The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
NOTE: James Taranto is on vacation. The excerpt below is from the January 8, 2009 BOTW archives.
Journalism of Yore
A reader passes on this blast from the past, an Associated Press dispatch that appeared in the Oct. 5, 1970, issue of the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune:
Hippies dug deep into their jeans Sunday to make the $25 bond to release a wino leader from jail so he can lead a march today on the Atlanta Police Department by winos and hippies.
The man their nickels and dimes got out of jail was Wayne Wilson, 40, who was in on a public drunkenness charge.
Wilson, who had said earlier he would lead a march on police because winos were being “jailed without trial,” immediately charged that he was arrested “stone sober.” . . .
An estimated 600 hippies and winos were expected to march. That is, if enough hippies were up by 9 a.m., when the march is planned, and if too many winos aren’t still in jail.
See? There really was a time when the AP wasn’t as biased as it is today.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
