Letters to the Editor
FredrickBernanke
Published Letters: 170 Editor's Choice: 8
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Rocky57
[Read the article: Does "Obama Girl" help Obama?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]'Uh, it's not an "Obama presentation." He had nothing to do with it other than someone gloaming onto his persona.'
If he indeed "had nothing to do with it," I hereby withdraw any criticism directly specifically at him.
[And maybe I should re-read the article, huh?]
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(This is Off The Record)
[Read the article: Tucker Carlson unintentionally reveals the role of the American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OFF THE RECORD/EYES ONLY
This is the best article Greenwald has written in my several months of reading Salon. Finally, a columnist interpretes an event (Carlson's) in manner totally contrary to, and unquie from, any other widely circulated journalist.
This symbiotic but throroughly power-unbalanced relationship is perhaps most obvious in the realms of entertainment and sports "journalism," if such even exists. There, any pretense of the hard-nosed reporter searching for the truth from his famous, immensely wealthy and powerful interviewees isn't even proclaimed. Fawning is the chief guideline followed by these "reporters."
But the underlying subjects of entertainment/sports are of no real import. So who cares?
If the People magazine model extends into subject matter vital to the public--politics, business/economics, conduct of government officials and so on)--which Carlson not only confirms, but is rather proud and self-righteous about it...if that's how Big News Media operates, it's no wonder we are facing the possibilty of a 28-year run of being governed by 2 out of the 100,000,000 or so families who are US citizens.
This is very good work, IMHO, Mr. Greenwald---keep it up, and thanks.
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Spitzer Spits in His Constituents Faces & There's No "Tragedy" Here
[Read the article: The tragic fall of Eliot Spitzer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Interesting how Shapiro writes his article from the perspective of how "tragic" an event this is to Spitzer. One comes away with the impression after reading it that the article had be written by someone working for a Crisis Management firm hired by the Governor, not by a journalist whose constituency is supposedly the People.
Isn't there anything beyond the personal harm to Mr. Spitzer that is worth commenting on or thinking about?
For this writer, there are at least three more important issues that are raised by Spitzer's fall. Two of them are rather obvious with fairly limited ramifications. The third is not so obvious in its connection.
1. Hypocrisy is the most difficult of vices for the public to tolerate.
2. Why did Spitzer's bank apparently contact the IRS of its own volition, in secret? What law is lurking out there that gives banks this kind of authority to rat-out its own depositors, with no notice to the depositor required? If Jane Doe writes some checks that some bank clerk thinks present a "suspicious pattern," can Jane find herself the target of a Justice Department investigation, of wiretaps and other surveillance?
3. Finally, the episode is a brilliant real-world illustration of why true conservatives always argue for the most limited of power for those who govern: Irrespective of any and all other criteria, those with power are human beings, some subject more, some subject less, to human frailties.
In the culture of the still puritanical USA, it is frequently that most powerful of human urges--sexual desire--that winds up as the proximate cause of the downfalls of the mighty, as is the case here. But it's the thought of this guy--with power--having the gall to be concurrently prosecuting prostitution rings and being a client of prostitutes himself that disqualifies any sense of the "tragic" be used as the adjective to describe Spitzer.
Governors, Senators, Mayors, City Council-people and, especially, Presidents should have only the absolute minimum of power to harm and harass others as is required to keep governments functioning.
Spitzer not only abused his power as AG and Governor, but both those offices came equipped with too much power long before Elliot Spitzer arrived on the scene.