Letters to the Editor
chagedorn1
Published Letters: 18 Editor's Choice: 2
-
Someone needs to change the subject
[Read the article: Conservatives blast Petraeus as "sycophant savior"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Congress should not be wasting pointless time "censuring" anyone...we can all find out what they think courtesy our non-stop news cycle. Now we are playing a "who needs to be censured next" game, which is just as much a distraction as Anna Nicole Smith or OJ. Once again, the media including, surprisingly, Salon is right there with the "made you look" crowd's head prankster, President Bush, who likes nothing better than an argument about nothing -- until we wake up one morning to watch the extremely telegenic bombs lighting up the night sky over Iran because we've turned one man's bluster into a global threat. Iran's WMD's, like Saddams, are the equivalent of one of those tapes of barking dogs designed to scare away burglars...no bite. Are we going to be fooled by these tactics again because everyone is drooling over the deliciousness of who's going to get censured by Congress for their statements that are already discussed ad nauseum in the media?
-
Let's hope Dana Perino keeps her job...
[Read the article: Perino watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would rather DP kept her job, thus increasingly the likelihood of her making a blunder that might actually lead to some sort of national outrage over the, well, hundreds of things we should be outraged about. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, her obvious discomfort, and obvious lying, might actually convince more people to demand more honesty than anything she actually says. If, in President Bush, we have unforutnately elected the President we deserve, at least his administration has the deer-in-the-headlights face it deserves. I would hate to have them replace her with another smooth liar like Ari Fleischer or Toni Snow.
-
Through the looking glass...
[Read the article: Sizing up the Democratic race so far]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Hardball's Power Rankings" are a marketing tool, a brand name for hyping Hardball's business as usual creation of the "narrative" of this political campaign. "Reporting" on it as though it were some novelty and thereby continuing to elevate the relevance of this type of discourse -- handicapping the race, etc. ad nauseum -- doesn't do Salon's credibility any favors. As Joan Walsh has become more of a fixture on this kind of program, the more apparent becomes the media's fascination with...itself. I know it's a fine line to tread, but this kind of coverage seems a bit...breathless...but maybe I'm misperceiving "blog" for "editorial?"
-
Strength = Telegenic?
[Read the article: Queen Hillary's disruptive court]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While I'm not a Hillary fan, it seems that to ask the question 'why don't we have a stronger female candidate?' and then base that judgement of Clinton -- as well as Pelosi and Feinstein -- primarily on how they come off on television, regardless of whether that's the major criteria of most of the media, seems a little...limited, particularly on such an important question.
-
Correction
[Read the article: What you missed while watching "Project Runway"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe The Project Runway premiere was on Wednesday night, the debate....Thursday.
-
This is strategy?
[Read the article: The agenda of our pro-war pundit class]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why is it that no pundit ever states the obvious...sure, probably violence has gone down with the addition of tens of thousands of additional troops (and who knows about mercenaries.) I'll bet if we had 250,000 troops there, violence would "go down" even more. And with 500,000 troops, probably even more. What about a million? If we had 2 million troops there I'll be we could really "accomplish" our "mission" in record time. Now, tell me again what all the high powered high priced talent in Washington is doing for their money and medals and lucrative post-service book deals? The solution is "more troops." That's what every war advocate from pundit to President is basically saying.
-
What it's always about...
[Read the article: John McCain is running for sissy in chief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why take John Strausbaugh's....theory? philosophy? sales pitch? seriously enough to interview him about it when it's obviously about what it's always about: clever provocation in order to maximize profit. Of course, if someone goes out and is even more outrageously ignorant based on the premise that somehow behaving like Ann Coulter is less "sissified" than behaving like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama well that's...good? bad? Or perhaps it really doesn't matter because nothing Strausbaugh writes about is genuinely worth debating or defending in the first place except as an avenue towards marketing his book.
-
Chicken or Egg, War Hero or Charming Power Glutton?
[Read the article: McCain: Reformer or phony?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is it our culture, the media, or both that is so addicted to one-note narratives. Yes, John McCain, after many years of being the family "black sheep" (sound familiar? Do the initials GWB ring a bell?) had an extremely noble and enobling experience as a POW (sound familar, does the term "born again" ring a bell?) which was followed by a career in the Senate that included any number of min-scandals and narrow squeaks mostly mitigated by an outsized personality complete with, in a politician, an unusual dose of "candor" and humor.
But in the media, the brief, though extremely admirable, War Hero period seems to outweigh everything before and after. There have been many heroes with feet of clay, even more people who are a mixture of good and bad. But the overriding question is, if John McCain had not spent that myth-making period (a myth which he appears to relish while at the same time protesting humility, though I may just be cynical) would we really seriously be considering him as a contender for President?