Spilling ink by the barrel: They just had to say it

Don’t say it. Don’t write it.

In my mind, I pleaded. But no. They had to drag it out of the dust bin and slap it on poor ol’ Sen. Harry Reid.

Robert A. George wrote on NBC’s New York Web site:

“You'd think someone who made it to the position of senate majority leader might have learned that old Mark Twain adage, ‘Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.’”

He even misattributed the cliche to the patron saint of Nevada newspapering Mark Twain. But more importantly, we don’t buy ink by the barrel. We buy it by the tanker truck. For the record, we get newsprint by the ton from railroad cars.

George, like three-fourths of the writers who deign to commit felony punditry, was commenting on Reid’s off-handed remark — his spokesman now says it was just a joke — to the Review-Journal’s top ad man Bob Brown and Publisher Sherman Frederick’s column reacting to it.

Reid said to Brown’s face, "I hope you go out of business."

Later to a luncheon crowd he said he hopes the Review-Journal would continue to sell advertising so the Sun could continue to be delievered inside.

Jay Henderson at Newshound could not resist either. He wrote:

“Never Pick A Fight With . . . someone who buys ink by the barrel.  This apocryphal adage from somewhere in the 19th century may have to be updated for the next generation, but it remains familiar to many of my own cohort.  Except, obviously, Neveda Sen. Harry Reid.

“Harry is having problems on the home front.  His popularity, and thus his chances for re-election, have taken a dive this year.  On August 26, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published an editorial, Not Wild About Harry, which made the point that a Mason-Dixon poll finding that Reid has a 37 percent favorable rating and a 50 percent unfavorable rating among Nevada voters bodes ill for the Senator’s re-election bid in 2010.”

Perhaps unwittingly, Henderson played on Reid’s youthful  pastime of boxing. He noted, “That leading-with-one’s-chin tactic drew a pointed response from Review-Journal publisher Sherman Frederick. ...”