Letters to the Editor

• Title Tells all

  [Read the article: The other 18 million]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Why this article was not entitled "Why Clinton Supporters should move to Obama" tells everything, as if Mr. Obama has to "atone" for something he did. Joan Walsh has been a persistent, dreadfully awful, myopic, horribly biased observer of this campaign. As per her icon, I have come to lose all respect for her perspective and opinion. The consistency of her bias mirrors the blatant willfulnes and power play of Clinton up until the last moment when her OWN SUPPORTERS had to pry her loose from the insidious game she was still trying to play. ( An email to her website last night with ONE box to check "keep on fighting"?)

  As one commentator said, this was the least gracious exit from a campaign (before today) by a candidate since Nixon in 1962. Her closest people, like Charles Wrangle saved her from ruining whatever legacy she had. Hillary Rosen puked publicly on Huffington Post today proclaiming "I am not a bargaining chip". But not Ms Walsh. The idea that 18 million people are inherently "against" Obama primarily *because* of the deeply divisive tactics of Ms Clinton and minions like Ms Walsh apparently never occurered to this editor. Doesn't modern physics say something about the observer impacting the observed? Please tell me exactly where in Mr.Obama's policies, which most dispassionate analysts agree are extremely close to Ms Clinton's domestically, where there is some basis for this fury that has no standing except for the identity politics and smears of his rival?

  There was brilliant article on Slate today entitled

  "Death of a Saleswoman

  How Hillary Clinton lost me—and a generation of young voters."

  By Meghan O'Rourke

  The lead "above the fold" was "Her problem wasn't that she was a feminist. Her problem was that she wasn't feminist enough." It was the kind of article that should have been here, deep, unconventional, thought provoking but wasn't. This is the legacy of Ms Walsh's insipid editorial command.

  Joan, I'm sure you are at heart a decent person. As I mentioned earlier, the person I found in your letters vs the blogger are not consistent or resonant. This is very saddening. Perhaps one day you will realize the disservice you did your readership. At this point I fear I cannot expect any better of you. You have underperformed in surpisingly disappointing ways time after time. If I want bulls**t conventional wisdom, I'll waste my time with my local paper.

  I'm afraid you have been leading Salon into mediocrity and worse. Your greatest sin is that you allowed yourself to totally succumb to your emotional attachment, devoid of any connection to balanced analysis. Yet you pretended to present such.

  PS I think you see my critique of you has always been on the merits and I have rarely seen on this letter page the trashing of women you describe. And I have rarely seen it on the major blogs I visit, Kos, Huffpo and TPM. Does it exist? Of course, but is it not comparable to the behavior and abuse given to Obama volunteers, which you never commented upon? And the spoken and unspoken racism implicitely endorsed by Ms Clinton and excplicitlely stated by many of her suurogates?

  PPS Gliding over the "inadequate black male comment" was not only typical of your bias, but absolutely inexcusable, as was any defense of Geraldine Ferraro, who is a disgrace.

  Permalink Wednesday, June 4, 2008 08:26 PM