It is getting desperate at McClatchy’s Regional HQ in Raleigh. You heard, of course, they are trying to sell that Downtown Raleigh HQ. Massive downsizing over the past decade has it half empty. Not enough employees left to field a company softball team.
It that wasn’t enough, earlier this week Executive Editor John Drescher made a pitiful attempt to lure the paper’s long-lost “Christian readers”. That God-hatin’ atheist reader/advertiser market never quite materialized for’em. Go figger.
As BobLee’s readers know, the new movie Unbroken totally omits Louie Zamperini’s chance encounter with a young evangelist named Billy Graham in 1950. That “chance encounter” saved Zamperini’s spirit and his life in the aftermath of the horrific experience he endured as a POW.
Angelina Jolie obviously did not consider Zamperini’s accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior as “important”. Without it he would have likely died a very broken and miserable alcoholic fifty years before he eventually died peacefully in his 90s just a few years ago.
Drescher’s column was about Director Jolie’s curious decision to omit the vital element from the movie. John was quite critical of Jolie for doing so. Pretty much everyone who read the best-selling book was likewise shocked that she omitted that element.
So John Drescher thinks Billy Graham is OK now ??? Geee, that’s quite an about-face for the financial hemorrhaging media outlet. It was only two years ago that Drescher ordered what’s left of his news&editorial weasels to eviscerate Dr. Graham.
What was Billy Graham’s “crime” in June 2012?
In a magazine interview, Dr Graham (long retired and in his mid 90s) mentioned his personal opinions on several of the more controversial socio-cultural issues under debate in America. His personal opinions on those issues were of a “conservative nature” as pretty much anyone might guess.
Anyone might also guess Dr Graham’s personal opinions differ with those of Editor Drescher and his gang of radical liberal journo-weasels and every radical left-wing political candidate that Drescher’s failing newspaper was ardently supporting in the upcoming November 2012 election.
They launched a week-long heavy artillery barrage at Dr Graham even implying the old “separation of church & state” clause was in the Constitution which, of course, it is not and never has been. They were appalled and quite aggravated that Dr Graham would be such an overt political partisan to express his personal opinion.
SHAME ON YOU Billy Graham. HOW DARE YOU !!! screamed the pages of John Drescher’s News & Observer day after day.
Then guess what happened….. Reverend William “Bully” Barber revved up his weekly Hoot & Hates and boy oh boy did John Drescher’s newspaper jump on Bully’s Bandwagon with both feet and then some. The N&O loved’em some Bully Barber political opinions. They sho’ nuff did. Yum, Yum.
Dressed up like a Big Black Pope in enough ecclesiastical bling to sink a battleship, Rev “Bully” Barber screamed Hell & Brimstone at the eeeevil Republicans on Jones Street week after week with John Drescher’s toadies nodding and applauding and enthusiastically reporting every Hell and every Brimstone. The N&O loved’em some Bully Barber political opinions. They sho’ nuff did. Yum, Yum.
Did Editor Drescher think no one would notice? Did Editor Drescher give a rat’s ass what Christians might have thought? Did Editor Drescher simply assume, not incorrectly, that pretty much every Conservative Christian who might have once read his failing newspaper had long since cancelled their subscription. John was right on that last one.
Do I need to even remind you about the N&O last “Religion Editor” back 5-6 years ago when they could still afford to have one? The goober was an acknowledged atheist who took every opportunity to defame any/all local mainstream Christian organizations. He/she considered Nancy Petty’s Island of Misfit Toys over at Pullen Baptist to be “mainstream”. Ouch!
Yep…. The same John Drescher who is now concerned that Angelina Jolie left Billy Graham out of Unbroken.
Waaaay too little and waaaaay too late, John.
PS: When The N&O sells its current HQ, we hear they are moving to a long vacant Hardees on Capital Blvd next to The Foxy Lady. How the once so arrogant and relevant have fallen !!
