Letters to the Editor
logicalresponse
Published Letters: 168 Editor's Choice: 19
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It's not that simple
[Read the article: What I really wanted to say to Chris Matthews]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact is that by supporting Obama you are not "voting your pocket book" figuratively speaking. If a woman is elected preseident, the effect on women's place in our society will be unbelievably enhanced, sepecially given the obvious energy and smarts of who we all know that woman will be. If Clinton wins, then every father can tell his daughter, "See, you can be what ever your talents and effort can allow." Now you can say that you have a different part of your "pocket book" in mind and you think that part is more important than the feminist part, but to equate your support of Obama with being a feminist is just not credible. In your lifetime woman have always had the right to say and support whatever and whomever they want. The feminist movement has been (in part) to cause that expression and support to actually have some effect. Just exercising your individuality is not the goal of feminism, it is giving your individuality some influence. That would be furthered by supporting Clinton. Supporting Obama is exercising whatever influence the feminist movement has already achieved, but does not itself further it.
You said, "For me, the choice between supporting Barack or Hillary was the choice between supporting someone who I know would be very good, Hillary Clinton, or supporting someone who I know could be truly great." You have NO way of knowing that Obama will be great. That is just an opinion. The fact is that he could turn out to be a very weak president, soemthing that is much less of a possibility with Clinton based on what we know. If you don't see that, then you are not being objective.
You said, "And as a woman who was once a single mother of three little girls and who was forced onto welfare and lived without healthcare and childcare, my cause has been the economic security and dignity of all women and their families." I honor your history and I respectfully contend that supporting a candidate who Paul Krugman has pointed out will not get universal healthcare for women is not what your history demands. Your support for Obama is as vague as his speeches and the specifics of his programs are not in sync with your history.
I lived through the sixties and we wanted change and relied on the gtreatness of rhetoric. It does not work. Obama is already becoming the main stream politician he claims to want to replace. (Note his scare tactic on fining poeple for not having health insurance and his endorcement by Ed Kenedy.) Meet the new boss...same as the old boss.
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Well hmmm
[Read the article: What will YOU do with your fiscal stimulus check?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh, I'll definitely put it on the credit card. Er uh but ... I am the only one without a high def flat screen. EVERYBODY else has one. I could buy it on credit now and when the rebate comes I could pay down the credit card just like I say. Wow, frugal and I get the flat screen, too.
The real problem with debt, to me, is that it means too many people are not getting paid enough to enjoy the economy when it is supposedly booming. The recession is not the problem, it is the disparity of wealth. Recessions don't cause debt. This stimulus is to help business retain its wealth, not to help consumers.
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It would be better for conservatives if Obama or Clinton wins
[Read the article: Will conservatives vote for John McCain?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It would be better for everybody if Obama or Clinton wins.
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tax returns and questions both ways
[Read the article: Clinton won't release tax returns yet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When Obama demands that Clinton release tax returns, I doubt he really thinks there is anything bad in those returns. Rather he wants to harp on the refusal to release them as if it were suspecious or gloat over how he made her release them if she were to agree. It is a ploy not a legitimate issue. But the media will see to it that it works, which brings me to the second point.
Clinton may as well give up on complaining about the one sided press. It is complaining to the fox in charge of the hen house. The press simply uses the complaint, cast in a negative light, as more news against her. I have considered that the press just does not think it is being unfair, but it is hard to believe they are all that un-self-aware. I know people rationalize their behavior, and the press just thinks the complaints are unjustified. The facts are the facts, they think. But the problem is that Obama's campaign does just about the same, and for some reason that is not news.
Here's one that won't get on the news: A friend of mine who has not been to church in decades, and who is an independent with slightly conservative tendencies, thinks Obama is the anti-Christ because he is getting so much support without having to work for it. I kid you not. As wierd as that opinion is, it highlights the favoritism that Obama is getting in the press.
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The Clyburn effect
[Read the article: What will John Lewis do?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It appears that Clyburn is somehow involved in all this. He has been giving interviews saying black superdelegates are switching to Obama. I think Clyburn is getting in pretty deep and is trying to make sure Obama gets the nomination so that he (Clyburn) can get out of the fix his utter betrayal of Clinton earlier will get him in otherwise. I can understand Clyburn wanting to see an African-American president in his lifetime. But I am getting fed up with the two faced way he seems to be going about it. He basically went back on his promise of neutrality before the SC primary saying he "might" change that based on the racist comments from the Clinton's. He can't "might" change and then take it back. Once he said it, it WAS an endorsement of Obama and may have handed SC to Obama. Everyone should forever remember that it was Clyburn, not Clinton that made race an issue in this campaign. The idea that the Clinton's with their record on civil rights would say anything intending it to be racist is idiotic.