Letters to the Editor
Elephantman
Published Letters: 1312 Editor's Choice: 15
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Let the record reflect that the left wing has called for a lesbian witch-hunt...
[Read the article: The GOP's crowded closet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]what about the women?
a nice article, but why not include the women as well? what about condi, and her close relationship with the bushes? right-wing hypocrisy extends to (and hurts) lesbians too.
--Anonymous
Be careful what you ask for, Salonistas: a witch-hunt for lesbians? I don't know how well that one's gonna sit with the Democratic leadership...
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Weirdness multiplied... watching this story unfold on CNN.
[Read the article: The return of Larry Craig?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought Anderson Cooper lucked out when he was out of the country when this story broke, and it looked as though he would be spared the weirdness of having to report the story of a phony closeted gay man. Oops!
Senator Craig, you should have been gone from the national scene before the Labor Day Holiday weekend. To still be in the news after the holiday just means that you are completely insane, and have no regard for your party. Get out. Since you can't be gone, like, yesterday, tomorrow will do. What a joke.
Could somebody please forward all of the Salon letters supporting Craig to the Senate Republican leadership (as if they need it) so that it is crystal clear that the resignation must be, uh, consummated IMMEDIATELY!
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After MoveOn's disgraceful "Betray Us"...
[Read the article: Petraeus' Pentagon skeptics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I shall never, ever again be reluctant to use the term, "Defeatocrat."
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Laugh about it all you want, now, Garry Owen.
[Read the article: Petraeus' Pentagon skeptics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But "defeat" is not exactly a winning plank in a party platform. I'm hoping that the next President will, like President Bush, be nominated and elected by people who actually root for Americans to win.
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Get real, Glenn, fercrissakes.
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Censorship? As in, the government deciding what speech can get you thrown in jail? Like what they do in Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria and North Korea?
I can't think of too much serious, true censorship of any kind in the U.S. That said, we have free and commercially-driven broadcast media, which might well self-censor (also known as editorial control) comments that they deem to be offensive, however much they may be protected by the First Amendment. I have every right to speak out in defense of the President and the Republican Party. That I can voice my opinions in that regard does not mean that they will be broadcast by a television network, or even be allowed on Salon.
I ask you, in all seriousness -- would a network like NPR broadcast comments to the effect that "Muslims are terrorists" if it could first edit and purge them? Of course it would NOT.
Personally, I don't care much about Kathy Griffin, and whether her comments had any political merit or effect of any kind is both dubious and laughable. She intended to offend a certain group of Americans, as is her Constitutional right. She succeeded. It was a good career move on her part; she is a D-list celbrity who is in the business of doing comedy that is aimed at mostly young, mostly liberal, mostly agnostic/atheist audiences. She lives in a Hollywood culture which fears and loathes Christian conservatives. None of that much matters to me. It is what it is.
Just please do not tell me that Christian conserviatives get any kind of special institutional protection in this free country. There is practically no cultural group that I can think of which draws more sarcasm and more insults -- indeed, more government-funded ridicule (thanks, Andres Serrano) -- than Christian conservatives.
I also wonder, Glenn, if Kathy Griffin was aiming her insult(s) at all of the Christian African-Americans who might just wish to utilize their own free speech rights and "praise Jesus" as they announce their own thanks for an award....?
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...and about Juan Cole...
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Juan Cole is not exactly Nelson Mandela. (Well, except perhaps in his liberal anti-Western world view...)
Anyway, Cole is no political prisoner. He has a tenured faculty position at the University of Michigan. He has a blog on the World Wide Web, and a book contract that allows him to publish pretty much whatever he likes. He writes columns for Salon and the NYT.
And yet he is the subject of a "censorship" claim?
And Yale, of all places, is supposed to be the hegemonic turf of "neoconservatives"? Are you joking? Were you laughing out loud as you typed? You might wish to begin your remedial course on Yale history by reading Bill Buckley's "God and Man at Yale."
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Glenn - There's a difference. Let me spell it out for you.
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Elephantman:
Censorship? As in, the government deciding what speech can get you thrown in jail? Like what they do in Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria and North Korea?
Then by this 'reasoning,' there was nothing to the Mohammed cartoon controversy, since that just involved individual newspapers deciding on their own not to run something.
-- GlennGreenwald
I don't think anyone ever decried that as 'censorship.' If so, I think the phrase was misapplied. What the 'Mohammed cartoon debacle' involved was the methodology by which some groups appeared to want to enforce their will.
Bill Donohue chooses to speak out, to rally like-minded Christians and in some cases influence economic pressure through the choices of his supporters. He's using the same speech rights that you and Professor Juan Cole enjoy so very, very much.
What we have learned over the years with Islamofacists is that they seek to enforce their will by means of suicide attacks on large groups of civilians. Not by means of any kind of 'speech.' Speech, it seems, does not provide the kind of body counts that Islamofascists desire.
So the understood, if unspoken, threat in the Mohammed cartoon story was that a Mercedes sedan would roll up to the newspaper office and suddenly detonate a trunk full of high explosives. Because Kathy Griffin lives in the United States of America, she is largely free of such fears. She can look forward to a few more sold-out nights in Vegas.
There's a difference. Get it?