the straw

Something about Garrison Keillor has always been a smidge disoncerting to me. Maybe it's his slow-as-molasses, heavy-nostril-breathing style of oration. Or perhaps his singing reminds me too much of the ladies with the purplish-gray hair who sang hymns in church during my childhood. Or maybe it's because he's more than a speck pompous...and kitsch. Despite the bad vibe, though, Keillor's liberal tendencies made it hard for me to wholly discount him. That is, of course, until an article in City Pages allowed me to give in to dislike.
Ok, I still gave him a fair shake. He did have a defense of sorts:

"I did not refer to homosexuals as 'sardonic fellows with fussy hair,' etc. I was referring to a stereotype," he tells City Pages.

That's some tricky ground to be treading. I know what it's like to don the hat of an ignoramus to make fun of ignorami...only to inadvertently come off as one myself. Even so, there's no getting around the fact that the Salon.com article in question was poorly executed and in bad taste...and widely broadcast. Couching it all in a reverie of the "good old days" just made it more nauseating. He has since responded to the resulting hullabaloo, but there's no going back for me. Tongue in cheek became foot in mouth and Garrison was just plain, old fashioned wrong.