Letters to the Editor
Dorian de Wind
Published Letters: 22
-
Bush's Ultimate Obstruction of Justice
[Read the article: Bush and Cheney walk, too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Amen to Mr. Blumenthal for telling it like it is. In stark contrast to neocon David Brooks who, in a New York Times puff piece (“Ending the Farce”), invents a "five act" re-enactment of the Libby "Farce," In this piece, itself a farce, Brooks conveniently omits the most important scene of the entire alleged "play." That is, the scene in Act Four where a jury of Mr. Libby's peers, acting out the most fundamental function of our justice system, finds Mr. Libby guilty of and convicts him on four felony counts. It is the President's flouting of our judicial system that has turned the Libby case indeed into a farce.
-
Talking about Dictionaries
[Read the article: In defending Gonzales, Justice officials look to the dictionary]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In their continuing efforts to obfuscate the truth, Bush Justice officials are now seeking subterfuge in Webster’s dictionary. In browsing through a Merriam-Webster dictionary which recently added 100 new words to its repertoire, those officials will now come across a word with which they should be very familiar. The new word, “ginormous” (a combination of the adjectives “gigantic” and “enormous”) certainly is descriptive of the magnitude of the failures that can be attributed to the Justice department and the rest of the Bush administration during the past six years. And, talking about dictionaries, it should come as no surprise to anyone, that--after six years of scandals--Conservatives will certainly expunge words and phrases such as "family values,“ "morality,“ "ethics,“ "integrity,“ and “compassionate conservative” from their campaign slogans dictionary during the upcoming elections.
-
Muzzling Richard Carmona Was Justified because of the War on Terror
[Read the article: Former surgeon general details Bush administration interference]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Bush administration, when attempting to excuse their myriad of civil rights abuses, invariable invokes the slogan “the war on terror made us do it.“ Thus it comes as a surprise that they did not do so when former Surgeon General Richard Carmona testified before Congress as to how he was muzzled by Bush and his cronies. Surprised, because Bush administration officials could have said that they prevented Dr. Carmona from discussing matters such as sex education, e.g. the use of condoms, because doing so would have given terrorists access to information not available to the American people, and thus given them an unfair advantage.
-
And, the saga continues...
[Read the article: Cooking the intelligence, again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sidney Blumenthal, in his chronology of Bush’s most recent attempts at “cook[ing] the intelligence,“ only went as far as Wednesday, July 18, in documenting such abuses. On Thursday (July 19), Bush let his Generals and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq try out another potential insult to the intelligence of the American people--one that went up like a lead balloon. Given the fact that the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Bush's top Generals would not, in such a formal setting as Thursdays's briefings to Congress, say anything that had not been cleared with Bush, the following becomes crystal clear. In begging Congress for additional time to assess the results of the surge, Bush is letting his Generals do his bidding because he knows that he personally has lost all credibility with Congress and with the American people. Or, this swaggering gunslinger in cowboy boots really doesn't have the "cojones" to ask Congress face-to-face for yet more time and patience.
-
Sir, Have you no self-respect?
[Read the article: What were the pre-2005 "other intelligence activities"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just as everyone thought things could not get worse with respect to Alberto Gonzales' pitiable performances on Capitol Hill, they just did. Congress and the American people had to suffer once again through another tortuous and devious performance by this now-pathetic individual. The height of the incompetence of and obfuscation by Mr. Gonzales was never more obvious than when he was forced to backpedal on a previous lie he made under oath. When confronted by Senate Judiciary Committee members on what is now clearly a lie about “intelligence activities” vs. the illegal domestic eavesdropping program,, Gonzales attempted to again obfuscate by stating that he had corrected the record afterwards, but could not remember who had corrected his statement or how it had been corrected. There is the famous question that could apply to Gonzales: “Sir, have you no shame?“ In the Gonzales case, it should be expanded to “Sir, have you no shame and no respect for yourself and your country?“ This man has not only destroyed his own reputation, but in the process he is also destroying the reputation of the U.S. Department of Justice and of the United States of America.
-
Yes, "The Boys Are All Right"
[Read the article: The kids are alright]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Coincidentally, this week’s issue of TIME has a superb article by David von Drehle titled “The Boys Are All Right.“ The article basically proposes that our young male teens are doing very well emotionally, socially, academically, etc. While both Greenwald and the Weekly Standard may have “kids” older than TIME’s “boys” in mind, and while von Drehle’s observations were strictly apolitical, I tend to believe that part of what makes our boys are all right is, as Salon’s commentary implies, that ”Young people react with hostility to the Republicans on almost every measure… The range of the issue disagreements range from the most prominent issues of the day (Iraq, immigration) to burning social issues (gay marriage, abortion) to fundamental ideological disagreements over the size and scope of government.”
-
Related Acitivities. Related Lies.
[Read the article: Parsing the parsers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"NSA program-related intelligence activities" sounds awful similar to the now infamous "weapons of mass destruction program related avtivities." Both were lies, both were attempts to backpedal and to cover-up.