Dear Wall Street Journal,

I am having withdrawal pains, separated from you.  Every day, I agonize so much without you on my doorstep.  But, just like quitting cigarettes, the separation gets easier, day by day, especially since, during those last few days, you were a "no show" .833333 percent of the time.

It's now been about two months since we parted.  I miss your business pages, the art pages, Jason Gay, but most of all, the Saturday edition with the hilarious economist, whose name I have already forgotten. (I never could stand your editorials and always looked the other way.)

Wall Street Journal, you asked too much of me, to hang with you when you stood me up five of six dates of our last week together!  Please!  What's a girl to do?

Since you've been gone, I have begun a new relationship, just a "trial," with the Times, only on weekends, which I hope doesn't upend my planned resumption with you since it's you I long for, my first love.

Valentine's Day approacheth.

Yes, I am willing to give you another chance, Wall Street Journal (once my relationship ends with the Times).Your kind invitation came in the mail ($99 for six months!). Thank you very much! A much better price than your original offer of $150 per month!  (Wall Street Journal, get real!) It pays for a girl to hold firm to her principles and not succumb to wild pitches.

And when your trial ends, Wall Street Journal, if we are still a "twosome," if you haven't stood me up again, I'll end with you and pick up again where I left off with the Times and go back and forth.  It pays a girl to have suitors competing for attention! If only I had enough money and time to spend with both of you every day. With the Post we could have a menage a quatre!  For I especially like to compare your book reviews with the Post's and see who's copying whom. 

I haven't detected that yet in the Times, but we just started dating.

patricialesli@gmail.com

 

Sameness at the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post

U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah)/U.S. Senate, Wikimedia Commons

They are at it again.

Is it just me that finds it odd that both newspapers would feature an un-urgent column about Utah Republicans and U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) on the same day, on the same page, and the same size?

Huh?

Yesterday's headline on the front page of the Washington Post at the fold in the left column reads:  "In Utah GOP, some seek to shut down tea party hero."

While over at the Wall Street Journal is this headline above a single column (below the fold) and on the left:  "Utah Senator Pays Price Back Home For Shutdown."

Both datelines are Salt Lake City. They talk about Lee's "cratering" ratings and how mad the business community is at him for voting with the tea party and supporting the government shutdown and how those business Republicans are going after Lee, all right, and looking to put up their own candidate (Don Liljenquist,  Josh Romney, perchance?) by way of "Count My Vote," which would be a new way of nominating an opposition candidate to Mr. Lee. 

Well, take that, Mr. Mike Lee, and get scared.  

The papers did not quote all of the same people, just former governor Jon Huntsman and Liljenquist, another former candidate.

And then there's John Price, a former Republican National Committee member and Bush (unclear which one) ambassador whom Sen. Lee still doesn't recognize.  Oh, dear me, Mr. Price. Throw down the red carpet for you, and let us bow and scrape the floor.

I am one of the last to defend the tea party, but this is a rather strange coincidence, don't you think?

Do the editors get together and decide to run these?  Or does someone on the opposition plant, pitch, and promote them?  

You decide.  (I checked New York and Los Angeles and could not find sameness at either place.)

Too much similarity, if you ask me, and who's asking?  

It is not Mr. Lee.

patricialesli@gmail.com