Letters to the Editor
bill-in-la
Published Letters: 14 Editor's Choice: 1
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Speaker Pelosi should be quiet
[Read the article: Polls: Obama weathers Wright controversy ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe that if Sen. Obama leads in the popular vote and in pledged delegates at the end of the primaries -- and he very likely will -- that the superdelegates should and will vote for him. But I am not going to be Chair of the Democratic Convention. Nancy Pelosi IS going to be Chair of the Democratic Convention. As such, she has an obligation to abide by the party rules. At the moment, that means she should keep her mouth shut.
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The system
[Read the article: Why Hillary Clinton should be winning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whether the system should be proportional or winner-take-all, the fact that Clinton won the popular vote in Texas and yet won fewer delegates -- and we still don't know how many -- is a pretty clear indication that the system is broken.
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Misogyny
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan Walsh is almost entirely correct. The issue is not whether Clinton has run a good campaign -- she has not. The issue is not whether she has always told the truth -- she has not. The issue is not whether she is more electable than Obama or would make a better president than Obama -- that is a matter of opinion. The issue is that if newscasters and pundits and columnists had said -- even a single time -- things about Obama comparable to what they have -- repeatedly -- said about Clinton they would have been fired the next day. It would not be acceptable for someone who intends to be the next president of the United States to laugh when asked "how do we beat the n----r ; why is it acceptable -- and repeated endlessly on TV with laughs -- for him to laugh when asked "how do we beat the b---h?" (Remember: George Allen referred to a questioner as a "macaca" -- and his campaign sank like a stone.)
Why is Joan Walsh not entirely correct? Because the right word for this sort of discourse is not "sexism" -- the right word is "misogyny".
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Planning for silly questions
[Read the article: Debating the debate, complaining about complaining]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If it weren't so tragic, I would be amused that Obama is complaining about uncomfortable questioning on trivial matters. This is something like the 21st debate. For the first 15 it was Clinton who was subjected to precisely such questions -- and worse -- while Obama raised not a word of complaint. No, these are not the questions I would have asked -- but Obama should have expected them and should have been able to answer them smoothly and well. If he did not, that reflects poor planning on his part. (Just as Clinton's choice of Mark Penn reflects poor judgment on her part.)
As to whether the country cares about these trivial questions: No I do not care -- but do you think Republicans would be writing about flag pins if THEY thought the country did not care?
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Israel and Syria
[Read the article: Skepticism toward Bush claims about Syria and North Korea]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Attacking another country is an act of war ... Let's see: how many times in the past 60 years has Syria attacked Israel with the announced intent of wiping it from the map? Have Syria and Israel ever made peace? Has Syria continued to support terrorist attacks against Israel? Is this not also an act of war?
Israel has nuclear weapons and wants to prevent its enemies from obtaining nuclear weapons? If I were Israel -- a tiny country surrounded by much larger countries whose announced intent is to wipe it from the map -- I would do precisely the same.
This is not to say that all of Israel's actions have been moral or just or wise -- quite obviously, they have not been. But this one is.
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Losing Vietnam
[Read the article: What John McCain didn't learn in Vietnam]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]General Giap never said that the North Vietnamese were ready to surrender: this is a hoax; see http://www.snopes.com/quotes/giap.asp. What he -- and many others -- did say is that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong did not need to win military victories, they just needed to keep fighting and that eventually the US would give up.