Letters to the Editor
burlydee
Published Letters: 282 Editor's Choice: 7
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@ Glenn Greenwald
[Read the article: The "Rezko" game]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well I haven't completely ceded my critical thinking skills, despite what you may believe. And despite your attribution of a lot of points in my posts that simply weren't there, and your attempt to refute me as mindless, I'll respond to what I consider valid.
I know nothing about the Clinton library scandal, I'll leave that to the right wing noise machine to inform me, since I can't seem to find that information here. Regarding her tax returns - hmm, she hasn't released her tax returns. So I guess him saying "release your tax returns" is the same as insinuating that there is something sinister about this Rezko nonsense. But I'm sorry, I'm just doing partisan sniping.
Its weird how people use the same tactics they decry when confronted by a "partisan". Your response to my post was very Kurtzesque. Or at the very least Washington Post lite.
But I disagree with a key part of your analysis. "The Obama camp is out pressuring journalists every day to write about dirt on the Clintons, just as the Clinton camp is doing. That's a separate issue from what the media ends up and reports and why."
Now I have no idea whether Obama or Clinton is pressuring journalists, and I doubt that you do either. But I don't believe that it constitutes a separate issue. You seem to believe that only right wing politicians have influence over the media. And all the poor liberals are just innocent victims of their attacks. But I don't believe that. The media will traffic in dirt if that is all you give them. For 2 solid week the Clinton campaign has been complaining about the media coverage in a VERY PUBLIC manner. Or did you miss SNL? Or aren't you privy to the phone conversations Mark Penn has with media daily where he complains about the coverage. Hillary has brought up Rezko several times, unprompted by any media outlet.
For you to attribute the media's new found attention to Rezko (and the NAFTA flap) solely to the right wing is willful ignorance. Senator Clinton's campaign has been very publicly pushing this for 2 straight weeks. That is a fact. You can call me names and insult my intelligence if you like, but to speak of the smears and not to mention who was spreading them and who MOST BENEFITS by them, is irresponsible and plainly poor journalism. Now, how do you like my name calling.
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@ Glenn, and since you like searching the thread looking for straw men to fight...
[Read the article: The "Rezko" game]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'll post my original reply, to which you did not respond. And for the record, I never thought, and still don't think, you are a Hillary supporter. You can publish all the anti-Obama stuff you like (not that you ever have), as long as its true. I'm not searching for balance. I'm searching for accountability -
@ Glenn Greenwald
Thanks for replying to my post, but I respectfully disagree.
You cannot separate the media narrative from what the candidates and campaigns themselves place into the public sphere. Especially since so much of what the media does, what you yourself have taken the media to task for, is repeating smears by political opponents, and than covering them as if they were news.
So you want to hold the media responsible for Rezko, but not the people who started it all by knowingly spreading false information? Okay, but I think there is a disconnect in your logic the size of the Grand Canyon. My problem with the media is not that they repeat what the candidate say, is that when they know something is untrue, they still repeat it in some futile search for balance. Or conversely, they are just too lazy to track down the truth.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to hold media figures to a higher standard than I hold the campaigns themselves. By all accounts, Hillary knows that there is nothing concrete to the Rezko smears. Yet she actively seeks to make it part of the public dialogue. That is no different from Rush Limbaugh repeatedly implying that there was something sinister connected with Whitewater. Should only Rush be held accountable because he holds the loose title of "media figure" while the other perpetrator can be ignored just because they are politicians or members of a campaign?!? If its completely fact-free, it is total crap and the source should be derided no matter who it is. To rely on other people to point that out THE SOURCE is an abdication of responsibility. I understand your reluctance to step head first into the primary wars. But by not completely tracing the etymology of a smear like this, you absolve the people chiefly responsible for the smear. Rezko is not something the media invented. And since it has been known since Obama's senate campaign, it is certainly nothing new. Someone pushed the Rezko story into the spotlight. To not mention their complicity, or whom did it, is too absolve them of wrong-doing.
In other words, don't complain about the media swift-boating of Kerry, than absolve the swift-boaters themselves. That leaves the swift-boaters, the group responsible for committing the original wrong act, free to repeat the act again and again. Perhaps you see that at politics as usual. But if we don't hold politicians responsible for negative campaigning, than guess what, we get a whole bunch of negative campaigns.
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pammy61
[Read the article: Texas, can we please have a winner?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]nice racist jab at black people. Now if you wanted to do some actual reading, you would know that areas that went more heavily democratic in past elections, were allotted more delegates. But feel free to wallow in ignorance.