Chicago Tribune Obit: 'Former Lawmaker Was Archconservative Gadfly'

October 4th, 2006 11:14 AM

Today's Chicago Tribune carried an obituary of the late Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage, who died Monday in a car accident. The article described the Idaho Republican's views as "archconservative, often libertarian and sometimes extreme."

The mainstream media not infrequently employs the word "archconservative." But if there are indeed archconservatives, are there not also archliberals? Not in the world of the Chicago Tribune. A computer check of the newspaper's archives for the past five years revealed not a single instance of "archliberal" being used.

I suspect that Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage would not have been surprised.

May she rest in peace.