Syndicated columnists Molly Ivins squinted at a friend of mine today, and didn’t like what she saw. The friend was my colleague Jeff Harrell, who writes over the Shape of Days. He characterizes Molly as clucking at him, which is about as apt and accurate description as I’ve ever heard.

Here’s Molly:

Courtesy of the Daou Report on salon.com, I found this item on a blog called The Shape of Days, about the recent demonstrations: “There’s really no other way to say it: Being here is weird. To be surrounded by thousands of people, all of whom look alike, none of whom look like me, many of whom are decorated with our flag, none of whom are speaking our language, on our National Mall … it’s a surreal experience. Despite my better judgment and best intentions, I feel the inklings of xenophobia bubbling up inside. This place isn’t for me; I don’t belong here. It’s time to go.”

I suppose this citizen — the blog gives his name as Jeff Harrell — deserves credit for honesty, but I’m so much more amazed by his provincialism.

Here’s Jeff’s original post.

Imagine that — someone actually writing about their feelings in a hostile crowd. Black, white, brown or purple, it would be unusual if anyone obvious outsider (as Jeff clearly was) had felt differently.

Indeed, Miss Molly’s comments are another exhibition of the sneering, down-the-nose, I-know-better-than-you mentality that seems to be a key trait of all of the liberal intelligensia types. You can just here her at a cocktail party, gabbing with her friends — “I mean really. You can’t be from NY or LA and be uncomfortable.

I wonder if, on some level, people like Molly Ivins are just writing drivel like this to cover up their own discomfort in situations like the one Jeff described so compellingly.

Jim: Okay, so we’ve established that as a guy who submits op-eds freelance, I often have a self-interested axe to grind with widely syndicated columnists, and that axe is larger and sharper with columnists who have been turning in the same crappy column for more than a decade. (Broder, I’m looking at you and your oft-recycled “the states want more money from Washington” 800 word standard.)

But I’m completely behind Molly Ivins in her latest effort. For starters, this woman, facing those tough, twice-a-week deadlines, goes and digs deep for the groundbreaking, thought-provoking arguments, the kind that mere bloggers couldn’t think up without years of professional training. Before I continue, I must first insist that you sit down because Ivins’ conclusions will no doubt shock you. You’re sitting? Good. Okay, she writes that A) Karl Rove is sneaky B) BUSHLIED!!!! about the war. C) The administration is hell-bent on bombing Iran for no good reason, because the regime in Tehran couldn’t possibly represent a threat to us…

And then she switches to immigration, because the previous strikingly original analysis only gave her 357 words, and darn it, she’s got space to fill. So she switches over to immigration, because the trademark of a successful syndicated columnist is the ability to write “six of one, half dozen of the other” columns. Only amateurs have to stick to one topic for an entire 750-800 words. Try submitting a piece that switches topics halfway through without a famous name, and see how many editors give it the thumbs up. It’s what makes her a professional, Mr. Harrell. Don’t try this at home.

Thankfully, “the Daou Report on salon.com” did Ivins’ legwork for her, because syndicated columnists who spend minutes and minutes on their twice-weekly efforts can’t be bothered to read any blogs themselves. That’s what online magazine blog summaries are for. Anyway, she excerpts a good quote from Harrell (hey, that fills another 83 words of space! We’ve almost hit her 750-800 word limit!) and promptly declares him “provincial.” And way to call ‘em, Molly, because I’m tired of these hicks from places like Washington D.C. opining blindly on national issues. Before daring to type a solitary word, they ougtta check out some real cosmopolitan centers of thought and intellectual excitement. Like Austin.

Remember, mainstream media journalists go out and report on the story firsthand, and it’s the bloggers who sit at home and opine and comment based on others’ fact gathering. Except when it’s not, and you’re Molly Ivins, and you pick apart the reporting of a guy who actually went to an immigration rally.

Remember, Ivins emphasizes “she doesn’t have a dog in this fight” - and it’s that kind of fair-minded rationality that allows her to come to another eye-opening, worldview-altering revelation:

the reason that [immigration] deal fell apart and the reason it won’t come back together is because of American business, which hires the illegals and donates the campaign money. Bless your sweet heart if you think the deal came unglued over the Republicans ignoring their base or some other political problem. Money, my friends, talks, and bull walks. Look at who wants illegal workers here. Look at who controls Congress.

See Mr. Harrell? This is why we have media professionals. To pull back the pleasant facade of “competing political interests” and “an issue that divides the public” and to give us the real scoop, the straight story. I mean, if Molly Ivins hadn’t told me that it all came down to American business and campaign money, I might be still walking around thinking that Americans wanted to welcome legal immigrants and help them assimilate and live the American dream, but didn’t like seeing their laws flouted and had concerns about security and were trying to balance the contradictory impulses. Molly straightened me out, thank her purty little Texas twang. 

Remember - corporations are wrong for wanting to hire illegal immigrants, and you’re wrong for being uncomfortable at their rally. It’s complicated, and simple little minds of people who just write on the Internet may not be able to grasp it all. You need at least 24 years of column-writing experience under your belt before you start seeing nuances and complications like Ivins.

We live in an era of amazing telecommunications advances, and we shouldn’t think of the Internet as an excuse for somebody to just write what he saw at some immigration rally. The purpose of the Internet is to give our media betters innovative new ways to phone it in. < /Stephen Colbert voice >

Cam: Uh… yeah. What Jim said.