Letters to the Editor
Susan Wood
Published Letters: 431 Editor's Choice: 28
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This was the exact same mentality that in 1968 gave us a choice between Humphrey and Nixon.
[Read the article: David Brooks and the deceitful tactics of the Beltway pundit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And look how well THAT worked out for the country! Both parties were convinced that nominating an anti-war candidate would be suicide. And so both parties severely damaged themselves, and Nixon damn near took the Republican party, and the entire country, over a cliff.
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Earlier this year, Bush boasted to fellow Republicans
[Read the article: The math is fuzzy, but Bush knows the answer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that he was going to set things up in such a way that his successor could not avoid "this country's destiny." I hope this is just another of the little man's grandiose delusions of omnipotence, because it's all to easy for a sane person to see what that "destiny" is going to be if we continue on this same disastrous course.
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Trying to link Iran and Ahmedinejad with 9/11
[Read the article: Ahmadinejad, big man on campus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is even more ludicrous than trying to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11. Saddam, even though he was a secular dictator who despised Al Qaeda and everything it stood for, was at least a Sunni, like Osama bin Laden. Iran is a Shi'ite country. Blaming them for atrocities committed by Al Qaeda is like blaming the Reverend Ian Paisley for bombings committed by the IRA. Yes, the guy's a demagogue and a terrorist, but he's not a member of THAT PARTICULAR terrorist group -- quite the opposite.
None of this is meant to imply that I approve of Ahmedinejad's policies or his inflammatory statements, although some conservative letter writers will undoubtedl try to claim that I'm "on the side of the terrorists." But by acting like ignorant buffoons and flagrantly violating the most basic principles of hospitality, which is a sacred duty in most cultures and especially in the Middle East, I'm afraid Americans done more for Ahmedinejad's popularity with his supporters in Iran than he could ever have managed on his own.
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What does Rush Limbaugh know about any kind of soldiers?
[Read the article: Rush Limbaugh and the "phony soldiers"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We all know how hard he worked to make sure he'd never be any kind of soldier during 'Nam.
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But it's Barack Obama who's "charming but lazy?"
[Read the article: Fred Thompson: Refreshingly honest or just uninformed?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why do I suspect that if MoveOn took out an ad describing Thompson in those identical words we'd hear screams ?
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Pet Goat for Truth, he is NOT a "confessed" anything.
[Read the article: Craig lawyer: He may stay in the Senate no matter what]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Craig may be showing a few very slight traces of incipient courage, but he's nowhere near achieving the real thing yet. If he were, he'd admit that yes, he was soliciting sex, but dammit, since when is it "disorderly conduct" simply to send non-verbal signals indicating interest? He didn't actually do anything "lewd," and no one who didn't know more than he probably ought to about toe-tapping would have any idea what he meant. So essentially he was arrested for committing a thought-crime, WANTING to have sex in a semi-public place, not for actually doing it. Besides, his arrest was a clear case of entrapment and blackmail that reflected badly on the police.
If expressing interest in sex in a public place were "disorderly conduct," then I've met a few straight men in bars who should have been maced and dragged away in handcuffs. When the Minneapolis police start busting guys for sidling up to a woman and saying, "Hey baby, how about it," or something a great deal less subtle than that, then maybe I'll believe this isn't a matter of discriminatory harrassment.
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A twist worth of O'Henry.
[Read the article: Religious right may blackball Giuliani]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In 2000, Bush got his "victory" thanks to Nader's siphoning off key democratic votes in swing states. If the far right does the same to a vulnerable conservative in '08, it will be a classic example of blowback. Bush made too many promises he couldn't keep to the religious right, and they'd rather get revenge for that than help elect a Republican who doesn't meet all their criteria.
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I wish we COULD ignore Dowd
[Read the article: The nag, the witch and the media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but unfortunately, her poison spreads nationwide as fast as she can spew it, because other "pundits" pick up and repeat her attacks. Witness how she and Frank Rich created the non-story about Love Story in 2000 -- immediately, Bill O'Reilly jumped on it, and without bothering to check the facts, started shouting that Gore was a liar and a braggart, and drowning out anyone who tried to point out to him that a) the story was true, and b) Gore didn't brag about it, but only mentioned it in passing as an amusing bit of trivia.
Dowd's remarks about Hillary were even more offensive than Walsh suggests. She didn't just call her a nag, but quoted one of her critics who compared Hillary to an "awful, screeching housewife." Housewife? Can you imagine the reaction if a male writer had used a term like that to dismiss a woman's decades-long career in law and politics? For that matter, isn't it also offensive to housewives to stereotype them as shrill, demanding, and dependent on their men to give them what they want, all of which was implied in the quote? And make no mistake, Dowd quoted that approvingly. She is one of the most odious women in the media today -- I'd say even worse than Ann Coulter.
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If anyone in this administration really believed their own baloney about how well things are going in Iraq, this should wake them up:
[Read the article: Waxman takes a shot at Blackwater]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The staff says that the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service balked at such a high payment, saying that it could cause Iraqis to "try to get killed so as to set up their famil[ies] financially," and that the State Department and Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment instead. It's not the only case in which the staff says the State Department dealt with Blackwater shootings solely by urging the company to pay off a victim's family."
Think about that. The State Department really believes that conditions in Iraq are so ghastly that people would commit suicide-by-mercenary in order to provide for their families. That's the freedom and democracy that we have given to the grateful people of Iraq, my friend.
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erc, which transcript did you see?
[Read the article: Limbaugh's "phony soldier" becomes a suicide bomber]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Limbaugh has put out a heavily edited version (which he claims was "unedited," although complete tapes of the show prove that it is very incomplete) that was doctored in such a way as to make it SEEM that he was referring to just one impostor who had claimed to be a veteran. But in context, he was talking about a lot more people than that one man, and about people who unlike him did serve and do know what they're talking about.