Steve Paul
From the ultra conservative Thomas McClanahan, who retired without fanfare earlier this year, to the ultra liberal Steve Paul of the FYI section, who the newspaper announced today would join the board.
“They replaced Mr. Dodge Ram, Tom McClanahan, with Mr. Toyota Prius, Steve Paul,” said one wag at 18th and Grand.
Funny thing, Paul drives a gold Prius.
As for replacing McClanahan with Paul, “That’s too bad,” says local writer/producer/politico Jack Cashill. “At least with McClanahan the Star had a token conservative. You had to look hard to find him, but at least he was there.
“Now, in the midst of two Red States, the Star doesn’t have a single right-leaning person on its entire editorial staff,” Cashill adds. “That doesn’t strike me as a good marketing strategy.”
“I think Steve’s tired of working too hard in the FYI section with all of the departures and changes there the past several years,” says another Star staffer. “In the editorial section he won’t have to work that hard and he maybe can continue to do restaurant reviews because he likes to eat out on the company dime.”
As for Paul’s qualifications for weighing in on local business and politics, “His depth of knowledge about the city, arts, architecture, all things Hemingway, and world travel position him for great contributions ahead,” reads a Star memo announcing the move.
Arts, architecture, “all things Hemmingway, world travel?
“I know Steve and he’s a good guy,” Cashill says. “But I mean, how many editorials can you write about Ernest Hemingway and architecture in Kansas City?”
The Star is a happy home for one trick ponies and I mean a bunch of ’em.
Lewis Diuguid, Mary Sanchez, Steve Penn and there are 3 or 4 others whose raison d’ etre is excaberating racial hate for white people.
Seriously, there are 5 people on the payroll, who come to work every day at the KC Star with that agenda. The metronomic rehashing of the Emmit Till story unitl our ears bleed, the incessant insistance in the face of the unambiguated evidence to the contrary that white people are a violent threat to black people.
The mantra for these “journalists” is, “The Chickens Must Be Hypnotized Every Day!”
The Red Star is so insanely agenda driven, it has a “Scientology Hale Bop” feel when you read it.
i had one brief and extremely unsatisfying conversation with Paul when I called the paper to see who I needed to send a book review to if I wished to have it reviewed by the Star. When I mentioned that I knew the book’s editor,he said as a matter of established policy they would never review such a book. I asked if that would be true regardless of a book’s merit and interest to the paper’s readership,and he said it would. I explained that I was not getting paid to plug the book and that absent such an inherent conflict it’s difficult to see why the mere chance of being acquainted with an editor and author would preclude an otherwise worthwhile book from being reviewed, Paul came back with the following snappy non-sequitur:”There are a lot of books we don’t review!” I also subsequently learned that the Star’s staff were on an a–h– buddy basis with crime writer James Elroy when he lived here,which didn’t stop them from doing sycophantic reviews of HIS books! Steve Paul’s other claim to fame is that he rivaled another friend of mine in the size of their respective bar tabs at JJ’s before the latter drinking establishment was sadly destroyed.(He’s hinted at this in his column.) Maybe that’s what he shares with Papa Hemingway,a liver the size of a Ford Fairlane and the somewhat blunted literary sensibility and gnarly personality that go with it. What a promising choice to fill out The Brain Trust that is the Star’s Editorial Board.
““I know Steve and he’s a good guy,” Cashill says. “But I mean, how many editorials can you write about Ernest Hemingway and architecture in Kansas City?”
O gotta shotgun he can borrow.
McClanahan was the yin to Diuguid’s yang–or vice versa. They provided ballast on opposite sides of the boat, but they were mostly useful for the dead weight they provided. I can’t speak to the libelous hints about S Paul’s relationship with the fermented grape, but even after several bottles from JJ’s cellar, he would stand head and shoulders above Lewis and Tommy in the thinking-up-thoughts business. All this ignores the real problem on the boat–Skipper Miriam–who will steer whichever direction that has the sun shining on her the brightest.
The minute I’m ever described this way, please stick a fork in me, because I be done: “Steve’s tired of working too hard in the FYI section . . . In the editorial section he won’t have to work that hard and he maybe can continue to do restaurant reviews because he likes to eat out on the company dime.”
Why are you people acting like The Star is a real newspaper and you would expect anything different from these clowns? Why would it be puzzling to you that an over-the-hill besotted far left extremist would be appointed to the editorial board. That is the essence of the editorial board, useless, primarily affirmative action babies, who have no talent, and worse yet, no connection whatsoever to the community they live in. This guy is a perfect fit. The only thing missing is that he’s not a raving homosexual who wears women’s lingerie while running up his bar tabs (and, are we sure he’s not). At least then he could bookend The Star’s new Women of the Star calendar with Derek Donovan on the cover.