Remember back in July when the idea was floated that the N&R may have spiked a Hoggard column on the David Wray mess because it had a little too much Jerry Bledsoe in it ?

Some pooh-poohed that idea, if my memory’s correct. “N&R has never said boo to me about citing Jerry or the Rhino in my column,” Cone wrote. Now he thinks the N&R’s omission of Bledsoe and the Rhino in today’s ‘why can’t we all get along’ front-pager to be “just silly and looks like a deliberate whitewash …..a strange piece of reporting — and editing.”

Whatever. I know the excuse, anyway: News and editorial have nothing to do with each other at the N&R. The man constantly reminding us of that fact, editor John Robinson, did at least acknowledge that the Rhino and the Troublemaker in had been beating his paper to the punch in today’s column.

But then he says:

Former Mayor Jim Melvin — the same one whose name is on City Hall — made a comment at the annual meeting of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation last Monday that is worth repeating because it sums up a common sentiment that is also voiced in Hardin’s story.

“We’ve got to quit nitpicking about memos and all that kind of crap. If we don’t, ladies and gentlemen, we’re not going to get anywhere … Let’s not be pulled down by the naysayers. The best thing we can do with the naysayers is to give them positive-sayers.”

Because we published our stories about the city’s operations on the front page day after day, I’m thinking Melvin would put this newspaper into the boat with the nitpickers and naysayers.

But I can’t see where Melvin can call the N&R nitpickers looking at the past week’s lead editorials. The paper led cheers for Mayor Yvonne Johnson’s town meeting (others, not to mention the Rhino, weren’t all that impressed), then urged the Greensboro City Council to handle City Manager Mitchell Johnson “without poisoning the process with posturing and politics, finger-pointing and speechifying,” adding the council should “reflect for a moment before it acts too rashly.”

More compassion than nitpicking, if you ask me. I guess it’s true that news and editorial don’t what each other are doing.