Bye, bye, Rachel, and setting the record straight.

Oh, my, what a difference a night makes, as I wake up this morning to learn that la Marsden is not a Postie anymore. So much for the "Rachel Marsden Watch". I guess I'll have to find someone else to pick on. Who could it be? Who could it possibly be? No.

However, as much as I adore Mme. Z, I am going to have to take issue with what she wrote both in her own comments section and here, where she writes:

If you follow his links, you'll see that Canadian Cynic implies that Marsden claims a column that never appeared in the Post did appear in the Post.

No, I didn't.

If you read my piece, you'll notice that I am obviously speculating wildly about what I thought was simply a rather odd incident. I never accused Marsden of deliberate deception. Rather, I described what I found as "curious," openly asked whether it might have been an "oversight," and even that "I could be completely off-base". I'm not sure how much clearer I could have been that I was just thinking out loud so it's a little grating for Mme. Z to write it up the way she did.

I mean, given that I explicitly admit that "maybe I'm reading too much into this," it seems a little gratuitous for Ms. Zerbisias to write "So Cynic, I think you're pushing it too far here." Um, yeah, I think I had already left open that possibility, if you know what I mean. However, let's tie up some loose ends here, shall we?

I still think Rachel sweetie was playing a bit fast and loose when she snuck that column into her list of publications here. Given that she started her association with the Post on June 1 to great fanfare, and that her columns were, after a few days delay, reproduced at her site, in dated chronological order, there's something just a little slippery about, after establishing a clear pattern, suddenly changing it without warning.

Of course, Marsden has every right to do what she wants at her web site. That's not the point. The point is, once readers get used to a certain ritual, it's a little underhanded to quietly change what's happening underneath with no notice. But, truth be told, I really wish I'd finished my thought at the time because, when I spotted this, my first reaction was, "Uh oh, this is the beginning of the end."

As I've already written, the column in question was just so racist and vile, I couldn't believe any paper (even the Post) would have printed it, and that's the only reason I looked a little closer.

Once I noticed the lack of Post publication date trailer, my immediate reaction was, she's on her way out. Once again, speculating wildly, I'm guessing that the Post folks were never overly comfortable with Marsden but, hey, they hired her and they were going to stick with her.

Until that column.

At which point, I'm imagining Rachel's higher-ups at the paper finally just gagging, handing it back and saying, "No." Followed by a discussion during which both parties agreed that maybe this just wasn't working out, sorry, but lots of luck in your future endeavours.

Wild speculation? Sure. Except that I wasn't the only one thinking thoughts like that -- see Matthew's similar thoughts here. And then I wake up to read that Marsden's cleared out her desk. Yeah, it all sort of fits now, doesn't it?

Remember, you read the totally unfounded, wild, talking-out-of-my-ass speculation here first.