Abridged Daily News Columnists

Jill Porter: It’s sad, enough police officers have died recently that we know exactly what the local media is going to write every single time and we don’t have to read it. So this is one of those things.

Elmer Smith: Hey, more fun time news! Carol Campbell died yesterday. Geeze, columnists, can’t you write about something that’s not a total bummer so I have something to mock here? Man, think about me sometimes.

John Baer: Oh, goodie, noted drug warrior Tom Corbett could be governor in 2010.

Michael Smerconish: And, naturally, here’s Michael Smerconish writing about the Flyers, and playing hockey growing up and hour a thousand people paid a couple bucks to see the Stanley Cup. Right.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

John Baer: Bill DeWeese — in charge when House Democrats made decisions that led to a probe (ouch!) and some charges (double ouch!) — is of course going to get a promotion to Speaker of the House. Dennis M. O’Brien, we hardly knew ye.

Ronnie Polaneczky: Think of the message it would send if the Obamas intentionally lowered the quality of their childrens’ education to send a message! Uh, wow, that would be quite the message. “Wow, Michelle and Barack Obama are a bunch of loons who hate their kids!”

I wonder how Michelle and Barry would do it. “Hey, kids, you know how we kind of permanently changed your lives forever by having Daddy run for president and actually win, and while it’s cool and all, it’s totally going to make things awkward for you and everyone who interacts with you? Yeah, well now you’re going to a shittier school. Sorry, some people on the Internet signed a petition; as you can see, we have no choice.”

Elmer Smith: Ooh, Obama is sending “hopeful signals” to big cities. Hopeful! Signals!

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Jill Porter: “LOOK! Men in high heels! I assume I’ve got your attention, because what could be more curious than guys with hairy legs and heavy socks in four-inch patent-leather pumps?” Umm, off the top of my head:

• LOOK! Women in high heels!
• LOOK! Women in [anything besides a burka].
• LOOK! Free heroin!
• LOOK! Free Hershey’s IceBreaker Pacs!
• LOOK! Busta Rhymes!
• LOOK!

Elmer Smith: Fourth graf: “I was colored when I left home for Fort Jackson, S.C., in 1965. I had become a black man by 1968.” Oh, that’s a great line. I’m going to stop there because I don’t think it can get better than that.

Stu Bykofsky: Barack Obama better not get too close to “far left” bloggers — whatever that means — or he’ll be recalled or impeached or something!

Christine Flowers: I actually need to email Christine Flowers to ask her a question before I recap this column. Update to come.

Update: I actually emailed her, concerning her column today. Then I realized I didn’t care so I had any reply automatically sent to the trash! (Not really, I’m far too lazy to do that.) Consider this your Christine Flowers abridgment for today.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Elmer Smith: Boy, Barack Obama and Michael Nutter sure are politicians during this time of financial crisis.

Ronnie Polaneczky: She begins this column with the a “bitch” Vince Fumo wanted to shut up, and the, ha ha, guess what, the bitch was actually a dog Fumo allegedly put a hit out on.

Christine Flowers: Flowers really thought the world was going to end because Obama won. Wait, what?!

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Jill Porter: So, ah, black people are excited for the first black president.

Elmer Smith: Man, black people who have died sure would have been excited for the first black president.

John Baer: That election sure was historic. And not “historic” in the sense of “stupid,” like in Florida eight years ago. (Joke probably copyright Dave Barry, 2000.)

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Elmer Smith: This is the most mindboggling thing in the newspaper in a while.

In the dry cleaners yesterday, a guy asked me what I thought of Chase Utley’s profane exultation at the end of the Phillies victory parade.

I don’t remember my answer. But I’m certain that I did not shed any new light on the subject.

By now, you’ve heard the full spectrum of reactions, ranging from shock to shrug.

What was more interesting was what the guy in the cleaners said to me.

“I was really surprised,” he said. “He’s the last guy I would have expected that from.”

What? Did noted expert “the guy in the cleaners” forget what happened at the All-Star Game? Come on, that was just a few months ago.

Ronnie Polaneczky: Oh my God someone’s dog is registered, what ever will we do. Hey, wait, it’s not like this dude’s dog was going to vote! So I guess it doesn’t matter. Anyway this lone comment (for now) on the story is awesome:

Michael Smerconish supports blowing up the Army-Navy Game! Oh, no.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Dave Davies: This column has been written to correct all the misinformation on conservative blogs about a previous Davies column about street money. Wait, what?

Elmer Smith: Hey, people want to open a charter school just for foster kids!

Jill Porter: Every time Vince Fumo is indicted, the Phillies win a title! Oh, I just knew Vince had done this all for us.

Christine Flowers: “Tampa Bay is a young team, a good team, an honorable team.” Ha, ha, Christine Flowers sports columns are awesome.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Ronnie Polaneczky: Boy, politicians sure are greedy!

Elmer Smith: Oh, yeah, there are a couple of wars the next president will inherit, I wonder if either of them has a plan for what to do in them.

Fatimah Ali: It’s Fatimah! She says that John McCain forgot a name mid-sentence, and so he shouldn’t be president of the United States. Eh, whatever.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Elmer Smith: I just woke up. (Whoops!) I read this column three times and my eyes glazed over. You’re going to have to do this one yourself if you’re interested, especially since I still have Jill Porter and Christine Flowers to get to.

Jill Porter: Jill Porter’s doggy is sick. Sad! One can only hope the writing about her dog is not so popular that her columns turn into the next Marley & Me.

Christine Flowers: Oh, no, it’s a Christine Flowers column headlined, “One tiny vote for John McCain.” It’s going to be about abortion! I bet people who murder abortion doctors will even find it annoying. Hold on I gotta read it.

Eh, it was more pointless than boring, and Flowers wrote lies as usual — she might as well have just written that Obama was going to force abortions on every woman, that would have at least been entertaining — but it’s not like the Daily News cares about printing the truth or anything. Yawn.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Stu Bykofsky: “But in today’s wired world, anything that happens anywhere is just a YouTube click away from being seen from here to Alpha Centauri.” Who knew YouTube had a reach of over a parsec! After the ever-popular Alpha Centauri reference, Stu tells all of us to wear red tomorrow for the Phillies.

Then it just keeps going, with Stu writing dogs and mailboxes and subway cars and firetrucks should all be red. Then he makes an ever-popular Plagues of Egypt reference (”If I were Moses, I would make the Schuylkill run red”), and basically he’s saying everything should be red, and, really, I think the lone comment on the column right now sums it up: “Stu… you’re on something NOBODY has ever smoked.” Actually, I don’t really get that either. If nobody has ever smoked it before, how can we know what its effects are? I think I’ve been lied to by an Internet commenter.

Deborah Leavy: John McCain is a racist and the Republicans are suppressing the vote. Or something like that, I dunno.

Elmer Smith: Who knew all you had to do to undo selling the Iraq War to the UN (with Powerpoint!) was to endorse a Democrat for president? Ooh, Colin Powell, everybody loves you again!

John Baer: Best three paragraphs in the paper today:

Meanwhile, McCain’s campaign, in TV ads and on the stump, is calling Obama’s tax- cut proposal a “government handout” and “welfare.” McCain yesterday said it’s “just another government giveaway.”

Whom do you think that’s aimed at?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe lower-income, less-educated white voters for whom “welfare” and “government giveaway” means black people?

Thank you. While we’re on this topic, would you tell somebody at your newspaper what word “thug” is a replacement for, please? Oh, they already know? Oh dear.

Ronnie Polaneczky: Ha ha, some Roman Catholic priests are aghast at other types of Catholics and their liberal ways. (Seriously, this is a pretty entertaining story.)