Opinion

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News / Opinion / Columns

Jayne: Make columns great again

By Greg Jayne, Columbian Opinion Page Editor

Published: October 12, 2024, 6:02am

I write the best columns. Nobody writes better columns than I do. They’re huge; they’re beautiful; everybody loves my columns. Believe me.

You already knew that; I have written about it before. Over and over again. Many times, so many beautiful, beautiful times. Because if you repeat something often enough, somebody, somewhere will believe it. And I write the best columns because I have the best words. And I share them with you, the American reader, so we can make columns great again.

Like recently, when I was speaking to a bigly group of people about important things like child care. I was using only the best words, and I said:

“Look, child care is child care, it’s — couldn’t, you know, it’s something, you have to have it, in this country you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to — but they’ll get used to it very quickly — and it’s not gonna stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. … We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. …”

Really, I said that. You can look it up. Because we can make child care great again.

But you need to read me instead of that other columnist, because she’s mentally disabled. And like I said recently: “She had the other interview with the other guy who was a nice guy I think from Philadelphia from Pennsylvania, he was a nice guy, he was asking her all these — the daily take — they don’t take like I do! Anybody wants to go, go what the hell differences they make.”

Because I’m a very stable genius. And only I can make columns great again. Because I have concepts of a plan to make columns great again.

But you need to read columns in the newspaper. Because sometimes the TV doesn’t work when they’re trying to power it with wind. And when it comes to a whole bunch of impotent wind, I should know.

So I told a bigly group of people:

“The wind, the wind, it sounds so wonderful, the wind, the wind, the wind is wind is bull$&!%. I’ll tell you. It’s horrible, so expensive, just too expensive. It doesn’t work. … You remember when I used to say, ‘Darling, I want to watch our president tonight on television,’ and the husband looks: ‘I’m sorry. They’re the windmills aren’t wind, there’s no wind. Tonight you can’t watch, darling. We’re not going to be watching tonight.’”

Because we can’t have windmills if we want to watch our president. Or our wannabe president. Because he might say things like, “That was when our country was the richest it ever was. It was never rich like that. … We had so much money we didn’t know what to do with it.”

He was talking about the ’90s … the 1890s. Seriously. You can look it up.

And you, American reader, can make columns great again. Like in the 1890s. Columns were great then. And we probably didn’t have flies. So I said: “I don’t like flies. Get out of here, fly. Never been a big fan of flies. You don’t mind my bringing that up, do you? Anyway, this is a very aggressive sucker. … Like I’m going to be aggressive for our columns.”

Now, this might sound like the rantings of an unhinged dotard. Of a demented septuagenarian. Of a deranged, self-serving incompetent felon who has been held liable for sexual assault. Fake news! Whoever says that should have their broadcast license revoked.

But some people like those traits or are willing to overlook them.

And you, the American reader, should think about whether those things make me fit for the job of columnist. And then you should be happy that I’m just a columnist and not something important.

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