Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 146 Editor's Choice: 12
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Who's Joe Klein?
[Read the article: Joe Klein and Beltway seriousness]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good analysis, as usual. I'd like to add to it. This part of Greenwald's quote was most interesting to me:
To my mind, being a "serious person" means the following: you study the facts on the ground, you study the history, you take into account opinions on all sides -- not just your side -- and then you come to a conclusion. Essentially, that's what I try to do, and also the people I admire across the political spectrum (including many who reside in the blogosphere). I don't always succeed, of course. Sometimes, instant opinions offered on TV shows (see above), can seem deeply unserious and ill-considered the moment they escape one's lips. And various serious people I know have momentary or long-term lapses, sometimes very serious ones, on this issue or that. I can disagree with someone profoundly -- as with John McCain on Iraq -- and still value their opinions on other issues (immigration, fiscal responsibility and so forth).
In the great wisdom offered by self-important, self-serious Joe Klein, whoever he is, we get the great revelation that to be serious, you study facts on the ground. Not in the air, presumably, or in the oceans, or underground, but on the ground.
You study the history. In other words, the official history. For example, with "Iraq," the official history is that Saddam Hussein was a bad man. Filter out the fact that without help from the "CIA" he would never have been in office in the first place. Then keep filtering.
"You take into account opinions on all sides" of "the spectrum." That is, the mythical, imaginary linear spectrum of "left" to "right." There is no such spectrum. It is a fantasy, a model of reality, not reality itself. For instance, I am not on the spectrum. I believe in a spectrum of consciousness, but it is vertical, not horizontal. There is higher and lower consciousness.
An example of higher consciousness would be to have honest, ethical, moral government. We would have a society where corporations would not be allowed. We would not threaten and invade other countries. We would have a distributive economic system. We would be in harmony with the ecosystem.
I could go on, but won't. One last thing, though. Whoever Joe Klein is, he says he can have profound disagreements with such people as John McCain. This assumes a profundity of being exists in the first place. Since evidence does not exist of said profundity, and the likelihood of it taking place in any context that involves John McCain is slim to none, I have to conclude that Joe Klein, whoever he is, is unserious. Or as they say in academic circles, non-serious.
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Run Rudy run!
[Read the article: Giuliani's dangerous bluster]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is great writing, as usual. Except it doesn't go far enough. It would be too easy to say that all of the "Republican" candidates are dangerous opportunists and lightweights. That would mean the "Democrats" are of a different sort. They are, but only by degree.
What they all have in common is that they are running for president, a peculiarly narcissistic endeavor. Though to a man and woman they say they are running because they have a unique vision of "America," and that they are uniquely qualified, what really drives them is ego.
So the real challenge is to find a candidate who is reasonably sane (no small task), and who has the best interests of the country, the species, and the planet at heart. Kucinich is the only one of the current field that I see as fitting these criteria, but I don't see him as a leader. Maybe as the campaign matures, he will too, and carry himself in a more stately manner. He may get my vote anyway, but it's a sad commentary that we have such a gaggle of mediocrity aspiring to our nation's highest office. Of course, one look at the current occupant and they all look a little better.
I should add a note about Giuliani. It will take a lot of heavy-duty blustery image-making to make a viable national candidate out of him. He has no children with his current wife, and the fact that his own children by a previous wife oppose him, to say nothing of New York City as a whole, makes me hope he is the "Republican" nominee. Go Rudy! Spend all your money on the campaign! The country and the world need you! You could win wearing a dress! You got Gotti! Now you can get us!