Letters to the Editor
Amity
Published Letters: 1152 Editor's Choice: 107
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Not take a position?
[Read the article: Documenting Gen. Petraeus' record of statements about the war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The media should not take a position as to how much credibility ought to be assigned to Gen. Petraeus' testimony...
What?? That is exactly what the news media ought to be doing. If Petraeus is objectively and provably full of shit, then the press should say so, directly, and the context of his history as an apologist for the Administration is absolutely relevant to that examination.
I'm surprised that Greenwald would say anything like this unless it was thoughtlessly.
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Nice Summary
[Read the article: Dollars from deadbeats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Andrew Leonard gets right at the heart of the question of bankruptcy "reform." Too bad liberals and progressives in America were such suckers that they fell for the "personal responsibility" line instead of questioning the message and the messenger, and leaning on their legislators to do the same. Let's see how many troglodytes chime sulkily in with some form of "Yeah, well ... but .. they still deserve it. Those deadbeats."
The credit "reform" movement was a lot like the NAFTA scam that so many reasonable, liberal Americans got behind because the issue was so gosh-darn confusing and not to do so seemed quaintly paranoid.
And there are echoes of the same thing in the righteous fury of the progressive anti-smoking crusade. I have no desire to smoke cigarettes myself, but even without a personal interest in the matter it shouldn't be hard to see the grim hand of the health care monopolies at work selectively channeling activist impulses in ways that cut their profits, rather than providing real economic justice.
When are the obsessive readers of fine print going to start reading the big stuff?
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Impossible to defend, huh?
[Read the article: Bush gets no surge from Petraeus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... in a burst of near-impossible-to-defend hyperbole ...
Shapiro makes the claim that certain assertions that Petraeus is betraying the armed services and the nation whose honor he swore to uphold are hyperbole, or impossible to defend.
If Shapiro is correct, then surely it must by extension be evident that Petraeus' past and present statements regarding the Iraq War are and always have been honorable, accurate, and made first and foremost in the interest of furthering the success of American arms and military policy above partisan political considerations.
Editor, I defy Shapiro or anyone at Salon to demonstrate in any way, evident or obscure, that those things are true. Petraeus is lying, weaseling, and serving the whims of a bankrupt political leadership and bunch of closet soldier-haters rather than the higher authority -- the Constitution, laws, and honor of the United States -- to which he is beholden.
In what way is this general not betraying everything he supposedly represents? Please, Editor, I'd love to hear Salon's explanation.
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psyberdawg: Go back and read it again
[Read the article: Documenting Gen. Petraeus' record of statements about the war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here, I'll quote more of the original text for you if it helps:
The media should not take a position as to how much credibility ought to be assigned to Gen. Petraeus' testimony, but it is inexcusable to exclude from their coverage these facts ...
Surely I don't need to belabor the obvious fact that Greenwald is not being sarcastic here. He means what he is saying, or at least seems to.
In what way is replacing "General Petraeus blah blah blah" with "General Petraeus, whose credibility on any matter related to the war is tarnished by his long history of utter horseshit, blah blah blah..." somehow out of bounds for the press, at least as we might wish it to be?
I suggest that this is exactly the sort of thing we do want, and need, from journalists, and I'm surprised at Greenwald's implication to the contrary.
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Oh, the things "They" say ...
[Read the article: The scruffy charms of an insecure president]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that the president's chief attribute is his clarity -- they say people know where he stands.
"They say," do they? This is an interviewer's cue to ask something like:
Who says that, and on what issues?
or
So what examples do you give in your book of Bush being clear or resolute?
The president has been demonstrably unable to keep even his pet projects on a steady course, policywise. From Iraq to immigration to faith-based initiatives and on and on, he keeps changing his mind, making contradictory statements, dithering, reversing course, and arbitrarily firing people at critical junctures -- or presiding over staff who do so in his name.
(The most you can say is that he always appears certain -- no matter how certain he actually is. We call people like that "con artists," and pity those who fall prey to their wiles.)
And also, it must be news to Cheney, the man who schemed and connived for a decade to get the GOP presidential nomination, that he never wanted to be president. It must be even more surprising for Cheney to learn that Bush picked him -- since it was Cheney's vice presidential selection committee of 1 that selected Cheney as Bush's running mate in 2000.
Sorry, this guy fails to pass the basic baloney-meter test -- and the interview with him falls short of the bar for Salon.
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Looking at everything
[Read the article: Ben Stein on the economy: "What, me worry?"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It was a trigger, or catalyst, for Wall Street to take a long hard look at everything else that might turn out to be as dodgy ...
This is where you always see meltdown. Whenever investors start re-evaluating their portfolios, market values begin to shift. When entire sectors of the investment economy do so you start seeing market volatility across the board, and there's nowhere left to "safely" store your money -- that's when you see panic.
And that's where Ben Stein is (in some stupid way) correct: if only all these people would stop re-evaluating their portfolio risk, there would be no panic. But that's sort of like saying, "If everyone would just stop collecting on insurance claims, rates would go down."
The funny thing is that investors, even talented professional investors, hate volatility. Nice, steady, predictable curves for them, please. Protecting the market from its own eat-your-own-tail tendencies is why the god of rational agency gave us government -- it would be nice if the investment industry figured that out.