Letters to the Editor
lexsali
Published Letters: 73 Editor's Choice: 9
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McCain's daughter
[Read the article: Obama should be proud to be named Hussein]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm struggling to understand how sincere the McCain family is in their adoption of Bridget. It seems to me to be more of a Madonna-like thing- too much money and time and nothing to do: let's adopt a girl from Bangladesh!
Because if I adopted a daughter from Bangladesh, and truly did love her like my own, how would I be able to stand those attacks on her? Moreover, why would I then re-align myself with her attackers? Bush and his slimy sleazeballs attack her race and her identity, and McCain's reaction is to become a loyal supporter and central bulwark of their illegal war?
Poor girl indeed.
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And the names...
[Read the article: Obama should be proud to be named Hussein]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama should be proud of his middle name. Great point. But the real question is, why isn't Obama proud of his middle name? And the fact that he's not, the fact that he has ashamedly swept it under the rug, is proof that he is imprisoned by the same prejudices and close-mindedness of his attackers.
His immediate response should have been: I'm proud of my heritage, it has made me the person I am, and America is a nation of many religions, cultures, and races.
His response in fact was: I'm a Christian just like you, and my middle name is a thing of the past, and I want nothing to do with it.
I mean, if you're going to attack people for having prejudices about his middle name, then you should attack him for not being prooud of it, and displaying the same narrow-mindedness as them.
The real point to be taken here: Is Obama really the savior for a multicultural, pluralistic America, or does he just pretend to be? And this whole name issue proves that he's just like the rest of them. OBAMA IS ASHAMED TO HAVE A MUSLIM NAME.
And the most salient point of all is this: The fact that a large amount of Americans have Semitic names has nothing to do with it. Are you trying to prove that since so many Americans have Semitic names, it's an "American" thing? If even one girl is born and raised in America with a name derived from a language spoken only by a tribe in the rainforests of Brazil, she is as American as the boy born next door to 11th generation European decendants. Because we're ALL immigrants here.
What you should be saying is Obama's birth, childhood, education, experiences, loyalties, and service are all American. That is what makes him an American as well as his name.
Obama's response to this whole situation has been shameful, and Salon should be pointing that out, instead of continuing their blind adorations.
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How can you expect a hypocrite to do a good job of governing?
[Read the article: Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact of the matter is, Spitzer knew he was breaking the law. Regardless of what he thought of the actual law (which, it sounds like Spitzer upheld it against OTHERS, so he must have been for it), it was the law at the time that prostitution is illegal. Yet he didn't think twice about that. In fact, I don't think this was his first time. You don't just all of a sudden up and decide to pay $1000 an hour to a prostitute to travel to you for sex. It's clearly something he's done before.
The point is, how can we expect someone with that little respect for the law to uphold the laws with sincerity? Doesn't his personal hypocrisy then become a public hypocrisy, with someone who actually broke a law so non-chalantly sitting at the helm and ordering others to abide by them? It's not just hypocritical of him to break up sex rings and then hire a prostitute, it's hypocritical of him to break a law and then order others to follow them.
If you are against a law, there are ways to change it. But no court in the world will accept the explanation that you broke a law because you were against it. Then where would it stop? For the posters who think it's not such a huge deal, what happens when your governor breaks a law you DO agree with? Then it's not ok anymore, is it?
Anyway, I don't think that's what he's arguing. If he had had an affair, that would have been between him and his family. But he broke the law. That law is in place because most Americans believe prostitution is immoral, and had decided to make it illegal. If you can't follow the law, you should not be in charge of upholding them.
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Oh Please
[Read the article: "Today, I weep for my country"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's something obviously ridiculous about McCain's speech, and that is that Saddam Hussein didn't come to power in 2001. He came to power in 1979. Why didn't McCain see the years of oppression Iraqis suffered at Saddam's hands before 9/11??!? And why did the US government support this supposed monster while he was in power?
Now we get it. "Liberating Iraq" meant killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and ridding them of their useless lives. And he had the nerve to accuse Byrd of racism.