Letters to the Editor
Amerigo
Published Letters: 955 Editor's Choice: 60
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Makes a horse race
[Read the article: Tucker Carlson, stalwart defender of sexual privacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact is that when it comes to these cable TV shows, then there have to be two sides to the argument, so Mr Carlson was assigned the (well-paid) job of arguing on behalf of the whoremongering senator.
This is no different from an attorney defending a client he knows damn well is guilty. It is called doing your job.
Back in prehistoric times when there was something called the Fairness Doctrine, which decreed that two sides of every argument must be shown on TV, I used to think that it would be good to get rid of it so as to prevent pointless discussions in which one person was defending the indefensible, but boy, was I wrong!
The truth is that everyone already knows that most everyone in Washington is into someone else's pants, or would like to be, but that this does not play well in the more atavistic parts of the nation that have their fair share--well, more than their fair share--of our elected officials.
Hence we have this silly game of damage limitation when someone gets nailed and everyone else winces and thinks "there, but for the grace of God go I" and wonder what the guilty party did to offend the man upstairs and how he could be so indiscreet. The victim then apologizes, digs out his bible, calls in Billy Graham for an exorcism in exchange for a handsome donation to The Lord's Work, then goes back to his old ways once the brouhaha has moved on.
It is getting old, and no one really gives a damn. Are these politicians hypocrites? Yes, of course they are, but it is just part of the job description, and apparently American voters like it that way.
The only people who are even more stupid are those who actually watch cable TV and get all worked up about it, ignoring the fact that the whole scenario is about as ritualized as Japanese kabuki theater.
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Good advice, Cary
[Read the article: My Southern grandmother is dying, and I don't want to go back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good advice, bud. I dare any one to disagree with Cary on this one. I have to wonder, though, what the good is of liking yourself if you don't like anyone else, and no one likes you. I guess everything has its price.
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Pretending?
[Read the article: It's finally time for Bush to answer questions about Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why then has the president failed to apologize to them on behalf of himself, his staff and the government of the United States?
Are you just pretending you don't know? Bush and Cheney cooked up a load of half-baked reasons for invading Iraq mainly because they felt it would be politically popular, and because Saddam Hussein was a global bogeyman and a public relations disaster, probably deservedly so. Iraq also had lots of oil, which you may have notice we use quite a bit here to run our SUVs.
The "Iraq will give terrorists nukes if we don't get in there" line was one of these strategies.
Joe Wilson, no doubt the instigation of his wife, publicly contradicted the party line, thus making the President and Vice President extremely angry. They therefore ordered their henchmen to blame Plame and do the dirty on the Wilsons in whatever way they could.
Was that so difficult?
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To anonymous above
[Read the article: "The Trap"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So with a Master's degree from a top college and a husband too, so presumably two incomes, life is depressingly hard with no luxuries. I am sure that what you say is true, else you would not be writing.
But look, you have the immeasurable advantage of having grown up and got educated in this country, speaking English as your native language, and probably understanding the mysteries of baseball and football too? In my state everyone who went to the state university (go Gators!) belongs to an informal alumni network that pervades every center of power and influence in the state throughout their lives.
How the hell do you think we immigrants survive, who came to the US as adults, with educations that are not recognized here, or only partially, no alumni network, and who had to start over with almost nothing?
It may be true, is true, that there are not lots of well-paid jobs out there ready to be plucked by college graduates, but the situation is worse in every single other country in the world. Trust me.
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Correct me if I am wrong...
[Read the article: The New York Times misses the CNN/YouTube debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... but aren't a small number of questions selected out of thousands by journalists?
Some of the questions were good, but they weren't that great, and were no doubt selected for their entertainment value and to illustrate some current preoccupations of average voters, (which is all well and good).
I would like to see much more focussed questions such as "Where do you get your information and news from? Which Web sites if any, do you read? Which newspapers did you read today, if any? Do you read National Intelligence Estimates in their entirety?
What kind of car do you drive? How much insurance do you have to pay? How much did you pay for your current home? Do you have a mortgage? At what interest rate?"