Letters to the Editor
Whispers
Published Letters: 385 Editor's Choice: 11
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this isn't really a strong defense
[Read the article: Did Sidney Blumenthal cross the line?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Nobody on that list would believe that Obama shares the political views of an alleged communist whom he knew as a child -- or for that matter that he approves of the Weather Underground bombings carried out by Bill Ayers, which took place when the Democratic front-runner was 8 years old."
So Blumenthal is passing on smears, but it's OK because you guys are too smart to believe the smears? And yet, we've had to endure weeks of hand-wringing by people who purport to not believe the smears, and yet make sure that the smears remain in the public consciousness. This leads to the further effect of "Well, I don't believe this, but I bet a lot of other people do, so..."
And isn't that one of the secondary purposes of a smear? The purpose isn't solely to convince the reader of anything, but also to convince the reader that other (stupider) people will believe the smear?
Indeed, I think this might in fact be the primary purpose of a smear. After all, the number of people who actually believed that John Kerry had been a coward in SE Asia during his swift boat service must have been fairly small. Sometimes, the noise is itself the issue, not the sincerity of anybody's beliefs.
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KateTex
[Read the article: Tight race in Guam caucuses]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You are of the opinion that Clinton would be a stronger candidate than Obama in the general election. A lot of people disagree with this opinion. Indeed, the polls have been disagreeing with this opinion. Independent voters have been more drawn to Clinton than to Obama.
At the very least, you should not be ridiculing people for believing such a thing. If you think Clinton would be a stronger candidate, the burden on you is to make the argument. From my point, I think the difference is negligible. But I have a very strong opinion that comparing McCain favorably to the other Democratic candidate is a good way to make the opponent seem unelectable. Thus far, the Clinton camp has been the one guilty of this low tactic.
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foul trouble and bad shooting
[Read the article: The unbeatable Celtics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Game 6 was weird because Ray Allen, who had been terrific early in the series, was downright awful. And Paul Pierce fouled out on a bizarre sequence of calls. The last of the six was after a shot where the Hawk shooting launched himself into a well-planted KG on the other side of the court.
It is very sad that fouls play such a large role in playoff series, and it is very sad that I do not trust the league to adjudicate fouls fairly. Somehow, in games in Atlanta the Hawks could make all sorts of moves to the basket and never get called for a charge. But the same moves were called as fouls in Boston, and also the Hawks were the ones picking up ticky-tack fouls on the road.
On the whole, the erratic officiating by the NBA makes it hard to take the league too seriously. Case in point: after the Hawks tied the series at 2 behind the stellar play of Joe Johnson, he gets two quick, suspect fouls early in Game 5. And Pierce, who led the Cs scoring attack in Game 5, was called for all sorts of strange fouls in Game 6.
If the NBA wanted to use their officials to ensure a Game 7, it would have looked exactly like that.
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dammit, why can't the Democrats do better with white rural voters??
[Read the article: GOP's not-so-secret weapon fails]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After all, they do constitute the majority of the populace.
Not.
Perhaps we should have an analysis exploring the question of why Republicans do so poorly with non-white, non-rural voters? Why Republicans do so poorly with women and with educated voters?
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delusional
[Read the article: Clinton math]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She's trying to spare the party the absolute disaster of Obama in the general election. She's gonna fight till the end to prevent it.
Because, you know, Hillary Clinton is just so popular with swing voters in comparison.
I'm not surprised that Hillary has been assiduously trying to torpedo Obama's campaign for months. But it's hard to imagine that anybody thinks her efforts have improved her own prospects in any potential November vote.
How anybody could think Hillary Clinton, the most widely reviled woman in the USA, could be more "electable" than anybody is truly beyond me.
WES: could you please refrain from simply posting the same opinions, over and over again to every single political thread? We all know what you think, and you never provide any substance to your arguments. It's all opinion, no facts.
The idea that Obama supporters would still vote for Clinton if she somehow either used superdelegates or MI or FL "delegates" to beat Obama is seriously flawed. It would be cheating, everybody would know it would be cheating, and everybody would ridicule her constantly for the months leading to the general election.
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Let's say..
[Read the article: Obama is wrong about the gas tax]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for every $1 in the cut taxes, $.60 makes it back to the voters, while $.40 goes to oil companies in the form of higher prices hidden by the cut in taxes.
Of course, for every $1 in cut taxes, the deficit increases by, well, $1. Does anybody seriously think that the ratio under which this debt would be repaid would be anywhere near 60% consumers, 40% oil companies?
That's why it's called pandering. Pretty much all tax cut proposals are pandering, unless they are tied directly to some measure that will either replace the lost revenue or will directly reduce spending. If you're not doing that, then you are simply borrowing more money.
For some reason, a lot of political hay has been made in the past 30 years by pandering politicians. That's fine and dandy, but let's not pretend that this is a serious political solution.
I have a different proposal: let's fund a cut of taxes by no longer spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fight a pointless war in Iraq.