Good writing does its job effectively and subtly, gracefully guiding the reader along. Bad writing, however, is like a nest of termites in your wall. You never see the damage it does, but your clients and customers notice. Go here to see how G.D. Gearino can help.

McClatchy Co., owner of the News & Observer, popped up in the news twice in recent days. In the first instance, the company was featured in a report by Bloomberg, in which the 100 biggest merger and acquisition deals from 2005-08 were examined. Bloomberg’s conclusion?

More than half of the 100 biggest takeovers made during the last mergers-and-acquisitions boom have something in common: By one measure, they never should have happened.

…Among the worst performers were McClatchy Co., Boston Scientific Corp., and Sprint Nextel Corp., all three of which are now valued at less than the price they paid for their acquisitions.

How bad was McClatchy’s deal? Awful. Wretched. Without peer when it comes to bad result, according to Bloomberg:

McClatchy’s purchase of the Knight Ridder Inc. newspaper chain, for $4.1 billion in 2006, ranked the worst of the 100 on Bloomberg’s list, with McClatchy shares underperforming the Bloomberg Advertising Age AdMarket 50 Index by 93 percentage points. Sacramento, California-based McClatchy borrowed cash to buy the chain as newspaper real-estate advertising plunged.

In the second instance, McClatchy was featured when hedge fund manager John Paulson’s latest filing with federal regulators showed he’d acquired a substantial chunk of McClatchy stock — five million shares, purchased at a cost of $18.2 million. A quick exercise in math tells me Paulson paid, on average, $3.66 a share.

As of this writing, McClatchy is trading at an $2.92 a share. That means Paulson’s hedge fund has lost $3.7 million of its investment in McClatchy. Maybe I’m just a country boy, but that feels like real money.

The News & Observer, better late than never, on Sunday revealed that four months ago Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue shook down — sorry, but there’s no better way to say it — corporations for campaign cash:

Gov. Bev Perdue had called the board rooms of North Carolina’s biggest corporations and asked them to ante up for a fundraiser for the nation’s Democratic governors’ political kitty. They delivered $1.2 million, the largest fundraiser of its kind ever held by the Democratic Governors Association.

It was a sign that Perdue wants to be more of a player on the national stage while also hoping to raise North Carolina’s profile.

And it provides a brief glimpse of how big money flows in politics — the kind of money that does not show up in the campaign finance reports.

The event allowed corporate executives and lobbyists to rub elbows with several of the nation’s governors. And it allowed the Democratic governors to collect large checks directly from corporations, legally bypassing the usual restrictions on political donations.

Want to have some fun? Great. Let’s recall, then, the reaction of the Democratic establishment to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, in which a ban on political spending by corporations was overturned. Here, for instance, was President Obama’s reaction, according to the New York Times:

“… a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

But the Times pointed out that the Supreme Court also declared that corporations can be required to disclose their political spending —meaning that corporate advocacy would be done in the open, for all to see.

In light of all this, we now have the Democratic Party’s definition of “bad political money” and “good political money.” The first is money spent by corporations themselves, in the open, to advance a political agenda. That’s a threat to democracy, and shouldn’t be tolerated — Supreme Court be damned. The second is money given by corporations to politicians, quietly and out of sight of the public, to be used to advance a political agenda.

That, apparently, is just peachy.

You may recall my recent exchange of email messages with Bill Randall, the Republican candidate for the 13th Congressional District. You may further recall that the word “loon” figured prominently in those messages. At the end of that post, I advised readers to stay tuned. Here, with the barest of comment, is the (apparent) wrap-up of our discussion.

First, Randall’s message to me:

You are repeating the allegation (false) that I accused the Obama administration of collusion. You and others readily attempt to discredit me based on “reported” stories.

Sigh!

If you view the entire (unedited) version, you may reach a different conclusion. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5txTdohc6w

Please call for a short “icebreaker” conversation.

My reply to him:

You’re not helping yourself here.

I’ve watched the video several times. You start off by making a very reasonable point: That the fact BP was allowed to sidestep safety procedures when it drilled the well is worth investigating. But at the 2:00 mark, you say this:

    “Personally, I feel there’s a possibility that there was some sort of collusion. I don’t know how or why. But in that situation, if you have someone from a company proposing to violate the safety process and then the government signing off on it, excuse me maybe they wanted it to leak. But then it got beyond what was anticipated …”

You can sigh all you want, but you’re on videotape speculating as to whether there was “some sort of collusion.” Later in the video, the reporter asks you this question:

    “You just suggested that maybe the government colluded with BP to have a little bit of a leak and it got out of control. Tell me what the possible motivation would be for either BP or the government to have any leak at all?”

Your answer?

    “I have no idea.”

Your answer wasn’t, “Whoa! Did I really say they colluded? Gosh, I didn’t mean that.” And it wasn’t, “Maybe I overstated that. I don’t really believe there was a conspiracy to cause a leak.” Instead, you merely said you had no idea why the administration and BP would do such a thing.

You don’t need to talk to me. You need to be talking to your campaign director or political adviser or whoever it is you listen to. You can’t make people unhear what they’ve clearly heard. Your smartest strategy right now would be to acknowledge you had a bad day, and move on.

Randall’s last response to me:

You have taken much of your valuable time to provide your candid and straightforward perspective. For this, I thank you.

Feel free to engage in the coming months if something piques your interest.

So: Randall asserts I’m guilty of repeating a false allegation that he accused the Obama administration of collusion with BP. He sends me a link to a five-minute video, which he says will set me straight. I watch the video — and hear him say exactly what he denies saying. When I point this out, Randall sidesteps that knotty little problem and instead simply thanks me for my “candid and straightforward perspective.”

I guess reality is now just another “perspective.” Meanwhile, it looks like I’ll be casting a write-in vote. I don’t know who will get that vote, but suggestions are welcome.