Letters posted here are associated with the following Salon Premium Member:

Reality-based Liberal

Published Letters: 969
Editor's Choice: 102

Sunday, March 9, 2008 02:47 PM

@ ShawnWM

You are a condescending prick, which is comical given how vapid you are.

Yes, some hospitals are struggling, but that's because our whole health care market is, in fact, inflated. You can simply look at the macro level -- that we spend twice as much as other nations that deliver better care, more comprehensively. Or you can zoom in to your troubled hospitals, which have to pay a lot to attract too few general practitioners because med students go into lucrative special fields that allow them to live in mansions and work only 2-3 days a week once they pass the age of 35. Those hospitals have to pay hyper-inflated rates for some medicines or equipment. They pay a load in malpractice insurance for a malpractice lawsuit crisis that doesn't exist. They are owned by larger corporations that reinvest only a dearth of profits back into the institution. Or they are partially or wholly public, and lack funding.

To argue that our health care costs are not inflated as you do is akin to claiming the moon is made of cheese and anyone who says otherwise is some technologically challenged rube.

Sunday, March 9, 2008 07:08 PM

@ lolcait

If Clinton loses the popular vote and the delegate count from the voters (and MI and FL are able to weigh in some way), will you oppose a Clinton effort to grab the nomination just as you would an Obama effort?

Monday, March 10, 2008 05:35 AM

Anger Toward Clinton

I see a lot of concern from Clinton supporters about how angry some posters are about her and her candidacy, and I understand how that is discomforting if you support her. I'll try to explain.

Despite many posts that cast it this way, it is not a choice between A and B. It is a choice between two people who are different. Clinton has a history (some call it experience) and that matters to some of us. For me, her history -- right through the way she has managed a highly negative campaign -- makes me angry. It has nothing to do with my love for Obama (I have clearly not been an Obama flag waver).

While Clinton supporters have claimed that Obama is just as negative, that's hard to defend. He has asked for her tax records (a standard call for anyone running for office -- he hasn't even suggested that she's done something bad, he's simply asked that we see how the money loaned to her campaign was earned). He could have gone a million different directions: her divisive nature; her legal troubles; her investment problems (she's gone wild on his one small example); her "experience" as a corporate lawyer and Walmart board member; etc. He has done none of this, but he could have. Meanwhile, she has thrown the kitchen sink at him, even going so far as to say that he isn't as prepared as McCain to be president, despite McCain's experience showing nothing but promotion of agendas antithetical to Democratic principles.

Of course we can argue about this. And we can argue about whose supporters are more vitriolic (I don't think it can be said that Obama supporters take this prize uncontested). But these are not two sports teams -- they are not A and B -- they are different.

There is simply less to criticize with Obama (not because he's better, but because he has less experience in the dirty world of national deal-making). Whether that experience is worth something -- good or bad -- or it is meaningless, is up to voters. But that lack of negatives shows up here, and results in an interesting pattern:

Obama supporters are expressing their anger at Clinton. Clinton supporters are expressing their anger at Obama supporters (on balance, obviously not as a rule). The only attacks on Obama that have much merit are about his experience. The few other attacks range from myopic attention to Reznik while ignoring Clinton's more substantial such issues, or based on something more loathsome (ShawnWM talking about Obama's support from blacks -- or "people who don't work" -- or others who say "he just doesn't look right").

I don't judge Clinton by her supporters. I judge her by her actions (or experience, if you like). Could Clinton supporters (and other Obama supporters) do the same?

Most Active Letters Threads

475

The Weekly Standard's ACLU smear indicts only itself

Neoconservative contempt for the Constitution is not only un-American; it is al-Qaida's greatest ally
436

The Washington establishment suffers a serious defeat

Approval of the Paul/Grayson bill to audit the Fed is both rare and important in several ways
415

The administration guts its own argument for 9/11 trials

If some detainees get military commissions or indefinite detention, how can 9/11 trials be justified?
231

Palin-Beck 2012? Sarah says maybe

She'll never be U.S. president, but her star power ought to scare the hell out of her charisma-free GOP rivals
226

A letter to readers

On my current condition: Definitely treatable, definitely uncertain

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon