Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 42 Editor's Choice: 7
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Conventional wisdom be damned
[Read the article: The Hillary juggernaut]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Shapiro lists ten points in the Hillary Juggernaut, at least eight of which fall apart if examined even superficially.
Number seven, her "over-cautious political style," is the most ridiculous of all. Shapiro should have consulted with John Kerry about the rewards of risk avoidance. Similarly, the "surrogate candidacy" notion is mushy nonsense. Is Bill gonna be hiding under the Oval Office desk, breathing deeply with his wife in some sort of presidential-Lamaze exercise?
Clinton has two advantages at this point in the game: Her fundraising and the developing meme that she is inevitable.
Who is pushing that meme? Not the rank-and-file Democrats that I know. The right-wing and their media puppets push it because Hillary is the candidate they want to face in 2008. The Dem punditocracy and consulting class--demonstrable losers, all--are pushing it because they've got hold of a storyline that gives them something to chatter about while they puff themselves up like turbaned fortune-tellers at the electoral carnival.
Hillary is not fit to be president, period. She is a one-term junior senator who beat a tin-pot Long Island congressman. She is a passable legislator who tacks too far to the right and who, despite having a safe seat, has not taken a bold stand on any of the great issues. She is no leader. Her only experience as an executive was to preside over the disastrous health care initiative of her husband's. In a time of war, she has no military experience. And she is the most polarizing figure in American politics after Bush himself.
Frankly, I'd be happy to see her draw Republican fire for the next two years while we groom a real candidate. For my money, the one Democrat on the horizon who could immediately offset Hillary's money and media advantages is Al Gore.
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Buck up, laddie
[Read the article: Scotland the Grave]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I recommend repeated viewings of "I Know Where I'm Going."
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Funny? How about "Brilliantly subversive!"
[Read the article: Making Colbert go away]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sixty-eight percent of the American people would be thrilled that someone--anyone--got into the room and said what needed to be said to people who usually hear only their own voices. That is, they would be thrilled if they'd actually heard about Colbert's scathing takedown of Bush and his symbiont media hacks. In the context of the occasion, Colbert was brilliantly subversive.
Was it funny? It wasn't often funny as in "Ha-ha", but it was deeply humorous to see the assembled pouter pigeons squirming in discomfort. It was hilarious to see Bush's glower turn to a glare and then to a stone-faced mask of barely-concealed outrage. It was delicious to see the tuxedoed and begowned hacks bug-eyed in disbelief and horror at not knowing whether to titter nervously or hide under the tables.
I personally don't think Colbert expected laughs. I don't think he was playing to his cable audience either. I think he saw an opportunity and seized it to attack the powerful on their own turf. It was far beyond satire; it was political protest raised to high art. Colbert was bombing, alright. He was throwing a stink bomb into the midst of the rotten, hypocritical festivities.
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Are the critics giving examples?
[Read the article: Lou Dobbs, Stephen Colbert and the myth of the liberal media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are Colbert's critics quoting the most egregious examples of Colbert's alleged unfunniness? From the transcript:
"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will."
Or how about this bomblet:
"Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out."
Personally, I loved this bit:
"Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!"
And this followup made my day:
"Then you write, 'Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.' First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"
So if Colbert was so unfunny, can the media critics please be a little more precise?
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Regret to differ
[Read the article: Series wrap-up: "The West Wing"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with Ann R. upthread and must differ with Mr. Manjoo regarding Bartlet's regrets upon leaving office.
I was an occasional viewer during the golden Sorkin years, but became captivated by the election arc starting last season.
While things did wrap up too neatly for these characters, Martin Sheen exuded nothing but wistful regret over his impending loss of power. He didn't have to make a speech about missed opportunities. Much has been made of his final act of pardoning Toby. Where he came alive in the episode, however, was when he barged into the governors' dispute over the train derailment in New England--only to relapse shortly thereafter into the elegiac mood that draped everything and everyone in the episode.
Abby says to Bartlet, "You made it. You're still here." Am I the only one who felt that Bartlet (thanks to Sheen's insight into his character) took that more as condemnation than congratulation?
The idea that every administration enters office with high ideals and ideas, only to fall from grace into tired expediency, was expressed as well: Santos was dead set against the Kazakhstan adventure, but within minutes of becoming president he thought he might have "no choice" but to send in 10,000 more troops.
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Old news.
[Read the article: "The Odyssey": The original chick lit?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought it was common knowledge that the "Homeric" epics were written by Xena's traveling companion, the Bard Gabrielle.