Letters to the Editor
Jim White
Published Letters: 1089 Editor's Choice: 15
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Michael
[Read the article: The administration's FISA falsehoods continue unabated]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, I know, I was there, too. Jumped from a Stanford post-doc into my first job at a start-up that was funded personally by H & P. Went through the IPO, cashed out for about a year's worth of salary and then left the area for family reasons (couldn't stand the thought of raising kids there). Did my own start-up and raised quite a bit for it being not in Silicon Valley or Boston. Probably a lot of sour grapes involved here, but in retrospect I see the whole effort as pointless now when I think about the devastation as we wound the whole thing down when the marginal VC group we worked with ran out of money for political reasons and the NYSE corporate investor declared Chapter 11 just as we hit the technology milestone for the second of the three rounds they signed up for. High level RNC person on that board. All those folks still live well and go on as if nothing happened, but I washed my hands of the whole thing when a bit of the technology was used in a re-start when a number of vendors were stiffed and I was left looking at a big pile of personally guaranteed debt. Fortunately, that's resolved and I am ok financially due to other reasons, but I have no desire to return to that world even though some have asked me to.
Yes, there are a very few large exceptions, but trust me, a huge fraction of the money in high tech comes from and goes right back to the same very small number of people. Many very talented people are fed into this system and ground up into mulch to make the whole thing work.
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Setting up perjury?
[Read the article: Goodling's McNulty-bashing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seems to me the only reason they would let her testify before they force her to provide the documents she has at home is to get her on perjury when they get the documents and compare them to the testimony.
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Watch the weasels sitting behind her
[Read the article: Goodling's mea culpa]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Her attorneys are completely disgusting. The most smug jerks I think I have ever seen. Just wait till the documents get pried from her fingers!
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How many times did he testify
[Read the article: Did Gonzales coach a witness?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that he would NEVER talk to a fact witness? Just one more lie...
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No journalism left at Time Warner
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, Klein's article is clearly just a trumpeting of administration talking points with no effort to compare the remarks to reality. Nowhere in his article does Klein show that he did a single thing to question the validity of the remarks. Did he try to contact anyone from the Iraqi government?
CNN has gotten just as bad. Compare their article on the Monica Goodling testimony yesterday to the article from McClatchy. CNN's piece simply regurgitates the Republican spin while McClatchy patiently points out the aspects of Goodling's testimony. At least some of the AP reporting is actually more aggressive than the CNN piece. What a sad state of affairs.
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Bush probably won't wait until September
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Most of this is pure speculation, but it seems to me to be completely in character with Bush's overall operating mode.
I was astounded when the US did not attack Iran when the British troops were captured. Given Bush's posturing before that event and his need to distract our attention from Iraq, my heart sank when I heard the news of the capturing because I knew our invasion would happen within a few hours.
Is it possible that Bush did give the order, but the Joint Chiefs simply said no? We already know from Comey's testimony that Bush will make what appears to be concessions when faced by potential mass resignations. However, as in the wiretapping case, I think that what Bush would have done in this case is the same: appear to back down, and then build his own work-around. In wiretapping, that was simply to establish additional programs and/or just continue to break the law. In this case, his work-around would be the establishment of the war czar. Is the war czar his bypassing of the Joint Chiefs to achieve his attack on Iran? If so, this must occur before the September deadline when even his own party has said the Iraq misadventure will begin to wind down. After an Iran invasion, Bush will have successfully reset the clock to not run out until well after he leaves office. This theory would also account for why he would suddenly depart from character so much in delegating authority.
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ondelette
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think you have a very good point about the way forward hinging on a viable plan for avoiding the bloodbath. Your proposal to bring in Iran sounds promising. Clearly, if Iran is not in agreement with what is happening, any plan is hopeless. Even though we are engaging in wishful thinking here, it is meaningless to propose a body like ICC: Bush and the neocons will simply see too large a chance for war crimes trials. A multinational force for peacekeeping seems the logical choice. The conundrum lies in where to place the control of the force. A coordinating council composed of three votes could be useful, with the three sides chosen so that they balance one another and the votes of at least two are needed for action to be taken. One option, of course would be the cop-out of Shia, Sunni and Kurd. I think a better option would be one vote for the Iraqi government (where Shia, Sunni and Kurd interests are forced to work together), one vote for the Arab League (which would represent the interests of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and the other Arab states in the region with an interest) and the final vote for Iran. This would force the sort of area-wide involvement that the Iraq study group wanted the US to spearhead, but provides a route there as we exit instead.