Letters to the Editor
Peter M.
Published Letters: 154 Editor's Choice: 48
-
The Fight Beneath the Fight
[Read the article: Dr. Pill to the rescue]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems to me that this fight over Plan B (and similarly, RU-486) may actually represent a larger and more important battle on the abortion front than even the debate over an O'Connor replacement. I sense that the power brokers who have successfully tapped the abortion debate to energize the right understand something about Plan B and similar technologies; they represent the beginning of the end of making the abortion debate technologically obsolete.
Although it may be decades in coming, I think those that would exploit the debate see Plan B as a threat to one of their core issues. If people really begin to understand that Plan B isn't even, medically speaking, a method of abortion, and if Plan B is just the first of a number of advanced contraceptive technologies, than an issue that has served GOP strategists well for years might finally disappear.
I don't think we're seeing a fight against Plan B, so much as a fight to prevent the end-game from happening and preserve the abortion debate as long as possible. While I can sympathize with and even respect those that oppose abortion on moral grounds, those that would exploit the debate are nothing less than reprehensible, and liberals and pro-choice moderates need to realize just how important this fight over Plan B is.
-
When Winning Is Everything
[Read the article: GOP leadership: Leaks must be investigated -- at least some of them]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm finding it hard not to rant about the hypocrisy with, I'm sure, a few thousand bloggers. As an Illinoisan, I've gone from marginal respect for Hastert's efficacy to outright disgust at his cronyism. When he suggested that anti-war protesters were no worse than terrorists, I have to admit that I wanted to reach through the TV screen and stuff a copy of the Bill of Rights down his throat.
The sad truth, though, is that this isn't just about Denny Hastert or Bill Frist. This is about a political culture run by strategists and tacticians, a culture personified by the likes of Karl Rove which values winning above everything else. The GOP took damage from the Plame scandal; they lost a battle and now they want revenge. They see the intelligence leak as nothing but a ploy used for political gain, and now they want to add that ploy to their own play book.
Unfortunately, that means that none of them see the truth behind the ploy. Uncovering clandestine CIA prisons isn't the same as outing Plame; the Post didn't name names for political gain or endanger operatives. We all know there are clandestine operations out there, just like we knew during the Cold War about weapons years before the government admitted they existed. The Post is asking the essential question: is what we're doing right and is it in line with our values as Americans? It's truly sad that our politicians no longer feel the need to ask that question.
-
God Bless Trent Lott
[Read the article: GOP leadership: Leaks must be investigated -- at least some of them]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now there's a man who can hold a grudge. That's the problem with stabbing your friends in the back; it tends to leave you with very few friends.
-
The Information Revolution
[Read the article: Throwing Google at the book]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As an ex-executive for an internet company, there�s a paradox that strikes me every day. On the one hand, the internet has changed virtually everything we do in a shockingly short period of time (think about it, and you�ll realize that, at best, you�ve been using it for 5-10 years, at least in anything like it�s current form) and yet, on the other hand, we�ve taken it for granted in record time. I can�t remember how I functioned without IMDB, Salon, and MapQuest, let alone Amazon and Google, and yet self-professed business experts everywhere are quick to tell you they knew about the dotCom bust all along and pretend as if the internet was some sort of short-lived fad.
The simple truth is that we have barely touched the surface of the Information Age. Just like the Industrial Revolution before it, which we often forget happened over the course of decades, the Information Revolution will gradually but fundamentally change the way we do virtually everything. Copyrights are the tiniest subset of this change, and they only serve to demonstrate how lacking in vision we are and how little we see past the clouds and into the coming storm.
I certainly can�t attack artists for wanting to protect what they�ve worked hard to create, but I think that visionaries recognize that inevitable changes are coming and are looking for ways to embrace those changes. Products like the Google �library� and iTunes represent a new way of looking at information distribution, while recognizing that there is still money to be made. Meanwhile, the recording and publishing industry executives who want to spend all of their time and money on lawsuits, hiding their heads in the sand until the storm passes, are guaranteeing their own obsolescence.
-
Still Playing by Their Own Rules
[Read the article: What Scott McClellan said]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Every time I think I can't be shocked by this administration's flagrant disregard for any rules but it's own, they somehow manage to up the ante. Not only does this situation seem to represent a complete disregard for the truth, but strategically it makes no sense. Why can't Scott McClellan just stand up today and say "I meant to say 'inaccurate'". People have slips of the tongue all of the time, and, sadly, we'd all forget about it by next week. Even in the video, McClellan's voice is hard to make out over a fairly insistent questioner.
Instead, we have leadership so fundamentally unwilling to ever admit a mistake that they'll subvert the process and change the rules for even the smallest detail. Having a President willing to subvert the Democratic process to win an election, while despicable, at least revolves around stakes we can all understand. Having a President willing to subvert our most fundamental freedoms to avoid having an aide be misquoted (or quoted correctly in a mildly embarrassing light) is truly terrifying.