Dan Snyder Will Never Shut Up
Dan Snyder, wealthy scoundrel and owner of an awful football team whose name is a racial slur, is able to blow countless hundreds of millions dollars on high-profile free agents who immediately become bad at the sport of football upon cashing Dan Snyder's check. But oddly, he is not wealthy enough to buy one decent PR adviser who could tell him to keep his stupid mouth shut.
Last year, the Washington City Paper's Dave McKenna wrote an excellent takedown of Snyder. (Read it here, again! Streisand effect.) Snyder was unhappy with the piece. He tried to coerce the paper into firing McKenna, and when that failed, he sued the paper and its parent company for millions, for being mean to him. His minions even threatened to bankrupt the paper with extended litigation! A nice man.
Of course, these things only served to make more people read Dave McKenna's story and reflect upon what an asshole Dan Snyder really is. Now, Snyder has had to refile his lawsuit in a new venue, for legal reasons. A smarter man might have taken this opportunity to let the whole thing die quietly. But Dan Snyder took the opportunity to write an op-ed in the Washington Post about the outrages that this alt-weekly has perpetrated upon him.
Among many examples in the November 2010 article, the most egregious was when the article stated: This is "the same Dan Snyder who got caught forging names as a telemarketer for Snyder Communications." That is a clear factual assertion that I am guilty of forgery, a serious crime that goes directly to the heart of my reputation - as a businessman, marketer and entrepreneur. It is false.
Sure. Here is just one of many thorough explanations of the issue at hand. Snyder's entire claim could be more clearly worded as, "Yes, my company, Snyder Communications, was indeed caught forging names. But they say 'Dan Snyder got caught forging names,' when actually it was just the people working for my company, and everyone is too dumb to understand the difference." For this, the man is pursuing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit and threatening to bankrupt one of the last true independent media voices in Washington, DC. He truly is a heartless bastard. With a crappy football team. With a racist name.
He also repeatedly calls the WCP a "tabloid." This is only accurate in the same sense that calling it a "piece of folded paper" is accurate. It is an alt-weekly. Your transparent attempts to sully the paper's name with rhetorical devices will not be tolerated, Mr. Snyder. Fire yourself at once. Or face the consequences.