He writes about something called Bacon Bourbon, which I have no opinion about. What did catch my eye was his derogatory mention of the first "tea party" convention that will be held in Nashville and this final passage:
Assuming the fad for all things bacon continues, expect to see more bars offering their own meat-infused potables in 2010. And then for once, maybe Nashville can be at the head of the pack for something other than right-wing loonies.
You know what bugs me about this? It's not the fact that he takes a cheap (and trite) shot at "tea party" people. I don't care about that. The problem for me is that here is someone who is apparently a Nashville native (or close to it) offering up an inaccurate impression of Nashville to his national (and generally--since we're talking about The Atlantic here--urbanite, cosmopolitan, politically center-left) audience. Politically speaking, Nashville is not Tennessee. It's much more like Austin, Texas: a very blue island in the middle of a giant red sea.
Take a look.
But you wouldn't know this from reading Risen's post. The takeaway from that for the average Atlantic reader is that Nashville is some bastion of right-wingerism (i.e., like the south overall), just because it's hosting some dippy convention. And I don't think that's fair. To Nashville or Atlantic readers.
