Garrison Keiller … what is it about him?

When I first heard Keiller on the radio, I was faintly amused. The second time, my amusement was more faint. The third time, I began to feel that the man was creepy and after that, whenever I ran across him on the dial it drew a Jekyll and Hyde mental image; the image of an ax murderer or exposed pedophile who everyone later described as “such a nice guy.”

Keiller’s “humor” was never self deprecatory. It was always of a sneering kind; the humor of the country boy gone to the city who uses the folks back home as props and butts for his jokes.

Ed Driscoll has some commentary on Keiller, a take-off on a piece from Slate. But this little rant will tell you who the man was behind the bland voice making fun of the Minnesota rubes:

In 2004, Keillor wrote the following passage about [Minnestoa Senator] Coleman's voters:

...hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, see-through fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, hobby cops, misanthropic frat boys, lizardskin cigar monkeys, jerktown romeos, ninja dittoheads, the shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, cheese merchants, cat stranglers, taxi dancers, grab-ass executives, gun fetishists, genteel pornographers, pill pushers, chronic nappers, nihilists in golf pants, backed-up Baptists, Crips and Bloods of the boardroom...

Read the whole thing, it's not long...