Is there an editor in the house?

A friend from my writers group recently sent me this fun run on sentence from Time:

“This was a long time coming,” says Richard Wiles, the Democratic sheriff of El Paso County, Texas, which sits across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico — a city that has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders since the start of last year, with many of the victims being police, not to mention an epidemic of kidnappings and extortion.”

You can read the full article, which is full of such gems, here.

Another writer in the conversation commented:

“I like it, though I did have to wonder if there is also a Republican Sheriff in that county, and why they need two of them, though since it’s in Texas, where everything is reputed to be bigger, maybe it’s a really big county, or maybe the two political parties each have to have their own system of law enforcement, etc., which must be really confusing to those people who are Libertarians, unless they have three sheriffs, in which case, I suppose Ross Perot will soon object, and want to get his own people in there.”

There moral of the story?

1. The Internet is full of people ready to snark at you;

2. People DO judge your credibility by what you publish, whether it’s a ‘net article, a brochure, or a billboard. Therefore

3. Lay off your editors at your own risk.