Letters to the Editor
Reilly
Published Letters: 178
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Revulsion is right - but one good memory
[Read the article: Joe Klein rewrites his role in the 1990s]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Even now, when one goes back and reads television transcripts and columns from the 1990s, it is difficult to avoid a sense of real revulsion -- the hours and hours and hours spent by people like Russert and Klein breathlessly obsessing on Bill Clinton's sex life and the most mundane of "scandals," all at the expense of anything meaningful.
Absolutely. In fact some of that garbage still rattles around in my head after all these years; the moral harrumphing and panel discussions in which everybody in the media elite, even peolple like Ben Bradlee who were not usually in front of the cameras, was trotted out to pass judgement. And yes, every bit of that has its own accompanying sense of physical disgust.
I do have one memory, though that I cherish to this day. I was watching a CNN program hosted by Mary Tilletson, a white southern woman with a rascist streak a mile wide and a generally nasty temperment. She had three women on, two of whom I can't remember, but the third was this magnificent, intelligent, passionate woman who had the audacity to keep insisting that there were topics other than Monicagate to talk about. And every time she said that, Tilletson got angrier and louder and kept repeating "We're journalists. We know what the big story is."
The magnificent woman who was apart from the herd - something almost impossible to find back then - was Katrina vanden Heuval. I had never heard of her berfore and to my great shame was completely unfamiliar with the Nation. But later that day I went to the news stand and picked up a copy. Of that entire period, that is the only media memory I have that isn't infected with that sense of revulsion.
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-- Art Amolsch @ Harry's e-mail
[Read the article: More disruptions to the Cheney/Rockefeller plan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I got that e-mail as well, under the Give'Em Hell Harry banner that Reid (mis)uses -- (I give the Republicans everything they want, it just seems like hell to civil libertarians).
I had the same impulse as you - anger and revulsion - but I filled out the e-mail with a very long comment about the entire corrupt process and Reid and Rockefeller in particular, and ended by asking that the Democrats stop demeaning themselves and their oath to the Constitution and vote no on cloture.
Indeed though it is galling that Reid , having borrowed Cheney's shotgun, then loaded it and put it in Mitch McConnell's hands, sends out pleadings for us to help him disarm the Republicans before they shoot holes in the Constitution.
But it goes perfectly with the point that Glenn makes so eloquently in this post. Reid felt the heat from all of the citizenry roused to action. He may have well gotten wind of the upcoming NYT editorial as well, further shaming him and adding to the chorus.
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The math doesn't add up
[Read the article: Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]By contrast, the average of the pre-South Carolina polls showed Obama with an 11 point lead, and he won by 28 points -- a difference of 17 points.
One highly likely explanation for this huge disparity is that so many voters decided to vote for Obama in the last several days as a result of their revulsion towards Obama's treatment by the Clinton campaign -- and Bill particularly -- just as New Hampshire voters decided in the last several days to vote for Hillary as a backlash against her ugly, patently unfair treatment by the press:
I think this would have been much more convincing and accurate if you had said; "...as a result of the nonstop media coverage of what some considedred Obama's unfair treatment by the Clinton campaign."
It has been all but impossible to turn on the televison for the last ten days or so without some or all of the commentary centering on supposed transgressions against Senator Obama by Hillary or Bill Clinton. In fact, after having been forced to back off from their "ugly, patently unfair treatment" in the run-up and aftermath of the New Hampshire primary, the press seemed to have found a new avenue for their endless Clinton obsession.
I'm not claimimg that the Clintons and the Clinton camp were blameless, and from the beginning of Hillary's LBJ staement I've been turned off by the path this has taken, but clearly - as you admitted in your second paragraph - most of this was "media-driven", so it would be hard to attribute the decisions voters made in the last three days as strictly a voter "...revulsion towards Obama's treatment by the Clinton campaign -- and Bill particularly..." in absence of the media-driven groundwork that was laid prior to that.
Let's look though at the math behind your assertion that the 17 point difference can be explained by the fact that "so many voters decided to vote for Obama in the last several days..."
According to the CNN website with 99% reporting there were a total of 530,322 people voting in the Democratic South Carolina primary. Let's round that number down to 500,000 to make the math easier.
According to the CNN breakdown that you sourced:
Twenty percent of South Carolina Democrats made their decision in the last three days and 51 percent of them chose Obama, while only 21 percent picked Clinton.
20% of the 500,000 voters = 100,000 voters who made their decision in the last three days.
Obama captured 30% more of those voters than Hillary did, which makes a 30,000 voter differential for Obama. That equates to only 6% of the entire pool of 500,000 voters. And while 6% is a very strong showing, it is far from the 17% that you're positing.