Letters to the Editor
Cocktailhag
Published Letters: 509
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Nervous As A Whore in Church
[Read the article: Major new ad campaign -- aimed at Blue Dog Rep. Chris Carney -- begins]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I bet Carney hasn't had a solid poop in days.... Great ads, and the blanketing of disparate media is a clever approach. One of the worst beltway mantras is that "bloggers" are some powerless and ineffective fringe group, and can thus be ignored. These ads will put that to rest, I think.
Further, if the district has already been subjected to propaganda from the telecom apologists, a strong counterpoint is doubly necessary, and may be just what the Doctor ordered for these supposedly benighted souls.
I don't think it's futile or Pollyanna-ish to think that well-targeted appeals to both fact and emotion (mentioning the Commies is a delicious touch) to ordinary Americans can change behavior. It has before, and for the same reason, during Watergate. I remember a wonderful cartoon from back then, showing an angry crowd storming out of a theatre named "Peoria," when the White House transcripts were published. Bush's approval ratings are essentially the same as Nixon's then, and this time with an utterly supine media.
I would echo others' desires for some polls, or at least some careful following of the reactions in local media... But I'm guardedly optimistic.
PS... Thanks QS, Jebbie, Anonymust, Pedinska et al for your excellent handling of the RB problem; the bonkers and unpleasant reactions you drew showed we aren't missing anything. Cult indeed.
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Great Minds
[Read the article: Major new ad campaign -- aimed at Blue Dog Rep. Chris Carney -- begins]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks, Kitt. And for the record, I was punching the air seconding your comments to Adnoto.
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Of Straw Men
[Read the article: The California marriage decision and basic civics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Right, utterly bereft of any reasonable arguments for their policies, are once again resorting to another Straw Man argument in this case. As other posters noted, "Judicial Activism" is merely a code for decisions they dislike, and such specious nonsense is one of the thin reeds on which they plan to hang the 2008 campaign. I discovered this by reading the Kristol ball Monday. Since they know that their "base" doesn't even believe in the Constitution, preferring an amalgam of the Ten Commandments and Cheney's 1% Doctrine, it will be successful as far as it goes.
Similar Straw Man arguments abound throughout the right; Bush's "Appeasement" claptrap, the Wright "controversy," and perhaps most humorously ironic, the Washington Legal Foundation blaming the Recession on environmentalists, whom we all know have really been in the driver's seat these last eight years.....
The only opponent the right appears willing to fight is the one they've conjured up in their fevered imagination. Bring it on.
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Thus Spake the Troll
[Read the article: The California marriage decision and basic civics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As I pointed out earlier, the desperate and flailing GOP is exulting that, thanks to a single court ruling in a single state, they finally, at long last, have an "issue." Like clockwork, along comes a troll to crow about just that.
You have to feel just a bit sorry for them.
PS... Bebop... Don't worry, It's a little late for that....
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Fit to Print (or broadcast)
[Read the article: The Politico's John Harris admits now what he denied last year]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think a lot of commenters have hit on the problem here, which I think is that, aside from the expense of producing valid, relevant news, the business side has utterly swallowed the news side of all media; an infection that s now spreading to the blogs.
News outlets are beholden to advertisers and their government sources; readers and viewers are a contemptible irrelevancy. Their health, welfare, future, and even their lives are routinely and dismissively jeopardized by daily judgements of what is and isn't "news."
A quick glance at advertisers explains why. When dangerous, shoddy deathtraps are sold to the public as automobiles, would any newspaper risk publicizing the fact, when such an enormous portion of their revenue comes from car manufacturers and dealers?
Would criminally negligent lending practices, heedless sprawl, and abysmal quality of the product be worrisome enough for a newspaper to take on the real estate industry?
Would an obvious, predictable disaster like the Iraq war have merited risky critical analysis before the fact when it was being forcefully and relentlessly marketed by a vengeful and deregulation-happy administration, and would certainly draw eyeballs in the near term?
Would the disgraceful looting of the treasury by government and corporate scofflaws who are as generous with carrots as they are ruthless with sticks, prod bloated and privileged media conglomerates to risk their wrath by exposing it?
Of course not. As Reilly and DrBillB pointed out earlier, crappy, sensational journalism is safe journalism, and no one gets in trouble over it. More ominously, as gkrevv darkly intimates, such banal and pathetic distractions have the (coincidentally?) happy effect of narcotizing the public while power, wealth, and knowledge are gathered into ever fewer hands.
Heads hey win, tails we lose.
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I'll Have What He's Having
[Read the article: The Politico's John Harris admits now what he denied last year]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn, you're more than usually saucy today; keep up the good work.
Pedinska... I like your views on botany, which could be applied to other areas of the life sciences, too. I'll race you over to QS's blog....
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Et tu, WT?
[Read the article: The Politico's John Harris admits now what he denied last year]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, it's definitely time for something, shaken or stirred. But watch out with this libido talk; you know how we cocktailhags love the desert, where we can turn into beef jerky and live to be 113.
Forewarned is forearmed, I always say.
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Too True
[Read the article: The Politico's John Harris admits now what he denied last year]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The weather here took a decidedly ugly turn right after the Obama rally. It rained, in a way that could only be called biblical, all weekend for the "holiday." Beef jerky turned to pate' in a matter of hours. Good thing my hard hat is waterproof...
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The Buzz
[Read the article: Scott McClellan on the "liberal media"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All the buzz about McClellan can only be a good thing, as he is bound to make many media appearances, and try as they might to steer the conversation around to the high-schoolish, gossipy aspects of his narrative, the media's credulity and complicity can't help but come up.
Especially after the threats from "loyal Bushies" start fallen like rain on McClellan' shiny pate; he'll have to steer the discussion back to the media.
Pass the popcorn, as they say at FDL.