Letters to the Editor
susan sunflower
Published Letters: 1374 Editor's Choice: 29
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Yes, the spectre of "marital law" and some as-yet-unknown unprecendented even-scarier executive branch reaction looms ...
[Read the article: Why Bush hasn't been impeached]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In Nixon's final days, protective "measures" were taken by bipartisan "cooler heads" ... (I remain baffled by the continued apparent "loyalty" of Congressional Republicans ... but until someone polls all those religious folks who were taught in-their-churches that GOD HIMSELF endorsed Bush to re-criminalize abortion, gay marriage, and get prayer back in the classroom where it belongs .... I REALLY want to know how they feel this all worked out for them .... I'll just chalk it up to the peculiarities of the religious).
I also think they want to avoid discussing those #@$#@ signing statements and parsing "the limits of executive power" in front of the Supreme Court if it can be avoided.
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not mentioned much here is Democratic Party's long-standing attempts to distance itself from the 1960's radicals ....
[Read the article: Why Bush hasn't been impeached]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that it has blamed for the past 30 years for "destroying their good name", leading to the election of Nixon, the resultant prolongation of the Vietnam war, more dead and wounded, setting the stage for "Daddy" Reagan and the rise of serious conservativm.
There remain quite divergent views of the antiwar activism of the 60's and 70's, even as it was entwined in the legacy of the civil rights movement and the emerging and future Women's, Black Power, Hispanic Power movements...and later disabilities, AIDS... you get my drift. All those groups ... considered rude, loud, scruffy, confrontative... are often, too often, spoken of as a liability by the DLC and the "new" democrats and they're not alone. The republican/conservative press STILL references those radical lefty democrats regularly as-if they were somehow pinkos and fellow travellers hiding under the bed, plotting the overthrow of the republic and/or some amoral national Love-In complete with abundant drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll seeking to steal your children (gosh, those children are now, like me, in and around 50 years old now).
I would very much like to know what that hindsight 20/20, regrets galore, scold Todd Gitlin thinks the Democrats and activists SHOULD be doing at this juncture and/or what the "appropriate" response should be to people who inisist that legalizing gay marriage somehow undermines the institution of marriage, their own specifically.
The war funding "compromise" is being hailed in the media as an unequivocal Bush victory ... I have serious doubts about the long-term, national viability of all the Democratic candidates (they all seem rather "small" and unpresidential to me)... and am sickened at the prospect of easily anticipated conservative/rethug backlash against a Gore/Obama ticket. Gore seemed unbeatable in 2000 and he's a good man. Watching the rethug machine at work is disheartening.
There is no congressional push for impeachment because the eyes are on the prize of the 2008 elections ... and -- despite just cause -- impeachment is no sure-thing and the potential of a serious backlash towards anyone suggesting some additional, new, voluntary "national nightmare" is real.
short form: yes, they're scared.
bad news: Being perceived as weak and ununited isn't doing much for them or their party.
prediction: It's going to be a long ugly 18 months. ...
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yes, the timid folks at the DLC need to wake up and smell the coffee ...
[Read the article: Clinton will still go to Iowa]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]they've feared for YEARS a repeat of the McGovern fiasco (in which a "radical" candidate was nominated as a backlash to the status quo, and then went down in election flames by a public unwilling to embrace a peace candidate.)
It's past time for Hillary to move out of her robotic Manchurian poll-data-processing, triangulating, safe stance ... it's not "flash" or radicalism people are looking for -- it's hope -- Hillary has been perceived as "running for president" for over a decade and the cache of being the "first woman" is no longer sparkly ...
Her war stance may well have already doomed her with DEMOCRATS.
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and if they fail to meet all benchmarks, what then? will congress EVER find the "courage of their convictions"
[Read the article: Bush pulls the Petraeus card, again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]or the convictions of the electorate ... I'm doubtful.
As best, they are INTENTIONALLY playing out the clock ... to dump this problem in the next administration's lap...
at worse, they are unintentionally doing the same ...
I cannot imagine what event would increase the "popularity" of this war ... rather than "legitimizing" it, another attack would make Iraq only more irrelevant ... or is that why they are trying to now -- bafflingly -- trying to suggest that
1. Iraqis are funding Al-Qaeda (those would be those car-bomb, suicide-vest using saudi-supported Sunni and no other).
2. Bin Laden has directed Iraqis to attack America, in their spare time, no doubt, making use of their freedom of movement and booming economy no doubt.
I don't think they could pull off a Reichtstadt Fire*, but they might try.
* they are totally incompetent and the necessary bonds of loyalty have already been loosened except for a tiny remaining inner cadre.
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I suspect that Wolfowitz, like Chalabbi, is at his "brilliant" best at cocktail and dinner parties ...
[Read the article: Wolfowitz's tomb]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've rather scoured recent article trying to understand the omnipresent claims of his "brilliance" ... the adjective having been given him as a very young in a position of virtual intellectual apprenticeship or acolyte.
A couple of years ago, I was similarly interested in Chalabbi's "resilience" and began find references to his extraordinary facility as a dinner or party guest and especially as "host" to people like Judith Miller.
I suspect with both Challabi and Wolfowitz people feel exhaulted to be in their rarified presence, as if their "genius" and "brilliance" was being rubbed off on them, like glitter on a child's art project.
Being "brilliant" or being a "genius" all too often is no insurance against being WRONG ... in fact, self-delusion and/or hubris seem all too common.
Several years ago, I think in Vanity Fair, I once read that Wolfowitz' brilliance was rather like that of a novelist whose first novel is a smashing success never to be duplicated.
I suspect he's just "down" and not out. I hope he writes "his" book and learns from this humiliation ... it appears he's been "cruising" for this particular bruising for most of his adult life.