Letters to the Editor
William Timberman
Published Letters: 3010 Editor's Choice: 7
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A puzzle
[Read the article: Words by Gonzales, logic by Kafka]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It may be that there are senators who aren't morons, but it would certainly be hard to prove it by their questioning of Attorney General Gonzales. Could it really be that they don't recognize a serious constitutional crisis when they see one? Does Karl Rove really frighten them enough to turn the U.S. Senate into an American version of the Reichstag? Shame on the whole miserable lot of them.
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Maybe yes, maybe no
[Read the article: Bloggers, meet reporters. Reporters, meet bloggers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All reporters aren't Judy Miller? Or is it just that she's one of the few who got caught? Bob Woodward was another, wouldn't you say? Both very respected, both given pride of place in your profession. And why would we bring up all the high-profile plagiarism that's afflicted the NYT and others lately, or the black comedy that you call the White House Press Corps?
We should trust you, right? We should defer to your hard work and wisdom. We should ignore Glenn Greenwald's dissection of the Washington Post's mendacity and obscurantism vis-a-vis the NSA bills. And finally, we should accept your insults to our intelligence and persons in the spirit in which they've been offered, and go forth chastened and sin no more.
Pardon me, but not bloody likely. Handsome is as handsome does, and we aren't done with one another yet, not by a long shot. If you can't persuade us, try trivializing us. Go on, do it. You want war, you got war. See you in hell.
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Please Don't Stop Making Sense, Even If Someone Tempts You
[Read the article: A kinder, gentler war on terror]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After reading this article, I'm inclined to ask why you don't run for President, Mr. O'Hehir. Of course I know why you, or any sane person, for that matter, wouldn't even consider the attempt.
Still, it would be refreshing to have someone who has as much sense as you have running for any national, state or local office. Just once, please, before I'm called to Jesus.
Of course, no candidate dares risk making any sense these days -- look at Hillary Clinton. Which is why, after pondering my question a bit longer, I realize how much more valuable you are where you are. Since politicians can't frame the debate we desperately need to have, I'm afraid writers must, and no other writer I've read recently, except perhaps Glenn Greenwald, does it as well as you've done here.
Thank you.
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A Good Point
[Read the article: Rove in civvies isn't such an ugly sight]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Exactly so -- Rove may be the chief demagogue of this miserable cabal, but he's not the chief totalitarian theorist. For things to get any better, it seems likely that they must first get a whole lot worse. The shriek of cognitive dissonance is already so loud in the U.S. as to mask all reasonable political discussion. Once it gets loud enough to drown out the demagoguery as well, we may see some action. The problem, of course, is that by that time, the U.S. may be part of the wreckage of history, and the righteous condemned along with the fools and sinners.
Nevertheless, events have a logic of their own. I remember the television image in 1989 of an overweight woman in her fifties, wearing a shapeless dress, standing just west of the Berlin Wall, with tears streaming down her face. Some enthusiastic young TV reporter shoved a microphone under her nose, and asked her the inevitable question, but all she could say, over and over, was "They've stolen my youth." The American reporter, not understanding German, never translated what she said. Hers was a hard fate. Whatever we believe, and no matter how hard we work, we should be aware that it may be our fate as well.
However Republican triumphalism turns out in the end, I'd say that the myth of American exceptionalism is already dead, and will never be revived. The best we can hope for is that the ideas of the Enlightenment preserved in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution will be carried forward. If anyone can manage that, it alone may be enough to justify what we will inevitably suffer.
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Sadly, this should not be news to anyone
[Read the article: License to lie]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's just that we're not supposed to attribute anything important people do to their psychology. They don't have one, unless maybe we're talking about Hitler or Stalin. And it goes without saying that you can't compare anything an American important person has done to what they did anyway -- it's in bad taste.
Meanwhile, that screeching noise you've been hearing since 9/11 is an abused reality abandoning us to our miserable fate -- and a well-deserved fate, it is too, except for folks like Gary Kamiya, who say out loud what the rest of us would be thinking, if only we could think as clearly.
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"One of Their Own?"
[Read the article: Say it ain't so, Joe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joe Lieberman claims he's a Democrat, but then so did any number of Dixiecrat senators in the heady days following the Civil Rights Act. Are you old enough to remember Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Delegation? The conventional wisdom at the time said that they were splitting the party, and shouldn't be seated. They weren't seated, in fact, but of course the party split anyway.
I suspect you'd argue that this inability to accept racists in the party as a fact of life and get on with business handed the South to the Republicans, and brought us to the sorry state we're in today. I might even concede that there's some truth to that analysis. Still, I believe Fanny Lou was on the right side of history, and I could never -- then or now -- support a party that countenanced racism, regardless of whether or not I agreed with them on other issues.
Joe Lieberman isn't a racist, but he is a warmonger, and an authoritarian prig, and he doesn't belong in the Democratic Party any more than Strom Thurmond did. If this be treason, make the most of it.
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Another thank you
[Read the article: The hatred incubator]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Courage, and insight. I don't know how he does it and survives, but we are all indebted to Mr. Robertson for his reporting under the most harrowing circumstances. I fear for him, and applaud him, and hope he will remain safe always.