled out the usual imprecise but handy nostrums to invigorate the economy, to wit:

"It is up to all Ohioans, and our political leadership, to show the imagination and forward-thinking in education, taxation and spending policies needed to bring vibrancy back to the employment market."

And what might they be? A brief translation: cut taxes and spending. That's imaginative these days with trickle-nowhere corporations sitting on more than $2 trillion that could help remedy the jobs picture?

The Dispatch, meanwhile., simplified the problem by blaming President Obama and the National Labor Relations Board, a thought that is not even forward-looking nor original but largely inspired by something held dearly by the National Association of Manufacturers.

Concluding that the NLRB was out to "punish" companies that strive to create new jobs, the Dispatch huffed:

"These moves have cowed, paralyzed or blocked the private-sector decision-making that is necessary to get the nation moving again."

To its credit, the Beacon Journal did slip from its occasional anti-union noose to call upon Obama to support unemployment benefits and protect the jobs of "teachers, police officers and firefighters, among others." That, of course, was an unmistakable reference to those public unions most affected by Senate Bill 5.

But for the state's two largest newspapers, it was a Labor Day that called for extending the employment benefits of their friends in the eagerly compensated front offices.

Benevolent governor and lawmakers on a roll

SPECIAL PERKS - often carefully disguised as phantom earmarks - have never had it so good as the ones that have taken over the Republican political class in Columbus.

First, there were the notorious Brennan amendments in the Ohio House version of the state budget that handed over autonomous control of charter schools to the company that would most profit by them.

Then we learn that Gov. Kasich's sweetheart deal on casinos was a goody bag for the big casino owners that will be less profitable for the state than that of his predecessor, Ted Strickland. (Not that anyone in the Kasich fold will concede as much.)

It never stops. Today we see in the Plain Dealer that a couple of Republican lawmakers from Springfield slipped in an amendment to the state transportation bill that would limit the auctions of state construction equipment to one company - based in Springfield, of course. All of Ohio's other auctioneers are outraged. But what can you do? Kasich has already signed it into law.

But maybe we're being too churlish toward the governor. He did say he didn't know the auction stuff was in the bill that bears his signature. The way things have started out in his administration leads me to wonder whether his team wouldn't get the first pick in any sports draft.

An Akron law firm - and an Inaugural whodunnit

THE PUBLISHED report (Plain Dealer) that the Akron law firm of Roetzel and Andress has been raising money for the Kasich Inaugural extravaganza will be met with more than cursory interest around this town. Isn't that the same R&A that has been the source of so much disdain by county Republican chairman Alex Arshinkoff, who long ago set out to scandalize the firm as a back-room Democratic operation with no redeeming virtue? You bet it's the same one.

To add to the chairman's fallout from the disclosure, one of the R&A lawyers who was said to be involved in the affair, former Ohio auditor Jim Petro, was also Alex's bete noire of choice when Petro tried to run for governor in 2006. At the time, Arshinkoff said that if Petro, a Republican, won the nomination, the chairman would support the Democratic candidate instead. Petro didn't win and the Republicans ended up with Ken Blackwell as their sorry candidate.

As is customarily the case. none of the usual suspects accepted responsibility for the donor appeal appearing on the law firm's website. (It vanished from the site after the PD started tracking it down.) But the paper did note that the liaison between the Inaugural committee and R&S was Matt Borges, an ubiquitous chap who was once convicted of a misdemeanor and fined (later expunged) after pleading guilty to some mischief in dealing with donors as the chief of staff of former state treasure Joe Deters, the alleged play-to-pay guy.

Yep, these things can become convoluted in politics, which are forever ringed with these characters. . But we esxpecially liked State GOP Party Chairman Kevin DeWine. who praised Borges. "No one did more to help all of our state, local and federal candidates this year"

That didn't go without saying, so DeWine said it.

.

Kasich: A holiday scolding by the Plain Dealer

ALTHOUGH HE'S not yet seated in the governor's chair, John Kasich already has raised the eyebrows of the editorial writers at the Plain Dealer, which you may recall, endorsed him over incumbent Ted Strickland. The PD decided that Kasich's appointment of of Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles as state public safety director - despite "demonstrable" unspecified "pluses" - has "serious minuses, including family conflicts and a partisan-tinged history involving Charles' recent investigations" of Strickland's public safety officials.

To which we can only append a paraphrase of a former U.S. President: "Johnny, you're doing a heckuva job."

When important news isn't that newsy around here

THE PRESIDENTIAL oil-spill commission has reported that Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, had used unstable cement on the deepwater platform that exploded in the Gulf and triggered the worst oil spill in history. Ho, hum. What else is new about Halliburton, which has enjoyed billions of dollars in government contracts for its less than reassuring work. Besides, Halliburton blames BP for not being more vigilant. How's that? If the big gorilla was aware of the weakness, shouldn't bells and whistles have gone off to alert everyone along the line ? Ho hum, again. But you don't call attention to soiled laundry.. Even reports in today's media in northern Ohio seemed to ho-hum the report from the commission. The Plain Dealer stuck a short piece on Pg. 4 and the Beacon Journal ran a single paragraph on Pg. 2. The only informative paper that arrived at my door (that leftist "rag", the NY Times) strung out two accounts on the front page, then jumped inside with the remainder , plus a photo and illustration. It is what it is these days, and I wouldn't look for it to get better.

The Plain Dealer backs into an endorsement of John Kasich

OK. Let's see. The Plain Dealer's endorsement Sunday of John Kasich for governor told us that:

(1)he was capable of talking himself right off a cliff;

(2)With his "Red Bull Style, it is sometimes hard to tell what's his core belief";

(3)When he praises Ohio's "innovative Third Frontier, he still says things that suggest he doesn't understand or care how it works."

(4)If you listen to him talk about "phasing out Ohio's income tax, reducing the state's commitment to public schools or even making university professors work harder" he says things that suggest he doesn't understand or care how it works.

(5)And "does he understand that being a Fox News provocateur is not the same as being the leader of a diverse, complex state?"

Still, the PD, in its wisdom, settled on his all-of-the-above style that, with a "roll of the dice" mindset just might enable Ohio to regain its self-confidence and sell itself to the world.

Or it might not.

I would put this in one of the leading fingers-crossed hedge-your-bets, we're- not- sure- what-this-guy- will- do endorsements in memory.

But that's the PD for you. You may recall that it was deeply divided on a presidential endorsement in 2004 and the best that the editorial board could salvage then was to bow to publisher Alex Machaskee, a visceral Republican, who opted for George Bush over John Kerry. The mighty paper on the lake settled internal strife by endorsing no one for president.

When newspapers complain today that their credibility with the readers is falling in the polls, they might look into the mirror when they serve up cognitive dissonant pieces like this one about the Republican elephant in the China shop. It is classic editorial gibberish.