Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 120 Editor's Choice: 5
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Breaking News:
[Read the article: Rendering public opinion irrelevant ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well-organized, highly vocal minorities can bully well-meaning but weak-minded majorities into doing foolish things.
Who knew?
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Ummm
[Read the article: Who is doing real journalism?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is there some alternative universe where MSNBC does "actual reporting"? Which CNN correspondent is calling up mid-level bureaucrats?
Finally, is there some universe somewhere where I care what Alter thinks? Ummm...no.
We've grown our own journalist-superstars -- Glenn, Marcy, John, Joe, Josh, Marcos, Duncan, etc., etc., etc. These people are the face of the new journalism -- you know, the one people are reading more and more of.
As opposed to MSNBC, which on a good morning has a viewership of something like 1/3/ of DKos.
Some of us had better start planning for the success that is coming our way. (And I don't mean to say "we win!" for the sport of it. I mean that we are creating a free and independent press that will help ensure our society functions better.)
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Remember Where We Are
[Read the article: The parade of "shrill, unserious extremists" on display at today's impeachment hearings]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's surely good sport to beat up on Cass Sunstein, whose egotism knows no bounds. But I am prepared to withhold judgment about the quality of BHO's judicial nominees until we actually have a vacancy. Nor I am convinced that there's much evidence (none really) beyond the FISA vote that an Obama administration will turn a blind eye to lawlessness.
A bit of perspective is likely in order.
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Same old, same old
[Read the article: Karl Rove's media birds chirp about Obama's "arrogance"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is only by going over onto offense that the Dems will ever overcome this nonsense. Dana's parroting could well be made bi-directional if we made a full-throated effort.
It remains to be seen whether this time around will be any different. There's a lot of reason to think that the outcome will be the same as the previous 20 million times...
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You got a PhD?
[Read the article: What's wrong with science as religion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wow. Hopefully not on the strength of your powers of analysis and writing ability.
I think I can debunk this nonsense with one simple word: hooey.
There. I think that does it.
Karl, you need to think much harder about things before you again put pen to paper and announce Truth as you understand it.
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With you, Heather
[Read the article: Our cupboard was bare]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have a hard time seeing where there's any basis for hope (apologies, Sen. Obama) when the people who write these letters populate our beautiful land.
People like Heather do not need advice on how to make better choices. She does not need to be admonished, nor made to feel worse. Her problems are not the result of her moral failings. She feels shame because in our society being poor is shameful. In our society, far too many people are self-indulgent, and like to pretend that economic outcomes depend on a kind of "deservedness."
One of my guilty pleasures is watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC. It's rather bittersweet, because the show's premise is to find the single most "deserving" family in a state and give them a nice, new home. Of course, for the winning families it's manna from heaven, and to see these folks come to understand how valuable the help is that they're getting - it's awesome. But the race to find the most deserving is nothing more than finding the most pathetic.
Every family in our country should have the security of knowing that no matter what -- whether they are "deserving" or not, whether they make good choices or bad, whether they are smart or dumb, black, white or hispanic -- that their fellow Americans will be there for them. This is a social compact that the people of most civilized nations make. In America, however, we have been brainwashed into thinking the only system is "every man for himself."
The lesson I get from these letters is simple. Try to emigrate to Norway.
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Partisanship
[Read the article: Doubts over the anthrax case intensify -- except among much of the media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The MSM as stenographer for the government -- and the stigma attached to questioning the government -- is a partisan phenomenon. The truth is that the MSM is scared of screeching right-wingers.
I heard what may be an apocryphal story about Karen Hughes at the 2004 Republican Convention. She was watching CNN on a monitor under the podium, and heard an on-air person say that there were people booing (or something). She felt this was wrong (it wasn't), and she tore out of her war-room and charged into the CNN booth and started yelling and cursing. (Maybe one of my fellow-commenters has a link?)
I sincerely doubt that David Brooks or David Broder or Maureen Dowd or any of our MSM "reporters" will feel obliged to take the word of a Democratic administration. On the contrary, they will obsess over the administrations numerous lies, scandals and missteps just as they have in the past.
Our society's problems are much more severe and hard-to-remedy than most of us really realize. We've dug ourselves a mighty hole from which there may well be no exit.
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Hmmm.
[Read the article: What's missing from the Democratic convention?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Unless we replace the American electorate of 2000 and 2004 with some new electorate, it's not immediately clear to me why we will get a different outcome this time around...
The problem, my friends, isn't the dishonest charlatans of the right, nor the weak-kneed apologists and enablers of the left. The problem is that nearly half of those who will vote in November are dumber than a sack of dirt.