Dan Riehl Breaks Out With Huge Gates Tax Fraud Exposé: Yet, Gasp! Dude Blows it With Lunkhead Prose Reporting!

Look, Dan Riehl's a nice guy. But let's just say he was distracted by some bikini-babe hotties during freshman composition!

The guy made a genuine contribution to the Gatesgate controversy this week. See his piece, "A Gatesgate at Henry Gates' 'Bogus' Charity?" The essay was a big traffic generator apparently (NTTAWWT!!); and Dan made sure to get a notch on his bedpost by posting his phallic-symbol Sitemeter trophy).

Strangely, though - and perhaps to compensate for whatever insecurities he may suffer - Dan feels the need to pat himself on the back for the scoop; he then TOTALLY BLOWS IT it with some of the worst writing I've seen in the conservative blogosphere:

I think it fair to say the first and perhaps only place this was reported was in my blog post of Saturday. I dug the recipient's links to Gates out via Google after seeing their names on Joe's documentation that made me aware of them and we were both pursuing the story together, and individually at that point. It appears to have gotten someone's attention.

Whoa Nelly! That's one doozy of a paragraph!

Hey, somebody buy that dude a copy of Strunk and White! (Rule 17):

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Actually, I'm sure readers can find some of my own lunkhead prose in the archives. We're all guilty of it sometimes, no doubt.

And I'm NOT PASSING JUDGMENT, remember! I'm human, of course. So I can't resist getting a kick out of the style malfunctions of old Internet-cop Dan Riehl!

Check out Dan Collins as well, "Dan Riehl Goes to Eleven." Here's Dan C., with reference to his own blogospheric battles-royal:

I found it interesting to discover that due to my posting I was a horrible person, a misogynist, and many other unseemly characterizations. What I found most interesting, though, was the revelation that reproducing and speaking the truth regarding a public document was a transgression much more serious than spewing lies is.

Read the whole thing, here. Dan offers a great cost/benefit analysis of my recent blog controversy.

I'm trying not to engage in flame wars, but Dan Riehl makes it so damn easy!

I'll update if there's more to the backlash.