Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 361 Editor's Choice: 12
-
Salutary responsiveness
[Read the article: How our seedy, corrupt Washington establishment operates]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Housekeeping rather than on topic.
I do not, at the moment, have the time to read all the comments to all the posts, much to my regret. However, I did happen to notice a request in the last day or from a reader (I don't remember who) to set up hyperlinks to the updates. Said I to myself, "Yeah. That's a good idea. The posts are often long."
And, lo, here it is today.
Great job, Salon. I'd still like to see hyperlink capability, but I, speaking as someone concerned about keeping the pre-Salon community alive in this interface, am very impressed to see you responding so promptly to a user request.
-
$300,000
[Read the article: More on Zelikow, the BGR firm and Allawi]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Laura Rozen's piece says the lobbying firm has a $300,000 contract. Other references I've seen say the same thing. This is the first place I've seen $300,000 a month (which is considerably more money, obviously). Is there a source for the latter figure?
-
Craig is up in 2008
[Read the article: Larry Craig's bathroom behavior and the right wing -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]f he were intent on fabricating, he would single out someone as obscure as Larry Craig, who was not even up for re-election.
This is a mistake. He is indeed up for reelection in 08. He has very cool challenger, Larry LaRocco, who is touring the state doing menial jobs for a day, meeting workers and ordinary folks as part of the campaign.
http://www.2008racetracker.com/page/ID-Sen for bare bones info about the race.
If the republicans run a primary opponent, the deadline is March 08.
The entire list of class II senators is here:
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/two_column_table/Class_II.htm
How many of the republicans on that list are gay? At least two, from what I've heard.
-
Mea Culpa: read more carefully
[Read the article: Larry Craig's bathroom behavior and the right wing -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry Glenn, and others. I didn't read the first paragraph carefully. He was indeed not up for reelection in 0ctober 2006, the date of Rogers article.
-
Not just a fait accompli
[Read the article: The president's escalating war rhetoric on Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Congress is never going to force Bush to withdraw from Iraq. We are going to remain in Iraq in more or less the same posture through the end of the Bush presidency. That is just a fait accompli.
The reason they are not going to force Bush to withdraw is because the Washington Consensus is for a permanent occupation. We saw that last weekend in the chorus of voices denouncing Maliki and putting Allawi forward.
There could not have been a clearer declaration that there is no sovereign government in Iraq, that the putative head of state is a satrap and no more and that he serves at the pleasure of the president of the US.
The Iraqi parliament is routinely told what legislation to pass by the US Congress. The military force levels are set by the US, and while the Iraqi military has nothing but small arms, not even a functional chain of command.
The Democrats supporting permanent occupation need to be exposed. We need to make the presidential candidates say what force levels and for how long they expect to require American soldiers to "redeploy" for "force protection," "pursuit of terrorists," "training," and "border security." Since those activities represent a large fraction of the current military activities (not counting the mercenaries engaged in similar missions), it has hard to believe that this respresents anything less that than the magical 50,000 that Cheney referred to in 2003.
There's more on this linked to my name.
More on topic, can anyone suggest what they could do in Iran? One bombing run? Two days of shock and awe? They can't deploy troops that would do anything effective. Iran is much better equipped and defended that Iraq. Their troops are not going to melt away, and they have an actual airforce. It seems like an appropriate response would be attacking the Green Zone, using missiles and proxies. Where are our military analysts telling us what the US could do to attack Iran? What would the response be?
-
Missing Link
[Read the article: The president's escalating war rhetoric on Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Forgot to include the link on the plans for a permanent occupation.
-
Traditional Values: Love and Commitment
[Read the article: Forcing Larry Craig's resignation while embracing David Vitter]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What this is also exposing if a profound (and weird) conflict the the "values" people. They are absolutely, positively completely against two people of the same sex who are in love, want to make a lifelong monogamous commitment, and raise a family. They have absolutely no problem with a man who has routinely violated his religious vow to maintain a lifelong, monogamous commitment, to the extent that he has apparently alienated his children.
They could fix this by condemning the closeted lifestyle (by the way, if you haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, you should. It's the most searing depiction of what the closet does to people that I've ever seen), and embracing same sex marriage, and condemning, as well, the licentiousness of powerful people.
This whole business reminds me of a remark by PJ O'Rourke. He said (paraphrasing):" People want to get married, have children and go to church? And conservatives are trying to stop them? Hell, if we let them do that, they'll be republicans in no time."
It just points out the irrationality that underlies the whole "values" enterprise. Of course, this leaves aside the hypocritical exploitation of their followers by the Perkins and the Dobsons of this world. It's impossible to believe that they were unaware of the sexual preferences and practices of leading Republicans, from the apparently brazen adultery of Newt Gingrich while leading the charge to impeach Clinton to the rumored sexual preferences of a couple of republican senators up for reelection this term.
They inculcate people with an irrational fear of homosexuality, exploit it for money and power and then pay no attention to it when it interferes with that exploitation.