Letters to the Editor
Joel_Grant
Published Letters: 194 Editor's Choice: 14
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Check out the comments at townhall.com
[Read the article: Gen. Odom explains basic reality to Hugh Hewitt and the "Victory Caucus"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn has linked the transcript of the interview, but to save you the look-see here it is again:
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=d7f52e21-cf46-4115-b397-ed1dc70fcdab
I urge everyone to go there and read the comments. A couple of the HH fans weigh in to show they did not hear the actual interview; they heard something like blah-blah-blah-surrender-blah-blah-blah-white flag and so on.
What will it take to get through to the hard core 30%?
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What does it even mean to be "antiwar"?
[Read the article: The "antiwar left" takes over America]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn's points are right on the money. I would add - or ask - Stolberg and Broder and others who blather about the anti-war left: what do you mean by "anti-war"?
Typically, they seem to mean that one is anti-war who advocates for ending the military occupation of Iraq, as soon as practicable. But this begs the question of what the American mission is by the implied answer that we are still in Iraq because it is the central battlefield in the global war on terror.
What about Afghanistan? Is the 'anti-war left', or the American public in favor of pulling the troops out of Afghanistan?
On the contrary, even the alleged anti-war left is mostly in favor of putting more effort into Afghanistan. "Anti-war" peaceniks are, in general, rather firm in their support of the continued occupation of Afghanistan.
Our role in Afghanistan may indeed be in the nature of fighting a war, since it was their government that allowed bin Laden free rein, from which territory the 9/11 attacks were plotted.
In either case, the very term 'anti-war' is too muddled to accurately parse, let alone defend. As such, complaints like this from likes of Stolberg and Broder stand as the perfect synecdoche for the situation in Iraq.
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Bravo for Keillor
[Read the article: Heaven is Renee Fleming's bare shoulder]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I love it when I hear people say good things about opera. To me, the greatest operas are the greatest art. Consider the blend of words, singing, and orchestral music. Sometimes, dance as well. The human voice can be indescribably horrible.
Mine is so bad that when I sing, my dogs look at me like a St. Bernard looking at a rescue victim. They are certain something is terribly wrong.
But the human voice can be indescribably sublime, and Mr. Keillor just heard a wonderful example. Wonderful, and yet not as amazing as live opera, where one's body literally vibrates at times, so powerful are the voices.
Anyway, if Mr. Keillor's little essay turns a few people on to opera, he deserves a 'bravo' of his own.
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They do this across the board
[Read the article: Why do so many neoconservatives lack the courage of their convictions?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The right is rarely honest about their goals. Consider their decades-long attempts to destroy programs like Social Security and Medicare.
It is a rare constituency that would elect a congressman running on a platform of killing such successful and popular programs. So the Republicans outright lie. They favor 'reform' and 'choice' and smile and smile as they ready the daggers.
The right worships power, not conservatism. Not democracy or freedom or any of that other googooistic twaddle. Power is an end in itself and is to be gained by means fair or foul.
A few lies are nothing.
And not to be overly dramatic or anything, but I think the blogosphere can be a very effective tool in finding and spreading truth. Unmasking the liars is one part of revealing the truth.
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Missing the story
[Read the article: Shooting his mouth off]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like we care about the fine details of the best gun for vaporizing coyotes or the differences between hunters and shooters. Only the gunnuts care about that stuff.
The story to the rest of us is the massive overreaction to this lifelong gunnut's brief heresy.
Torquemada never acted so swiftly, perhaps because he was dangerous but not so well armed.
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The hilarious irony of the gunnuts
[Read the article: Shooting his mouth off]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Folks, you just have to read the gunnut letters to believe it.
We have an article about a lifelong rootin' tootin' gunnut who just once in his life strayed from the party line and was nuked by the gunnut community, lost his jobs, hate mail, tried to grovel but even that wasn't enough to appease the Inquisition.
The guy writing the article is so intense about his guns that he cannot help but turn the story into a rhapsody about gun details rather than a story focused on the over-the-top vicious vindictiveness from the most paranoid doofuses this side of Yosemite Sam.
And we all know that he was the roughest toughest he-man stuffest west of the Rio Grande - and we don't mean Mahatma Ghandi.
A few of us poke mild fun at the gunners and back they come, oblivious to the irony, (rhetorical) guns blazing away.
Keep it up, boys. While your hands are on the keyboards they are off the triggers.
Oh, wait - it's time for NRA statistics, loud harrumphing, claims that the more guns we have the safer we are from guns, tear-streaked keyboards bewailing the poor beleaguered "hobbyists." You know the drill.
How much fun is Salon today, eh?
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Brooks' destination is correct but his path is absurd
[Read the article: Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem is not that the statement "security is freedom" (or is an aspect of freedom) is not true. The problem is that what Brooks and the Bush crowd advocate leads to neither security nor freedom.
A great example of this is the "freedom" in Iraq. Yes, many Iraqis got to put purple ink on their thumbs. How many of those thumbs are now blown to bits? How free are people who cannot draw a safe breath?
But how free are people whose government deliberately creates insecurity and then erodes our rights, allegedly towards the end of making us secure.
It is a ludicrous and dangerous shell game, as the end must inevitably be less security and less freedom.
It is Orwellian indeed to try to make what is not true (war is peace) sound true. It is Bushian and Rovian to offer truth as bait for suckers.