The East Coast elites are at it again, mocking our ways, and we are outraged.
The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold, a Pulitzer Prize winner this year for his coverage of President Trump's specious claims about his charitable largesse, sent a tweet on Monday, trying to sell tickets to a live podcast production with his colleague Bob Woodward of Watergate fame:
"We're doing it Garrison Keillor style. Woodward will sing twee songs w/ a mandolin. I'll tell long stories whose point is 'Never go to Minnesota,'" Fahrenthold wrote.
No matter that he didn't actually say, "Don't go to Minnesota" as one of his colleagues once did. Fahrenthold was lampooning the long-running St. Paul-born "Prairie Home Companion" radio show and, surprise, Minnesotans on Twitter reflexively pushed back against that coastal mockery.
On Tuesday, Nomorris tweeted in response, "Minnesotans ... do your thing."
And we did, invoking both that inscrutable grape salad the New York Times claimed was a favorite local dish and the last Washington Post reporter who hated on Red Lake County, then ended up moving there, liking it and writing about it.
Even that reporter got in on it. Christopher Ingraham, wrote, "Learn from my mistakes, David — don't mess with Minnesota."
Said one indignant Minnesotan: "NO HOTDISH FOR YOU, MISTER."
Some stuck to the PHC theme:
"I always thought a place with good looking men and above average children sounded great!" tweeted Ruth Spanos.
The Houston native, Harvard-educated Fahrenthold later responded on Twitter.
Tickets to that podcast Nov. 7 in Washington sell for $23-$33. Cheaper than a recording of PHC and with a whole lot less musical talent.
Nonetheless, if Fahrenthold should deign to visit, he would most likely receive a warmer welcome than a shove into one of the 10,000 lakes as one Tweeter suggested.
In the meantime, David, enjoy the traffic in D.C. and when you're housebound because of a half an inch of snowfall this winter, the collective last laugh you hear from west of the Beltway will be ours.
Rochelle Olson • 612-673-1747
Twitter: @rochelleolson
