Letters to the Editor
Frankly, my dear, ...
Published Letters: 626
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But what if ...
[Read the article: What FISA capitulations are Democrats planning next?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn says:
It isn't only the U.S. which spies on other countries' citizens. Many, many countries do that. I suppose one could suggest that there ought to be some international standards for how that works, but until I saw evidence that this power was being abused, it isn't something to which I personally would pay all that much attention.
But what if one country asks another country with which it is good buddies, to spy on its own citizens for it. Much as the US requested the Brits to bug the UN security council delegates in order to have the edge in the forthcoming vote on whether to authorize the use of military force against Iraq in 2003 (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1158679,00.html). The vote never took place because the US realized that it wasn't going to get the authorization, so the US and Britain simply ignored the security council. But the US needed help from the Brits because there were some things that they couldn't do because of the UN being located in the US.
But if the US gets the Brits to spy on Americans (which isn't illegal) and in return the US spys on Brits for the British government, would that be something to which you would pay attention?
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If I had a nickel
[Read the article: A nation of Rich Lowrys]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for every time one of these pea-brained pundits has said "the next few/three/six months in Iraq will be crucial" I could probably build myself a country-sized embassy complex in Baghdad. If the US media were doing any kind of effective communication job, George W. Bush would be known around the world as "Bring 'em on Bush".
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You forgot about ...
[Read the article: A nation of Rich Lowrys]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]emaydon:
Lowry is a fully paid up member of the punditocracy. He speaks on their behalf. The idea that Iraq is "little understood" is a judgement he may pass on his own milieu. Anthony Zinni, Brent Scowcroft, Juan Cole, amongst many experts foresaw the problems of occupying Iraq.
You left out Dick "shooter" Cheney, who during his relatively brief "Sane Period" in 1992 explained in explicit detail and described with terrifying accuracy the present situation in Iraq (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/192908_cheney29.html).
I'm sure psychiatrists have a name for this. No sane person could surely make such a fool of himself.
I don't know if they have a name for it, but a study by Justin Kruger and David Dunning of Cornell University published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1999 (http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf) was entitled "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". I quote here the abstract:
People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.
This would seem to be a perfect description of many of Washington's leading pundits (as well as our very own shooter).
If it has a name, it would most likely be "Too stupid to realize how stupid they are."
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Like the Fairness Doctrine ...
[Read the article: John Edwards' dark leftist America]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't believe in the right to be ignorant, anymore.
— ondeletteShooter would call that censorship of conservatives.
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Stand by ...
[Read the article: John Edwards' dark leftist America]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And yet this is a fitting bookend, with Gore receiving this accolade while the sitting president grows daily an object of greater disapproval, disapprobation and collective shame. And let's not discount another benefit: watching the rump of the American right detail the liberal bias of the Nobel Committee and at this point I guess the entire world. Fox News vs. the world.
— Josh Marshall, TPM... for the swift-boating of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. I'm sure it will turn out that at least one of them has children who go to an expensive school or lives in a lavish house or some such thing.
Let's face it — first Carter, then El Baradei, and now Gore. If they aren't more careful, the Right may get the idea that the Peace Prize Committee is anti-war and then all hell will really break loose.
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Hans Blix who?
[Read the article: John Edwards' dark leftist America]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Don't forget about Hans Blix
— KittI haven't forgotten about Hans Blix. But I don't remember hearing that he won a Nobel Peace Prize. However, you could tack Kofi Annan on the list if you want (2001).
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For Kitt
[Read the article: John Edwards' dark leftist America]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I misunderstood that you were referring to all Nobel winners. Thus my inclusion of blix. What I meant was that they, the right wing, trashed him for his great work as a UN Inpspector.
Yes, I see that now. What I was getting at was that the Peace Prize has gone to outspoken critics of the war (real critics, not people like Kristol and O'Hanlon who love the war but criticize the incompetence with which it is being waged and thus bill themselves as "war critics") three times since 2002. One can expect them to trash the winners; they've already trashed Gore and El Baradei and Jimmy Carter as much as they can (if they could think of any other way to, they would), so now the only thing left is to trash the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. This is their time-tested modus operandi — they don't argue the issues with their opponents, they use character assassination on the them and try to smother the issues.