Letters to the Editor
kenkapkk
Published Letters: 131 Editor's Choice: 13
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Cancelling subscripton
[Read the article: Obama can't close the deal ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is a last hurrah. Part of my cancelling my subscription is the enormous pro Clinton bias of Salon that constantly reiterates conventional media spin and follows submissively the media narrative.
How do you think Hillary would have fared in Pa if at the debate and constantly pounded by the cable outlets, she was confronted by the enormous contradiction that her chief campaign advisor, in the middle of her disclaimers of support for Nafta like treaties was lobbying and brokering such a deal? Is it possible in any way that judgment and sense of assessing character for that "3 AM phone call" might come up?
What if the moderators, and said outlets in electronic and print, who apparently had no scruples, had brought up that in contradiction to her being the "champion" of the white blue collar class had said, from an extremely reliable and corroborated source, in frustration at the very concerns voiced by Obama, "screw em" in the most cold blooded fashion, caring only what they could give them. And that her husband in 1991 talked openly about Republicans scaring the S**t out of "insecure, scared white guys" and using race as the diverting tactic?
What if the press, rather than giving play to Clinton's "if you can't stand the heat" rants at the end had given equal weight to hypocricy with her whining and carping for months about ill treatment, whining that spilled onto the floor of a debate crying about being asked the first question?
Finally, and this could go on and on, what are we to make of a candidate, who when your opponent graciously passes on piling on your outright conscious subversion of truth about a trip to a foreign land (is Clinton actually clinically sane), in the next breath stabs him in the back over the most specious of charges that were fed by one of the most rabid right right wingers of our time, a woman who when the patriotism and religion of her opponent were questioned on 60 minutes could not even bring herself to a baseline of ethics to repudiate the smears, but instead sought in a craven way to feed off them?
And Salon is strangely silent on Clinton's own culture gaffes-Obama's states don't count, he is backed by the "Latte drinking crowd", Moveon and the activist base are "thugs and intimidators" lying completely a la Rove about Moveon's stance on Afghanistan? Whining that's why she is behind. Why are blue collar whites sacrosanct, but the rest of us are relegated as unimportant, or worse? It has been said that Republicans cling to their base, Democrats repudiate theirs. Here Clinton classically behaves in such a manner. But does this hypocricy become part of the narrative, or get play? Apparently not because us "elitists" (who probably make up most of Salon's subscribers") are pariahs in the American political lexicon. And apparently from the viewpont of this magazine, want to remain that way.
That Salon swallows wholesale the manner in which the media has played this game to keep the "race alive" and has no ability to find outrage at the duplicity of the narrative or the games the press plays, the same games that Salon decried and still decies in the media's capitulation to the administration over the war and related issues is beyond reprehensible for a magazine devoted to excellence.
I expect better, I demand better. But it ain't here no more. Salon used to be cutting edge, but no more. Yes we can all wonder what would have been if Hillary had been in an electoral college type system, but what kind of vapidness infected the editors to print such a piece? I find more inciviseness from readers at TPM than the Clinton shills who have filled these pages recently.
Obama is not perfect and has every right to be looked at, but so little here here is truly perceptive or balanced. Go to TPM and see Josh Marshall's analysis of the way the Clinton claim of strength in the industrial Mid West plays against Obama's strengths in the mountain area and states like Virginia in the general. Then you'll see the difference between true, bright dispassionate analysis and what has passed for "analysis" here.
I understand the petulance of the Clinton gang. How dare anyone take their deserved fiefdom away. Richard Nixon said when asked about his tactics,"Don't you see, I had to win". Obviously this is the only Clinton credo. Nothing else really matters. I find it extremely telling that on NPR, the woman assigned to read Hillary's book found it a torturous experience, that Clinton was almost impossible to be found authentically because of a near pathological need not to reveal herself. (Obama by contrast was seen more as a writer who became a politician rather than the other way around-hence a huge difference between the two.)
Have all the Clinton lovers forgotten the candidate who wouldn't take a position unless she checked six ways into the wind, was adamant about not apologizing for her vote to authorize war (was misled-really, then you were both a fool and an idiot), voted to condemn the Iranian guard as terrorists, and wants to create an "umbrella policy" in the Mideast that extends far beyond Bush's fondest dream? Her whole current stance has been shaped by Obama's pressure, rarely by any consistent internal integrity. (and to be honest, he has adapted Edwards populism as well). By the way, if Clinton believes and Salon or her supporters believe she has been so "vetted" that there ain't nothing else for the Republicans to get at, you are beyond foolish.