Dear Editor,

I enjoyed this article, as I do most of Mr. Keillor's offerings. However, I would like to make a suggestion that, I hope, will be applied across the board at Salon: please ask your writers to never mention the number of American dead in Iraq without also mentioning, in the same article, the far greater number of Iraqi dead. However unfortunate the Bush Administration may be for the American people, it has been an unmitigated catastrophe and tragedy for Iraq. Let's not forget which country is really suffering the most as the result of Mr. Bush and his policies.

Sincerely,

Shaun Narine

Dear Glenn,

The really interesting question is why the American media is so horribly, horribly incompetent. Of course, it probably is not - it's probably doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing. For (literally) decades, many people have been arguing that the American media's traditional role is to be the propaganda arm of the US government. The Vietnam War and Watergate era was more the exception than the rule. What has happened in the modern era is that the media has returned to its traditional role. However, it is having a few problems: one, the public has access to many different sources of information and two, the Iraq War has not gone well. If that war had gone as planned, the lapdog media would be doing its job and people like you and outlets like Salon would be orphans crying in the wilderness - at least, until the United States' pursuit of the aggressive, stupid policies that have gotten it to this point eventually backfired - which, inevitably, they would have. It's actually quite a positive development that those policies backfired so soon, though that was also quite probable, given the incompetence (that word again!) and corruption of the present administration.

The observation of exactly how bad the American media in comparison to media outlets in many other parts of the world (particularly the Western world) is also dead on. You are quite correct to point out that the far right political views which are aired as "mainstream" in the US would be recognized for the fanatical rantings that they are in almost any other place in the world. The truly frightening thing, of course, is that these right wing views actually do seem to carry enormous weight in the US, and I'm not yet prepared to agree with your point that these people are on the "fringe". They are getting there, but many of their attitudes and ideas are reflected in the Democratic Party. For example, while Nancy Pelosi is to be given full credit for wanting to talk to Syria, Ms. Pelosi has also followed the rest of the political lemmings in the US and pleaded undying allegiance to the Israeli government - meaning, in practice, that when it comes time for the US to lean on Israel to get real peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, it will be unable to do so.

A year or so ago, I met a Canadian military attache to the Canadian Embassy in Washington who said that responding to the US media meant being able to get on Fox News and make your point. According to him, every TV set in Washington was turned to Fox News. I am sure this is true, but it is sad comment on the decrepit state of both American politics and the quality of the American media when Fox News is the information-source of choice.

Sincerely,

Shaun Narine

Dear Joan,

Since this is pretty much what I suggested in my letter to your previous article on Kathy Sierra situation, I'm all in favour of this new approach. Not that I'm taking any credit - this is a pretty obvious response and, as you indicate, the people at Salon have been planning this change for a while. I hope that this brings an element of accountability to letter-writing that has, so far, been lacking.

Sincerely,

Shaun Narine