Letters to the Editor
MarieA
Published Letters: 280 Editor's Choice: 20
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The media doesn't know what substantive news is any more
[Read the article: The Politico's John Harris admits now what he denied last year]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think the media could cover a substantive story if it bit the media on the ass (and I personally would pay cash money to see the media bitten on the ass).
One certainly neededn't look far to find ridiculous stories. The "sweetie" story was one (huh?). The latest is the "RFK" flap. Really!
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What has the Media learned?
[Read the article: Scott McClellan on the "liberal media"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Apparently nothing.
While they seem to (almost) openly acknowledge that they screwed up when it comes to the Iraq War, rather late in the game, it has done nothing to change their coverage.
They flit from candidate gaffe to candidate gaffe, never quite landing on any issue of substance.
And why should they? The money rolls in regardless of what they do and they have a virtual lock on access to the White House and Congress.
It's a perfect setup for everybody.
Oh, except the public.
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If only the private sector were our biggest problem
[Read the article: Former high-ranking Bush officials enjoy war profits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The implication here is that the private sector's involvement in the "intelligence" business is bad, government's is good.
While there are many, many bad things about the private sector being involved so deeply in the spy game, we know that a couple of things are not true.
It is tragic that there is little oversight over what the private sector does, but clearly there is little oversight over what the government does either, between off-budget funding and plain negligence. There is no panacea in moving all private sector work to the public sector.
If one were to argue that, when the private sector gets deeply entrenched in public business, private interests prevail over public ones, ample evidence exists to show that empire-building and less-than-public-interest motivations heavily dominate government actions of this size and the hogs don't easily step away from the public trough.
There is no magic bullet in fixing operations of this size. In fact, it is the very nature of government operations of this size that is at fault. We cannot have the government's fingers so deeply in spying on the world without serious consequences both to civil liberties and our pocketbooks.
The only solution is to scale back our interference in the world and to reduce the size of our spy operations (much of which is chaff and/or redundant anyway).
Oh, and good luck with that.
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No need to reflect
[Read the article: Interview with former "Donahue" producer and MSNBC pundit Jeff Cohen]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't have to look back at how the media laid down and rolled over like a dog for the administration in the runup to the war.
I watched it on TV, screamed at them from my sofa, and wrote many a journalist begging them not to cave on this.
There is plenty of complicity from all sides, including that of the American public which doesn't seem to be able to conceptualize complaints about poor coverage beyond "hating the media" and thinking of the media as "biased."
Sigh.
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Um, your weight is showing
[Read the article: How fast do your boobs bounce?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You must be a skinny little thing, Ms. Harding, because, while having the band stay in place the way it should (and good luck with finding a perfect fit for that for many of us, btw), a small band when there's any, let's call it, softness on the back and sides will result in some overlap.
Bras for the larger ladies (and not necessarily that large a lady, ahem) with wide bands eliminate a lot of this problem.
Most bras are poorly designed in many, many ways. I didn't notice the problem so much when I was a skinny little thing either.
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Why are we so blase about foreign to foreign surveillance?
[Read the article: NYT circulates fear-mongering claims on FISA debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why is just dandy, have at it, yee haw, full steam ahead to surveil foreign to foreign communications?
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For shame, Justices Scalia, Alito, Roberts & Thomas
[Read the article: Supreme Court restores habeas corpus, strikes down key part of Military Commissions Act]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Justices who voted to uphold the tyrannical (and that is not too strong a word) Military Commissions Act should be deeply, deeply ashamed.
They can never again claim to be Constitutionalists.
This is indeed a defining moment in American history.
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Reasoning
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Justice Scalia's reasoning hardly seems "reasoning" by any objective standard.
Yes, whether one is inclined to violence or not, once grossly wronged, many people will resort to violence.
That is the unfortunate collateral damage of horrible mistakes. But the consequences of holding these prisoners "forever" are far more dire, for they inspire hundreds if not thousands of others to violence in retribution.
I am saddened by the feeble justifications of Justices Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas for their votes.
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Conversatism vs authoritarianism: Thank you for your clear distinction
[Read the article: Conservatism vs. authoritarianism: The British vs. the U.S. right]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mr. Greenwald, you have done the readers a real service by clearly pointing out how many who call themselves conservatives are actually authoritarians. (One can veer into authoritarianism from the left too, but we leave that for different times.)
There is a great deal of mud-slinging from all sides with the the words "conservative" and "liberal" used as catch-all epithet.
We need to reunite these words with principles.
An instructive device to differentiating liberal, conservative, authoritarian and libertarian is the World's Smallest Political Quiz. I urge everyone to plot their own place on the quiz and then, for fun, fill it in as if you were Dick Cheney (and be fair!). You will see that Mr. Greenwald's distinctions are quite accurate.
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
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Let us dig deep 365 days a year
[Read the article: The joys of being a friend of Angelo Mozilo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The broader question that is seldom answered to my satisfaction is how people serve as politicians, in the military and high level bureaucratic jobs, then retire to become multi-millionaires.
It is now understood by virtually every politician I've encountered that they may (or may not) sacrifice income now for gold-lined pockets later. Even with their generous retirement packages, they don't rake in the kind of dough you see people with high level government taking in.
OF COURSE they're getting sweetheart deals and who knows what else. Is that why it's not generally news?
Why is the media only selectively interested in this and to such shallow depth?
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The Video Is No Longer Available
[Read the article: British debate highlights the cravenness and complicity of congressional Democratic "leaders"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clicking on the video gives a no longer available message, unfortunately.
An observation: Interesting that a terrorist attack victim has thrown her support behind a civil liberties stand. This is also very telling--most public victims of crime in this country call for more punishment, more laws, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead to the Security State.