Letters to the Editor
Cocktailhag
Published Letters: 483
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In My Cups
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]HRH... I have been as disgusted as you are by the gross, pathetic, and unnecessary intrusions into our our privacy that arose from the drug war, and have long recognized that its inception during the Nixon era was simply a sneaky way to make one's political enemies into federal criminals. And thereby turn "crime," which had previously a local issue, into yet another avenue for presidential aggrandizement.
Before starting my own business 18 years ago, I had deliberately worked in fringy industries like theatrical production, for producers and vendors, and shunned any position that would force me into such a degrading breach of privacy as a drug test.
I'm unalterably opposed to such diminutions of personal liberties, and have been actively opposing them since writing a controversial essay about it in high school, and receiving a less than stellar grade for my impudence.
I agree that the police state requires such criminalization of private behavior, and my writings about larger issues, I hope, reflect this.
My apologies for the belated h/t, Kitt. Your thoughts are what prompted me to think about that old, vaguely remembered post, and try to expand on that idea.
T
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Resident, Schmesident
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A very "original," yet typically snide and insulting commenter is offended by the idea of Americans who don't happen to live in Pennsylvania attempting to influence voters in that state.
As a person who lives in Oregon, I have witnessed multiple, lavishly financed, deceptive campaigns, usually test rollouts, for any number of right wing causes; property rights, anti-gay attacks, self-serve gas, and on and on.
Legions of paid signature gatherers flood the state, a deceptive ballot title is chosen, and a massive and deceptive TV campaign ensues.
Invariably, moneyed interests are the drivers, and ordinary citizens are the losers. Fortunately, even with the odds so stacked, it only works about half the time, maybe less.
As Karl Rove knows, all politics is national, to some degree, and in this case even the justice system is involved.
To get such a case of the vapors over a few bloggers running some ads in another state is false, unconvincing, and transparently feigned.
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Garret tu, WT?
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]WT...
I also had a garret room; with an arched leaded window that the wind blew through in the winter. Quite common in the 1920's fake "Tudor" houses in my neighborhood.
I read all the Tolkeins, Watership Down, and Ray Bradbury up there, and even World Book and Encyclopedia Brittanica when I was bored....
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Boo-ray
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bystander and RMP...
It was pretty hilarious to hear the announcers natter on about Bush's great throwing arm whilst the whole stadium booed.
They must have felt as ridiculous as they sounded.
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I did not know that...
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Pedinska....
"cockles" are ventricles? In the future, I'll save myself walking across the room for the dictionary.....
So what about "cockles and mussels?"
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Singing Away....
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bystander, thanks for filling in the lyrics for me; all I could remember was the chorus, and "the streets broad and narrow"
Didn't stop me from singing, though.... albeit with some frum frum's and blah blah's.
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With a cart, no less...
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Pedinska,
My college roommate worked in a law office where a girl delivered the interoffice mail, on a cart, in her spandex miniskirts; not much upstairs, but what a staircase.
Who knew that her pejorative nickname, "Tart with a Cart," was an historical reference.
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Vroom!
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bystander, I sometimes get the same feeling. Sometimes, I'm a dog with my head out the window, other times I'm standing at the roadside, watching the blur go by. At best, I work my way up to backseat driver.
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Vivid Thoughts...
[Read the article: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jebbie, Admittedly, perhaps that wardrobe detail was a bit too graphic. I did notice, however, that y'all hadn't exactly been a bunch of Victorian spinsters while I was away. (Unless by "Victorian," we're referring to her Secrets.)
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Conservative? Nah.
[Read the article: The John McCain "centrism" fallacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's an interesting and devastatingly accurate point. All right-wing presidential candidates are "different" in some special way that makes them new and desirable, while Democrats are invariably branded as tired, out-of touch liberals; risky, yet also boring.
The NYT, who ought to know better, recently asked, about Barack Obama, no less, "Can a Liberal Unite the Country?"
The absurdity of such a question is mind-boggling, considering the live-and let-live nature of actual liberalism, and the hardly very liberal views of Obama..
Funny, when a war-mongering sociopath who wants to create a police state permanently under quasi-martial law comes along, such impertinent questions are never asked.
Who needs unity, when you've got Gitmo, I guess.
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Personalities
[Read the article: "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think it's mere pragmatism, but also a sad commentary, that the only way to attack the right that has any chance of effect is by examining the twisted personalities that drive them. It's been shown, time and again, that pointing out the immorality, shorsightedness, and cruelty of their policies is a waste of time.
We were told relentlessly that Bush was the guy you'd like to have a beer with, so his policies didn't matter. Never mind that anyone who'd want to have a beer with a spoiled, insulting, verbally challenged ne'er-do-well with a mean streak a mile wide, and who doesn't even drink, probably ought to stay away from beer, anyway. We were similarly told the Dick Cheney was a responsible, sober, experienced leader who would Keep Bush in line, and he turned out to be a deranged, sadistic, foul-mouthed charlatan, looting the treasury, proudly.
Given that even shallow, substance-free political reporting has thus failed so dismally even on its own debased terms, I think it's both appropriate and necessary to go after Republicans for their creepy, violent, masculine insecurity and dictatorial tendencies.
That's the only way to make the issues understandable to the media nitwits, who clearly couldn't analyze a policy platform if it dropped on their coiffed heads.
Sorry, NotOrbitboy, but projecting your own greed, and your party's filthy brand of politics on others, doesn't fly around here. Calling a Republican a hypocritical chickenhawk is not the same as calling John Edwards a faggot, and indeed, the pay isn't as good.