Letters to the Editor
DCLaw1
Published Letters: 839 Editor's Choice: 2
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arthur, relax
[Read the article: Lawbreaking telecoms still conniving to obtain immunity from Congress]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Stop screwing with me personally, just because you're too damned ... to do what you have to do to rid yourself of these Scourges destroying what you love about your country.
I'll tell you what - yes, I'll stop screwing with you "personally," if only because you've taken all the fun out of it with these cliched histrionics of yours.
What I do find very funny (in an unintentional way) about this latest comment of yours is that if you knew the slightest thing about what I do for a living, day in and day out...
Ah, never mind. Sorry I poked you in the eye with a stick. Yes, you'll get no argument from me that our "leaders" are just plain awful. Just take it easy, ok?
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Arne, couldn't have said it better myself
[Read the article: Lawbreaking telecoms still conniving to obtain immunity from Congress]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You must have posted just a moment before me.
To arthurdecco and anyone else ruffled, I do sincerely apologize for my part in the mischief. Sometimes I come here for recreation. It's a guilty pleasure.
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bystander
[Read the article: Lawbreaking telecoms still conniving to obtain immunity from Congress]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]DCLaw1: "What I do find very funny (in an unintentional way) about this latest comment of yours is that if you knew the slightest thing about what I do for a living, day in and day out..."
.
Letting my imagination run with that a bit, perhaps, you're entitled to some recreation. Maybe a lot of recreation.
Don't let that imagination run too far. I'm no one you would know or recognize, but it's people like me who are doing all the work, so that others can take the credit.
Being cryptic is fun!
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Magnanimous!
[Read the article: Lawbreaking telecoms still conniving to obtain immunity from Congress]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][arthurdecco:] DCLaw1 can be Socrates for all I care. If he is, then this exchange between us took place on one of his bad days - one of his supercilious days, & I won't apologize for finding that unnecessarily provocative and offensive – especially if we’re ostensibly tilting at the same windmills.
I just have to say that "Supercilious Days" would make a great name for a rock band, perhaps post-punk agit-pop.
And if something I wrote was ever described as "unnecessarily provocative and offensive" in a magazine or paper, I would have to frame that gem.
Arthurdecco, a cordial bow to your muse.
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meh
[Read the article: Barack Obama: "Committed Christian -- Called to Bring Change"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You know, as an admitted Obama supporter, I'm not feeling a whole lot of cognitive dissonance. Sure, I see the larger point about hypocrisy, at least in the abstract. I'm sure they're out there, especially in the media, but I know of no Obama supporter who chastised Huckabee's "subliminal cross" ad and now forgives Obama's brochures in South Carolina.
I myself, to be perfectly honest, was not all that bothered by Huckabee's ad. I rolled my eyes at the media figures falling all over themselves with shock over the "cross" panning behind him, particularly because many of these same talking heads constantly advance the notion that this nation's underpinnings are religious. But to me, the worst offense of all of those Christmas ads was that they were abhorrently tacky. Others have said this as well, but what bothers me most about Huckabee is not his use of symbolism or calls to Christian identification, but his expressly stated and strongly held policy beliefs relating to his faith.
In campaigns, there are many acts of political theater, and symbolic signaling to certain voter groups and audiences. I am willing to accept this to some degree, if I don't think the underlying viewpoint is pernicious, regardless of the particular person advocating it.
On the broader subject of Obama, I think his campaign strategy is bothering many mainline liberals for the same reason that it has succeeded more than many thought it might. People who say he lacks substantive policy positions obviously have not gone very much further than the media coverage they otherwise decry. Knowing what he actually stands for, I am not shaken by his more symbolic and thematic language and maneuvers. I think that he smartly realizes that seizing the rhetorical mantle of the "independent middle," and "unity" is a very potent general election strategy, and he is hoping that his substantive policy positions (and his own person) will garner him the support necessary in the primaries.
Unfortunately, however, I think that a lot of liberals are still understandably embittered over the Democratic Party's complete abdication to Bush and the Republican minority, and regard nearly any echo of bipartisanship or comity as a foreshadowing of further liberal apostasy. I think these fears, however innocently derived, are misplaced. As my own experience with negotiation has taught me, it is much, much easier to win the lion's share of a bargain by playing the fair and honest broker. It is also easier to win victories with the popular wind at your back.
I give Barack's intelligence and record as a legislator the benefit of that doubt. Hopefully, the restive misunderstandings of an activist grassroots long left in the wilderness will not prevent us from seeing if that is true.
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"John Edwards will be on Keith Olbermann tonight. I believe it will be worth watching."
[Read the article: Your Harry Reid-led Senate in action]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hope this is a subtle signal that you know what Keith will ask, and/or what Edwards will say.
I have to agree wholeheartedly that opposition to retroactive immunity fits into just about every major narrative of the Democratic candidates about what needs to be "Changed" in America.
Wealthy elites running the country, check.
Lawlessness and unaccountability of the powerful and wealthy, check.
Business-as-usual government that ignores the will of the people, check.
Using fear of terrorism as a political ploy to expedite cynical outcomes, check.
I never miss an episode of Countdown, but tonight I will pay special attention. If Edwards promises to help prevent the FISA calamity, it will be a shining example of bottom-up citizen activism, and I will be tremendously heartened. It will also, hopefully, force the other candidates' hands and stop our Senate "leadership's" invertebrate trajectory in its tracks.
Hopefully not too little too late.