Letters to the Editor
EMStoveken
Published Letters: 391 Editor's Choice: 44
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The only sensible debate format . . .
[Read the article: Power to the people?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Simply put, there should be weekly debates. Each week there is a full hour devoted exclusively to One topic. With a maximum of 3 "starter" questions from the talking head moderator. This is not to say that there will only be three questions. Candidates should be welcome and encouraged to cross examine one another, and moderators can ask probing follow-up questions. However, the asking of rhetorical questions or cutting off of opponents' answers is punishable by loss of speaking time.
This would be somewhat unwieldy and may need to be modified in the Primaries phase, but this should be the predominant forum for the actual general election.
Once the candidates have been selected, each week should focus on a different single topic. No more of these one trick pony candidacies. No more sloganeering. No more bumper sticker politics.
This would benefit everyone tremendously. For starters, it will help reduce manipulation of the media by eliminating candidates' hit and run methods of "communication" forcing them to define the terms of their slogans and provide the details of their visiion.
It would benefit the candidates by testing their ideas in the crucible of hostile scrutiny. If enough logic-based holes can be shot in your position, it is time to reinforce it. Improve it. Make it stronger.
The public, seeing this evolution of ideas, can better understand shifts in policy that would otherwise be called backpedalling or flip-flopping.
A smart candidate would propose this formula, and (if snubbed) publicly hammer their opponent for refusing such a challenge, while focusing on a thorough and detailed public explanation of not just their complaints about the present, but their plans for improving the future.
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Ingenius!
[Read the article: Facts are still stupid things]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have to give Rovian props to the Giuliani campaign for their innovative use of the word "details" in the place of any other term in the English language that might actually indicate veracity. I guarantee you there will be a block of voters impressed by his courageous use of details in the near future.
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Wow
[Read the article: Well, then, let's call it a day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyone who has an opinion that deviates from a single adjective summation does not deserve to be taken seriously as someone who ANALYZES goings-on in the political world?
Hewitt is truly a man of integrity.
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As such proclamations go,
[Read the article: Janet's got a gun]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mrs. Huckabee came off as fairly articulate and to the point. She didn't talk about the Godless heathens besieging her and the righteous virgins she was road-tripping with. She didn't let slip and weird racist screeds. She made a reasonable point about following the laws (a form of gun-control no less) with regard to the posession and transport of firearms.
Even her pseudo-evasion of the Mormon question had a pinache that her batshit crazy candidate husband lacks.
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According to friends in the military . . .
[Read the article: Is Bush losing the military?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not so much that you can expect Servicemen and -women to vote Republican as much as you can expect their votes to be counted for the Republicans.
Just another example of those in power honoring our Soldiers' sacrifice.
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And what has been done . . .
[Read the article: Al Gore on the unhappiest of anniversaries]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]. . . to avoid a repeat of the 2000 and 2004 debacles?
Whether it was coordinated conspiracies or system-wide incompetence, no discussion of these questionable election results would be complete without a plea to avoid such chaos again.
As distasteful as I find such a prospect, we need to ask the UN or some other international group to oversee the 2008 elections, just as we would for any other banana republic with a history of shoddy election practices.
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Bush repeatedly stated . . .
[Read the article: Libby drops appeal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]. . . that he "he agreed with the verdict" but disagreed with the sentence.
Let us take this opportunity to once more ask:
Mr. President, if you agree that Scooter Libby lied under oath and obstructed justice, what is being done to correct those lies and obtain justice?
This has never been asked by a single member of our esteemed 4th estate. He said he agreed with the verdict! He agreed that a member of his administration lied under oath and obstructed justice! Yet he does nothing to right these wrongs.
We must call him on it!
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Sounds about right.
[Read the article: "Oh, Dana"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After all, why would a Republican talking head actually know anything about a Democratic president taking a hardline on foreign relations, standing toe to toe against a dangerous enemy, and ultimately protecting America from actual Weapons of Mass Destruction?
The only thing mass-produced dittoheads like Perino know about the Kennedy administration is that he banged Marilyn Monroe in the White House. She probably also buys into that legend about the two of them snorting coke off the diving board of the pool that Nixon heroically had converted into White House press room.
Freakin' loons.
Those who do not remember history, blah blah blah.
I wonder if she even knows what the KGB was? She probably thinks it was the Russian equivalent of Skull and Bones. No big deal that every powerful member of United Russia is former KGB. After all, Putin has a good relationship with W. He must be a great guy.