The "Waste of White Space in a Leading Publication" award goes to:
Fred, Fred, Fred: Thompson's Challenge Has a Name
Here is a little taste of this piece of juvinile "journalism".
In the swampy soup of hopefuls for the 2008 presidential election, there is a man with a funny name. (No, not that one.)And it just gets worse. Why would anyone pay Monica Hesse to write this drivel and why would anyone pay to read it?
We're thinking of the one named Fred (Thompson).
Say it out loud. Do it. Fred. Fred. In the South, Fray-ud.
Fur-red-duh.
It has the tonal quality of something being dropped on the floor, something heavy and damp-ish.
Waterlogged paper towel.
Fred.
The phonetics of the name seem integral to its image problem: On Urbandictionary.com, a "Fred" is defined as "a person who does stupid, annoying, or idiotic things" (Fred Flintstone, Fred Mertz). The best-case descriptors a Fred can hope for are terms like well-intentioned, predictable, benign (Fred Rogers).
