Letters to the Editor
PaulBC
Published Letters: 240 Editor's Choice: 24
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video game, yeah, what was that about?
[Read the article: Start believin']
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Someone else beat me to it, but I was going to mention that they had a video game. I couldn't have told you which of the pop songs playing in my dorm dining hall back in the 80s was by Journey. But if you asked me what band had its own arcade game... that part I remember. That by itself doesn't mean they suck, but it does shift the burden of proof in my opinion to anyone who wants to argue otherwise.
I mainly read the letters to see if anyone else would mention the video game, but in this case the letters beat the original article. The best part is how the people who insist Journey really sucks seem to have spent more time listening to them than anyone else and some have actually seen them in concert. Journey's defenders appear to be casual listeners, whereas their detractors have apparently turned it into kind of a life's mission to count the ways in which Journey fails as a band.
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I hate him because of his freedom
[Read the article: Ten things about Dick]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seriously, why isn't Dick Cheney in jail by now?
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behavior hasn't changed much?
[Read the article: Why has world opinion of the U.S. changed dramatically since 2000?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If our behavior hasn't changed much, then how do you account for more than 3500 US fatalities and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war?
Our "fundamentally similar" behavior sure used to cost us a lot less.
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where's pieman when you need him?
[Read the article: The jerk in chief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Actually, I agree that Bush's answer sounded more self-deprecating than hostile.
But I still find the incident eerily reminiscent of "Simple Simpson", episode 19 of The Simpsons' 15th season (*), and I suppose I wouldn't object if the kid's father decided to don a Pieman disguise to avenge his daughter's honor.
(*) Everything is like some Simpson's episode, even if it's a very late post-shark-jumping one.
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conventional wisdom is confusing primary and general election
[Read the article: The GOP is the party of the Iraq war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Looking ahead, McCain's embrace of the Iraq war would probably hurt him in the general election if he gets that far. As Greenwald points out, though, it doesn't really distinguish him from the other major GOP candidates. Therefore, it cannot explain his present difficulties.
I think the fundamental fallacy of analyses like Huffington's is to suppose that McCain's difficulties in the primary can be understood in terms of his potential difficulties in a general election. It's just very sloppy reasoning, almost amounting to wishful thinking on the part of those who imagine that there are only two people left who want to stay in Iraq, and they're both holed up in a house on Pennsylvania Ave. In reality, US is just crawling with these nutcases, some of whom would bankrupt us with another adventure into Iran. Thankfully, they're not the majority anymore, but they still have plenty of influence, and a whole bag of tricks ready for the next election.
I cannot really vouch for the details of Greenwald's article. It all sounds pretty plausible, but I doubt I'll ever understand hardcore Republicans enough to figure out why they prefer one candidate over another.
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PW's anecdotal evidence vs. statistics
[Read the article: The GOP is the party of the Iraq war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't read PW's letter as claiming that anecdotal evidence was more reliable than scientific polling. The letter starts out with a concession "If the polls are right, Glenn, you're right."
All PW claimed was the right to remain skeptical. It seems reasonable to me. Polls can exhibit all sorts of selection biases, and the questions they ask might not really gauge the sort of emotive response that PW is picking up on the ground. That doesn't mean that the responses of a few acquaintances will tell you much either.
My guess (purely such) is that at a personal level, there is widespread disillusionment with the war felt particularly by those who have friends and family deployed in Iraq. That would lead them to say one thing in conversation that might be very different from their response when they are asked about Iraq abstractly as a policy issue.
At the very least, it is healthy to express puzzlement when reported "scientific" polling is completely at odds with one's personal experience. The rational response is to investigate the discrepancy. Simply discounting personal experience as "anecdotal" and placing your complete trust in incompletely described polling methods is just as gullible as discounting data based on a few anecdotes.