It's as if they're pulling the rug right out from under The Washington City Paper's feet....

The Post's internal critique board is abuzz with Postie criticism of the paper's obsessive-compulsive approach to ButterstickTai-Shan.

Keith B. Richburg:

Hey, Ed, by this point -- after the birth-watch, the Panda-cam, the graphics, the stick-of-butter analogies, the naming contest, the weigh-ins and medical checks etc. etc -- I'd like to stuff that darned bear and shove him on somebody's mantle place.

Michael Powell:

As a literal-minded colleague has taken me to task for promoting pernicious panda-pandering, I'd like to make clear that I'm very much in the stuff-em, mount-'em school. In fact, we have this lovely and barren wall in the NY bureau ...

Keith B. Richburg

...I was actually thinking the panda would look nice in the baghdad bureau, mounted atop the perimeter blast wall.

Michael Powell:

In a bearnaise sauce, fine bordeaux on the side ...

Courtland T. Milloy:

I suggest publishing for six consecutive days, starting on a Monday, an 11 x 14 color photo of the panda on the front page with someone holding a .357 magnum to his head (Keith? Tamara? Michael? Me?) and a caption that reads: "If you don't buy this newspaper, the bear gets it and gets it good." Even as street sales skyrocket, we pretend not to notice and run another photo Sunday of a blob shape chalk line on a zoo walk path above the cutline: "And on the seventh day Ty Shawn rested." Just imagine: for one week, no need for rails or zoning.

Butterstick...served best with butter? Poor fella...