Letters to the Editor
theunbeatablekid
Published Letters: 6
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Emphasis
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that it's the first part of the Roberts quote that deserves emphasis - "Convincing the electorate of that I think would be very difficult." The poll numbers show that the public is already convinced.
The meaning of the quote that was emphasized in this post "I also agree that the notion that Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham you heard this morning putting forward, that Americans would prefer to win" is a bit more slippery. She's being vague here by "agreeing with notions" and "prefering to win." This leads to Vanden Heuvel's follow up about the meaning of winning.
My point is that the first part of the quote nails down her position.
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Academic Freedom
[Read the article: John Yoo: Spearhead or scapegoat?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As with other freedoms, I believe that academic freedom is something that is not applied in an evenhanded manner. Members of the establishment or those who advocate for them are granted extraordinary amounts of freedom while those who oppose it find their freedoms questioned.
The other day, a professor that I know through the peace movement told me about how he tried to create an organization of antiwar professors at the large university where he works. This professor knew many of the younger faculty members in his department and thought that they would be interested in advocating for peace in this way. When the early meetings of the group were poorly attended, he did some investigating and found out that a senior professor in the department had warned many of the younger professors that these types of political actions would hurt their ability to get tenure. I don’t believe that he intended this to be a threat as much as a friendly piece of advise. For those of you not familiar with the university system, denying a professor tenure is a huge deal, almost akin to threatening their job. Occurrences like this seriously undermine the principle of academic freedom.
In my experience, universities do afford their professors a comparably high degree of freedom yet the professors who support the establishment tend to get more support than those who oppose it. In this case, Berkeley is certainly going to the mat for Yoo. Partly, I think that this is because they fear the inevitable political backlash if they let him go. I doubt that Berkeley wants to spend the next few years weathering accusations of engaging in a political witch-hunt.
I have not included the name of the professor who told me the story or the name of the university in this comment but if there’s any doubt please email me and I can try and get his permission to do so.
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Weighting the Polls
[Read the article: Beltway myth: "The left-wing base" vs. "the American people" on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think a salient issue here is that the mainstream press does not consider the left wing (or any other group with a position outside of the establishment) to be composed of "real Americans."
Real Americans agree with the opinions of those in power.
People like Liasson might as well read these polls weighting each pro-administration view as 2 or 3 independent views because we all know that these people hold the more responsible view of a real American. Read those polls again counting each pro-war opinion as two or three pro-withdrawal opinions and Liasson's statement seems perfectly reasonable.
Still, even if a majority of Americans didn't want a speedy withdrawal, wouldn't it be "principled and courageous" for Obama pursue this policy in the face of public opinion? Wouldn't he be determined to do what is right instead of what is popular? That's how the press has described Bush every time he pursues a policy that most Americans disagree with.
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Press Coverage
[Read the article: Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize warrantless eavesdropping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Pamela Hess from the AP has a headline today that starts, "Senate Bows to Bush." Sounds we're in for some great press for Obama and the Democrats.
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Update
[Read the article: Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize warrantless eavesdropping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Looks like you already got it in the update.
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It can be two things
[Read the article: Has there been too much bipartisanship or too little?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think that anyone can seriously claim that we've witnessed bipartisan politics over these last 8 years. Examples of partisanship are many but the most glaring would be the Justice Department purges of early 2007 (this fits into a larger pattern of politicization of the bureaucracy) and the record breaking number filibusters in the 110th Congress. Furthermore, with people like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Tom Delay throwing their weight around how can this era be described as bipartisan?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we've had both extraordinary partisanship and extraordinary bipartisanship over the last 8 years. The Republicans have been extremely partisan and the Democrats have been extremely bipartisan. I know how "partisan" it sounds to say that but the facts are there in abundance. Republicans have gotten even their most unbalanced proposals passed and the Democrats have found all but a very few of their proposals blocked. This trend can be found from legislation to appointments.
If you reevaluate Obama's message with this in mind, bipartisan change means that the partisanship of the Republicans will no longer dominate politics. Instead, the spirit of bipartisanship that the Democrats have amply shown in supporting the extreme and dangerous policies of the president despite the protestations of their constituents will take center stage. We will move from having a radical right wing government to having a conservative centrist government (conservative meaning resistant to policy change).