Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 202 Editor's Choice: 38
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Flashbacks
[Read the article: "I've been led to believe that there's a good response for it"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am having flashbacks to my 17th and 18th years when Ron Ziegler was uttering the same kind of nonsense that Tony Snow (the best name ever for a White House spokesperson) is shoveling these days. I had hoped Watergate and the coverup that followed would never be repeated but here we are more than 30 years later reliving this bullshit again.
Perhaps no laws were broken; perhaps even no regulations were violated, but it stinks just the same. Bush & Co. were caught trying to put "loyal Bushies" in key prosecutor offices so when they leave office those prosecutors won't want to indict them. They were so blatant about it that they saved all the emails they exchanged on the matter. This is arrogance in its purest form, not trying to hide the evidence. The only difference between Nixon and Bush is that 18.5 minutes of tape has become 18 days of emails.
It's not the 8 prosecutors or Gonzalez that matter, it's what's behind it. There is a mass of corruption, greed and villainy lurking in this administration that the Bushies don't want anyone to see. This little freak show with 8 prosecutors is an open door to that mass of corruption. It wasn't the investigation into the Watergate break-in that scared the Nixonians, it was Congress finding out about everything else they were doing. The break-ins by the plumbers, the illegal wiretapping, the slush funds, the secret war in SE Asia, and the other activities that showed Nixon's contempt for our system of government and laws.
W has even greater contempt for the law and our entire system of self-government. He has no use for or faith in our judicial system or any other part of the system of government it has taken more than 200 years to create. He doesn't care that he is violating habeus corpus, a legal doctrine more than a millenium old. He doesn't care about the millions of lives it took to build this nation so why should he care about the measly 6,200 who have died (September 11 plus Iraq and Afghanistan) because of his heartless arrogance and false macho crap? He didn't care when an entire American city of over 400,000 people lay under 15 feet of water for four days and he knew nothing about it. He cared so little his staff was afraid to tell him about it. He didn't care when thousands of our best and brightest men and women came home to sub-standard hospitals and medical services while he tried to cut the VA's funding by billions. But he's never had any reluctance using those men and women as props in his political pageants.
He doesn't care as he destroys our system piece by piece. In just 6 years, Bush has destroyed the military, Homeland Security, CIA, HHS, FEMA, FDA, EPA, VA, and, now, Justice. He is evil.
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The Law Protects Everyone
[Read the article: "I've been led to believe that there's a good response for it"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From "A Man for All Seasons," written for the stage by Robert Bolt.
Sir Thomas More and his protege argue about whether laws should protect even the devil.
William Roper:
So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More:
Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper:
Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
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Not any more
[Read the article: Stardust memories]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After watching the World Trade Center collapse from my terrace and on television, I don't get a kick out of these implosions any more. I remember thinking that I had just watched 15,000 people die.
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He's a genius
[Read the article: No sympathy for the devil]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Keith Richards drops a little story about snorting dear old Dad and the world goes nuts. His PR people try to contain the damage. Disney freaks. Didn't the Disney suits get it when Johnny Depp did Captain Jack Sparrow as a sanitized version of Keith Richards? Disney drops Keith from all promotional work for the movie.
Keith Richards is a genius. Don't want to do boring promo work (answering stupid ET questions) for your cameo in some silly Disney flick? Check has already cleared? Say something outrageous as only an aging, crazy, addled rocker can and watch the money men run for the hills. Brilliant.
This idea was used on "The West Wing." President Bartlett is scheduled to debate his opponent in a few days; only one network is televising it. He zings his opponent in an "oh-was-the-mike-live?" moment on a morning news show and the staff spends 3 days trying to say it was a mistake. All the networks show up for the debate and the ratings are through the roof. Bartlett creams the guy in the debate. Turns out ol' Jed planned it that way.
It was a good zing, too. "He's a 22-caliber in a 45-caliber world."
Nice work, Keith.
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When?
[Read the article: It's like bringing them home sooner, only different]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]US soldiers in the First World War were promised a bonus for signing up. During the Depression they marched on Washington and set up a camp across the Potomac demanding the money immediately. Congress ignored them and federal troops under Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur drove them from their camp.
When will veterans of the Iraq war march on Washington to demand the end of the Bush silent draft?