Letters to the Editor
Susan Wood
Published Letters: 386 Editor's Choice: 27
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So let's see:
[Read the article: From bowling to orange juice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Chris Matthews takes umbrage because Obama asked for orange juice instead of coffee. Mowdy Doody sneers that he's a snob because he once declined a vodka. Are we choosing our presidents on the basis of their tolerance for alcohol and caffeine? I thought we learned our lesson about choosing our president on the basis of his being a good drinking buddy eight years ago. Didn't we?
Didn't we?
Oh God. I guess we do have the government we deserve, if we listen to people like this.
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Can you say "whited sepulchers," or will someone call that racist?
[Read the article: Clinton, Obama, and the forum on faith]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Two weeks ago the talking heads and right wing smear machine couldn't stop trashing Barack Obama for not "distancing himself" from the church he's attended for 20 years, and the pastor who baptized his children. The reason for all this guilt by association, of course, was that Rev. Wright (who by the way served his country in Vietnam, unlike most of the Very Patriotic Bush Administration and its enablers) said pretty much the same things that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said after 9/11, except that he phrased it in terms of black anger instead of white male anger.
And now, because Obama quite correctly pointed out that in bad economic times, when people feel bitter about the state of their country, they cling to their core values and consequently are vulnerable to demagogic manipulation on issues relating to them, he's suddenly not religious enough.
Reality check, folks, who are some of the people in public life today who make the most noise about how much their Christian faith means to them? I think of Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly, who more or less precisely correspond to what Jesus was describing when he spoke of people who pray loudly on street corners but don't live by their faith.
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Guestofguest, not so fast.
[Read the article: Radio silence on Bush's torture admission]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You say that John McCain's statement that we shouldn't torture American citizens is a big "duh." But Jose Padilla is an American citizen, isn't he?
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We're all bozos on this bus.
[Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When did Obama say that the "bitter" voters he was talking about were either stupid or uneducated? I sure didn't hear that. He was talking specifically about small-town Pennsylvania voters, but what he said is just as applicable to a great many people with college and post-baccalaureate degrees. The whole country is bitter and frightened now, as how could we not be after 7 1/2 years of the Worst President In History, and that makes us vulnerable to manipulation. Remember how Bush bulldozed the entire country after 9/11? How he got Congress to pass his U.S.A.Patriot act, which quietly nullified a large chunk of the constitution? Most members of Congress have law degrees. How people who would have been horrified a few years ago by the idea of secret prisons or torture now make excuses for it with a straight face, all the while insisting that we still represent democracy and goodness, and that we just have to waterboard a few people to fight EEEEEE-ville? Come on. Obama is the first candidate in years to treat the American people like grown-ups, and ask us to accept a few potentially disturbing facts about ourselves, to cultivate a little self-understanding about how easily we can be manipulated. I hope America is capable of handling that, but if we aren't, then yes, we will show the world that we are, in fact, a nation not of ignorant rubes, but of sheep who have the government we deserve.
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Now, will the talking heads
[Read the article: House Republican blasts Obama as "that boy"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]give this as much attention as they did about Obama's so-called gaffe when he correctly described Pennsylvania voters as bitter about the economy?
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We're all bozos on this bus.
[Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](By the way, what happened to the first version of this post? I don't believe it contained anything that violates your policy).
Did Obama call the Pennsylvania voters rubes, or ignorant? I didn't hear him say that. Because his remarks could and do apply equally well to people with college and graduate degrees when they're bitter and frightened -- like, for example the members of Congress whom Bush stampeded into passing the USA Patriot Act after 9/11. And look at how a President with a manifestly failed foreign policy managed to persuade a majority (albeit very narrow) of Americans to vote for him in '04 by hammering on the mantra of God, guns, gays and foreigners? ("Kerry looks French, haw haw haw! He goes wind-surfing like an elitist instead of clearin' brush on his ranch like a good ol' boy from a millionaire family, haw haw haw.")
These days, if you're not bitter you'r not paying attention. Unfortunately, that also makes us all vulnerable to demagoguery. The fact that Obama expressed some important but hard truths takes him out of that category, no matter what his detractors like to say about "Obama-mania" and "Obama worship." What we'll see now is whether Americans are capable of electing a man who talks to us like grown-ups.
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Will ONE person, just ONE
[Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]cite me the exact line in Obama's remarks in which he used the words "rubes," "hicks," or any other derogatory term? And while you're at it, show me where he said that his disapproved of either God or guns.
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The media covered for Reagan for 8 years.
[Read the article: McCain confused about Petraeus' job, chain of command]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why do you think they can't keep it up at least long enough to get McCain elected?
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Bitter? Why should those rubes be bitter?
[Read the article: McCain sides with Bush, opposes new GI Bill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We provide them with a means of employment suitable for their station in life, and prevent them from getting education that would put presumptuous ideas in their heads such as questioning us when we tell them that LIBRULS are coming for their guns and Bibles.