I had intended to include this jaw-dropping column in the previous post but decided that it would make it too long. But I can’t let such lunacy go unflagged…
Sally Quinn, the aging liberal Democrat royalty from the Watergate era—you know, back when people naively thought journalists at the Washington Post told the truth and weren’t political operatives?—filed this hilarious lament with the New York Times, saying in part,
It’s spring in Washington, D.C., the most beautiful time of the year. Dogwood, forsythia, cherry trees, tulips and daffodils decorate every sidewalk, wisterias weep from porch overhangs, and redbuds pop up at every corner. …Spring is normally the happiest time of year here.
But not this spring.
This spring Washington is a city in crisis. Physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. It’s as if the fragrant air were permeated with an invisible poison, as if we were silently choking on carbon monoxide. The emotion all around — palpable in the streets, the shops, the restaurants, in business offices, at dinner tables — is fear. People have gone from greeting each other with a grimace of anguish as they spout about the outrage of the day to a laugh to despair. It’s all so unbelievable that it’s hard to process, and it doesn’t stop.
Nobody feels safe. Nobody feels protected….today in Washington, those who hold — or once held — the most power are often the most scared. It is not something they are used to feeling….Nobody knows how this will end and what will happen to the country. What might happen to each of us.
Even those who work for President Trump are scared. The capricious and shambolic way he governed in his first 100 days has them all insecure in their jobs. Mike Waltz is out. Bets are on as to how long Marco Rubio will remain in all his roles and Pete Hegseth in his….Those most afraid are the Republicans on Capitol Hill. They are afraid of not just being primaried but also facing retribution. Lisa Murkowski said it out loud. “We are all afraid,” she said. “Retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”….The Trump socializing style is a striking departure from what went on in Washington for decades. Salons, where we got to know one another and exchanged ideas, are out….Mr. Trump’s billionaire friends and cabinet are snapping up luxury real estate all over town, especially Georgetown (Robert Kennedy Jr.), which many of them appeared to avoid the first time around because it was considered too liberal…. The Trump women can’t be missed in a room. They give off a Palm Beach, L.A. vibe. The restaurants of choice have changed….With Mr. Trump in the White House, anyone who socializes with Democrats can come under suspicion….
Wow. I thought that ridiculous last line was a good place to shut Sally off: of course, everybody knows that it is Democrats and progressives who view consorting with the enemy as treason: look at how they turned on Bill Maher for accepting Trump’s invitation to lunch. You have to read the whole, wacky thing (that’s a gift link) to get the full, absurd, self-own of Quinn’s pompous, clueless scream at the Fates, clouds, something. And yet she speaks for virtually all of my Facebook friends and other once rational people whom I hear from every day. They really are this far gone. Democrats are this far gone.
Gee, I wonder why the American Left is losing the support of minorities, and the working class…
Ethics Alarms 
This spring Washington is a city in crisis. Physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. It’s as if the fragrant air were permeated with an invisible poison, as if we were silently choking on carbon monoxide. The emotion all around — palpable in the streets, the shops, the restaurants, in business offices, at dinner tables — is fear. People have gone from greeting each other with a grimace of anguish as they spout about the outrage of the day to a laugh to despair. It’s all so unbelievable that it’s hard to process, and it doesn’t stop.
I can’t read past this paragraph, but not for the reasons you might think. This reads like AI garbage. Several things I teach to show proof of AI are used here multiple times.
Multiple em dashes.
“As if” not once, but twice in the sentence.
A third simile
A sentence full of ly verbs.
PALPABLE!!!!!
It’s just so bad.
zerogpt.com says this section is likely to be written by AI:
Physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. It’s as if the fragrant air were permeated with an invisible poison, as if we were silently choking on carbon monoxide. The emotion all around — palpable in the streets, the shops, the restaurants, in business offices, at dinner tables — is fear.
That is true; however, for the entire article it only identified 5.81% as possible AI output and declared the article “Human Written”. I’m not even sure these AI detectors are reliable as I’ve read they give false positives and false negatives. Perhaps if you get a significantly high percentage detected as AI written it may be valid but 5.81% is not convincing and possibly a false positive.
This is not to say that people aren’t cheating by using AI output as their own but I’m skeptical that Sally Quinn used AI for this piece.
Well, maybe. I went and read the rest of the article. For the most part, it’s not that bad. She doesn’t really use this style for the rest of the article, so it makes me think she ran it through an AI machine and kept this part after changes.
I would still expect better of a professional columnist.
Democrats are so far gone that I half expect to wake up some morning to the news that large swaths of them have elected to go the Jim Jones route rather than suffer the agony of living one more day with Trump as president.
They drank the Kool-Aid long ago…they simply forgot to mix in the requisite cyanide.
I fault you, Jack, for providing that link without sufficient warning.
To those who haven’t yet read Quinn’s self-absorbed nonsense: If you do so, and start to feel an urge to run to your toilet, grip the edges with both hands and empty your digestive tract, do NOT proceed to read the comments!
Sally Quinn has been brainwashed into a state of paranoia.
or stupidity.
Somehow, living under the Sword of Damocles of ballooning federal debt never seemed to give people in Washington DC a moment of unease. Business as Usual would just go on and on. People are sad, anxious, and confused? Send them some cash!
She might as well have thrown in an “April is the cruelest month” and maybe even some other of T.S.’s favorite Chaucer echoes. Maybe she could have closed the opening stating people in D.C. are longing to go on pilgrimages.