Letters to the Editor

• Response (and greater respect) to Joan from Kenkapkk part 1

  [Read the article: How much can John Edwards help Barack Obama?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Joan,

  There is not enough room for a copmplete reply so I am sending this in two parts.

  Last night I went through your personal letters section and it was very eye opening for me. So first I appreciate your response and secondly, I owe you an apology (sort of-which I'll make clear).

  There are so many letters here that I usually don't or can't have the time sorting through them to view your replies. So perhaps its my own "diminished intellectual capacity" in not figuring out until now that by clicking on your letters I could pull up the archive of your interactions and gain a more complete picture of who you are.

  So first, that picture reveals a person who commands a lot of respect. I am a storyteller and one of the adages in in that community is "you can never hate the person whose story you know". Going into depth about your background, your life, your experience, and how you come to certain perspectives was quite revealing to say the least. By clarifying your feelings about Wright, for example, I saw that your position had some crediblity. I may not agree with all of it, but it was reasonable.

  In looking through the interesting journey of your letters, and again I appreciate the time you take to read and respond to your readers (and critics), I realized once again that I have a fault in not taking time to get to know the person behind the opinion, which sometimes is not possible, but here is because of your availability. So I can demean the humanity of another with the best of them, which points to the fact that we all can have a little of the characteristics of the "enemy" or those we disagree with inside of us and often forget we are on the same side. So for this lapse of mine I am sorry. For dehumanizing you.

  I think many of us feel powerless in this gigantic maelstrom of a process, so I think what comes across as rage in many of these letters of ours is tainted with that feeling. So you become a sounding board for some or even a lot of this. And I admire your ability to be with it. Chris Satullo, one editorial editor of the Inquirer could not take it as well (we dialogued a lot) and had a hard time with the harsh tenor of the blogs. So much for what the "founding fathers" feared from the "great unwashed". (joking)

  It is quite clear to me you are NOT a person of "limited intellectual capacity".

  That said, what feels very strange to me is my perception of a very strong dissonance between the person I see who reveals herself in the letters and the person (or at least the main thread) who writes the columns. I have been involved with Salon for I think at least a decade or more and was one of the first premium subscribers. I touted this magazine loudly and often to my friends. What always impressed me was of course that it reflected and affirmed at a very high level my worldview, but that also the level of writing and balance was great.

  I am only reiteratng what I have said before more harshly in other letters, but now more in dialogue, that what I have perceived from you, and the magazine in general, was a capitulation of balance in favor of a decidedly pro Clinton agenda. As an Obama supporter,and as an observer of what might be called 'media ethics" this felt like a betrayal of principle, not that one could not address or advocate Clinton's perceived strengths,or Obama's weaknesses, but that a similar balance was missing. I'm sure you will disagree with this, and its not that there haven't been unabashedly pro Obama pieces (Gary Kamiya's recent essay stands out), or atrempts to adress Clinton's faults (Conason on the "George Wallace moment) but the tenor and weight of articles has been tilted toward Clinton. The essay on why Obama was wrong on the gas tax is a prime example. (Now this happens in less conscious media all the time. I know MSNBC will tilt toward Obama, CNN tilts to Clinton. So I rarely watch CNN anymore. But I view Salon in principle as above that).

  But more importantly, this constant drumbeat from the editor in chief that has appeared to be distressingly momochomatic and predictable has clearly upset me and much of your readership. I have seen posts of yours in which 80-90% of the responses were negative precisely on this issue. Which to me indicates some kind of "blind spot".

  If you had been transparent from the beginning and admitted you were biased or leaned toward Clinton, them my take might have been different. But to operate in such a manner under the guise of professional objectivity, as an important observer, has been, again, disingeuous in my opinion.

  In a letter of yours, to acknowledge that Obama has created a brilliant campaign but has flaws that need addressing is different from writing a column focusing soley on a "problem" with working class whites without acknowledging that Clinton, as I have mentioned ad nauseum, stoked the fire of that problem by claiming Obama is elitist in a demagogue fashion( a Republican talking point for years) and herself had indulged in the same remarks and opinion, revealing a distressing hypocrticy. Therefore what might have evolved into an important discussion and observation devolved, in my opinion, into a polemic that was one sided that was consistent with a highly pro Clinton agenda, conscious or not.

  (continued in part 2)

  Permalink Saturday, May 17, 2008 10:32 AM