Letters to the Editor
opus 131
Published Letters: 4
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Time to fire New Hampshire
[Read the article: And sometimes, people are just wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I live in a state that never has a say in the presidential nominees--the good people of New Hampshire get this right instead of me. If you are going to entrust people with such an important responsibility, I think it is only fair to evaluate how well they are executing it. On the Democratic side, it must be concluded that they have historically done a horrible job. In 2000 and '04, the good people of New Hampshire managed to find two candidates who could lose to G W Bush, decent guys both but lousy politicians. In '92, they chose another lousy politician named Paul Tsongas, who luckily could not parlay this victory into a nomination. If you can lose to G W Bush, you can lost to anyone, and Hillary, for all her virtues, is another classic New Hampshire-anointed lousy politician who is quite capable of losing to anybody the GOP throws up there.
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would that it were so
[Read the article: Dead party walking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have fought for every Democratic Presidential candidate since I could vote--that takes me back to Carter. I assumed I would give money, time, and my vote to this cycle's winner. But the Clinton's shamefully dishonest campaign against Obama (who wasn't even my first choice) has so disgusted me that I will vote for McCain against Hillary or Bloomberg against either one of them. If it is Hillary vs. Romney, I probably won't vote. When the Dems have lost me, they are in trouble. Hillary will lose if she is the nominee, as she deserves to.
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KKK?????
[Read the article: The Democrats' anti-momentum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"the black version of the KKK for a religious mentor" This is absurd. I'm still waiting for someone to show me what Wright said that was an attack on whites AS A RACE. In referring to what he considers to be this nation's crimes, he always uses the pronoun "we". The only thing he ever said specifically about whites is that rich whites control the country. Maybe you thought it was poor Pakistanis. I've now watched a few extended clips of his sermons, not just the mendacious sound bites Fox offers. He is brilliant, provocative, frequently way off base, and just as frequently astonishingly insightful. But he is clearly NOT racist.
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actually, Reagan was worse than we thought
[Read the article: Why Ronald Reagan didn't completely suck]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember hearing Reagan give a speech during the '80 campaign. "Why should people be punished for being successful?" he asked. It took me a moment to realize that by "being punished", he meant "expected to pay taxes". In a generation we went from "Ask not what your country can do for you," from the idealism and instinct to service of the Kennedy years, to "I got mine and screw you." Reagan's genius was in persuading people that their unwillingness to pay taxes wasn't rooted in greed or selfishness--oh no! You see, taxes are bad for the country! To band together as a people, each paying his or her share so we all have education, health care and clean water and air is very harmful! So I'm going to keep all I make for your own good! It is like Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon and making himself emperor. The society may never recover its ideals. Our current President argues that our civilization may depend on what happens in Iraq. Never mind whether this is nonsense, the fact is that he believes this to be true, and yet he dares not institute a draft or even set up the taxes to pay for it. We cannot call upon ourselves to do anything for the common good any more. That is Reagan's real legacy, and it is a shameful one.