It's What He Gets For Breathing So Hard Into The Microphone

Garrison Keillor, with his NPR shows, syndicated newspaper columns, book deals, etc., is a peculiar but nonetheless influential sort of media potentate — a lucrative brand composed of himself, some musical guests and breathing very heavily into microphones. He has been breathing heavily on the radio for 31 years, which you might think would make him a little more confident of his brand than he's being now: Our no. 19 link is to a Twin Cities community blog that Garrison is suing because it produced a hilarious parody T-shirt that says "A Prarie Ho Companion." Now, c'mon. That's pretty funny. We'd wear one, and we listen to The Writer's Almanac every morning, even though we think its piano theme is awfully precious. But there's more than his paradoxical humorlessness here: He's a big, stinkin' lib, which means righties are ticked that he uses his partially taxpayer-financed NPR pulpit to criticize conservatives: to wit, Powerline is calling him "a royal noodge." Similarly, Shot in the Dark is "expressing solidarity" with T-shirt creator, after all these years of Garrison using NPR for politicking. So that's the news from Lake Frivolous Litigation, where all the women are lawyers, the men are good-looking lawyers and the children are above-average lawyers.

Posted by Philip Ewing at September 15, 2005 12:20 PM

Category: The vast electric lunchroom