NIGEL JAQUISS: KING BREAKER

You’re A Big Deal? Got A Few Cracks? Nigel Jaquiss Knows.

Nigel Jaquiss via katu.com

Nigel who? I’ll say it so you don’t have to.

Nigel Jaquiss. Writes for Willamette Week. (Will-aa-met.)

Either he’s got it going or his first name does. Google Nigel, only Nigel, and he shows up #2 behind Nigel Hayes.

Nigel who? Nigel Hayes is a Wisconsin Badger basketball player, (wiki: Hayes attended Whitmer High School in Toledo, Ohio. Hayes is a very highly rated NBA draft prospect.)

Nigel Jaquiss is not Nigel Hayes.

He has game, maybe some ball skills, but it’s a different game.

This Nigel Jaquiss is a heavy hitter in print, a Pulitzer Prize winning heavy hitter. Let’s get that out of the way. Pulitzer. Prize.

You may not know it, but you want a Pulitzer Prize too. Then you’re the answer to the question, “Do know a Pulitzer Prize winner?”

He’s no blogger on a shoestring, but what exactly is he?

He’s the knock on the door. When you answer he’ll tell you what’s in your closet.

If you don’t know what’s in there, he can be very helpful. If you do know what’s in there, and you keep the door shut on purpose, you’ve got a Nigel Jaquiss problem.

What is a Nigel Jaquiss problem and who solves it?

You’ve got skeletons rattling around and no one notices. Blessed with sharp hearing, Nigel Jaquiss notices the sound and looks for the source.

Rattling skeletons annoy everyone, but who makes the effort to quiet them down?

The man got a Pulitzer after he explained Governor Neil Goldschmidt’s biggest skeleton. No one heard a thing but Nigel Jaquiss, or they’d heard the rattling so long it was just a part of the audio background.

Now everyone knows Governor Goldschmidt wasn’t the man they thought he was. He was golden once, a king maker, a man you wanted on your side.

After Nigel Jaquiss finished his Goldschmidt story, not as many movers and shakers wanted anywhere near the former governor.

Score it Nigel 1, Oregon governor 0.

The more recent story, which is still evolving, finds another governor down. John Kitzhaber found the exit door after his skeleton’s formed a band with a girl singer and hit the road.

Score it Nigel 2, Oregon governors 0.

If you follow the news at all you are familiar with teamwork. Willamette Week and Nigel Jaquiss are not showing good teamwork when they take down democrats, or so it would appear.

What they do show is more than a conservative publication might do when dealing with a right wing attitude.

You don’t earn a Get Out Of Jail Free card with Nigel Jaquiss. What you get is a reminder: You screwed up.

Is that the message Governor Goldschmidt heard when his ‘affair with a high school student’ turned into a babysitter rape story?

What’s the message Governor Kitzhaber took into the sunset when he read about he and his fiance’s action and knew it was out of the closet? Time to close up shop, the Feds are on the way?

And that’s what he did.

At some point you need to ask if Nigel Jaquiss is good for Oregon. With his pen, or keyboard, he wields great power, enough to turn the events of history.

What we’ve heard over the ages is, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Nigel Jaquiss has the power surge figured out. Twice. How about the responsible part?

Is Oregon better off because of this reporter? Call it matter of timing. All he’s done is lay out the sort of historical stories a future researcher would write.

Instead of writing about dead men for an audience with short memories, Nigel Jaquiss gives us the money shot with everyone still present.

It doesn’t get any better than that.