Touch me in the morning

You gotta love journalists. Oh, I know the Right Wing and the President and His Cronies like to tar them with broad, hot streaks of the stuff, just for doing their jobs. (Much the way that they treat the judiciary, come to think of it.) And I could certainly do without most of the TV personalities who pass themselves off as journalists, even, it must be said, my semi-beloved Anderson Cooper, who is not above broadcasting his fair share of sensationalistic drivel, tears over Hurricane Katrina notwithstanding.

But every now and again, one stands out above all the others, not because of some late-breaking, hard news spectacular, but, rather, because of the simplest of pointed phrasings, the subtlest of arched angles, the most delicate of duly noted observations.

This week's award for Outstanding Snarkiness in a Wire Service Article goes to Associated Press writer Dan Elliott for his November 9, 2006, article (published in the Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot-News) on plans by the Reverend Ted Haggard to remedy his recent hooker-and-crystal meth conundrum. In an article entitled, "Haggard agrees to lengthy, grueling rehabilitation," Mr. Elliott writes

There will be prayer, and perhaps the laying on of hands. There will be counseling and a confession. And there will be advice, confrontation and rebuke from "godly men" appointed to oversee the spiritual "restoration" of the Rev. Ted Haggard.

Laying on of hands? Isn't this how this whole mess got started in the first place?

If at the end of this rehabilitation, there's any suggestion that the Reverend Haggard was cured by his team of amateur saviors through aversion therapy--consisting in this case of repeated "happy finishes" under the influence of crystal meth, accompanied by chants by fellow ministers of "Spare the rod, spoil the child! Hallelujah!" while doling out spankings--then we can safely assume we've all been had.