Letters to the Editor
omooex
Published Letters: 977 Editor's Choice: 5
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Kamiya is Right ON! Except for....
[Read the article: Iraq: Why the media failed]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, in the tradition of nit-picky annoying overly critical readers of lefty periodicals, I will admit that I agreed with mostly everything Kamiya says. Except his now boring reference to Ari Fleischer's alleged, "watch what they do, say, etc."
Please stop giving fuel to the conservative borne fire of lefty fanaticism. Stop taking this quote out of context. Yes Ari Fleischer is more evil than a Sith Lord, but this is not the reason. Here is the quote from the White House Transcript:
"I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it unfortunate. And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party -- they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.
Now here is the context referred to in the "earlier question about has the president said anything to people in his own party":
"Q Has the President had any communication with Representative Cooksey regarding his comments on Sikh Americans? And does he have a message for lawmakers and members of his party in particular about this issue?"
Cooksey had earlier commented that, 'If I see someone come in and he's got a diaper on his head and a fanbelt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked.'
Lefties may have jumped at the bit a little too hard and attackd a straw man in taking this easily decontextualized statement and running wild with it. Please, a little more of the kind of journalistic rigour we demand from the media on our side...
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The Part of History that Comes after The Middle Ages
[Read the article: Real inconvenient truths]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm starting to believe that Paglia's column exists to piss off those fools, who enjoying the majority of intelligent and diverse analysis found on this website, expect a certain level of intellectual rigor from it and are thus incensed whenever encountering Paglia's column and the inordinate amount of space that it takes up. Its an old ploy, find a muckraking idiot and watch the people flock to the publication to wax indignant about his/her stupidity (Coulter, O'Reilly, etc.). Maybe I'm projecting. In any case, I won't spend much time "hating" on the various awfulness of Paglia's writing, or the convention of her "responses to readers" as if she were a daytime soap star (and, of course, the cherry picked and obviously content-edited nature of those letters.).
Here's a letter not likely to see the light of monitor in her column.
Camille, in one of your responses to a letter concerning the West's preferred mode as chaperone to the immature cultures of the world, you claim that "After 9/11, what should have been perfectly clear is that we need a long, slow process of reeducating the peoples of the world, to try to convince Muslims of the fundamental benevolence of American intentions."
Oh Camille, how sad it is that not everyone has limited their study of history, geography and sociology to the transition from Roman empire to middle ages, as you have. So many ignorant peoples out there suspicious of the US's motives. Here are but a few and there crazy ideas about US actions based ON THEIR OWN HISTORY!!!
--Egyptians. These hotheads think that the Mubarak regime is a oligarchic dictatorship simply because democracy has been suspended for over a quarter century. What do they do? They elect members of the muslim brotherhood to the legislature. Once there they have the temerity to question Mubarak's authoritarian rule. Don't they know that's gonna test our benevolence?
--Lebanese. This benevolence may come as news to the hundreds of Lebanese killed and maimed by US made cluster bomblets in Israel's romp through the country side last Summer. Go figure, you know they don't get FOX over there. UN and health organizations estimate that there are 1 million such bomblets dotting the countryside. Still, with your rhetorical skills, I'm sure you could convinve them that the US has their best interests at heart.
--Vietnamese. They thought Napalm, Agent Orange, and mass murder were bad, but you don't see anyone complaining about the great sweatshop jobs. Hurry up, Camille. The Vietnamese may be forgetting all that they gained from the US's most benevolent action in recent history. At least they're not commies. Oh wait.
--Latin America. Its easy to forget the down under and those former purveyors of US sponsored benevolence Pinochet, Duvalier, Somoza, Costa e Silva. Since then things have taken a slide, of course, with democratically elected hotheads like that Chavez outlawing drinking and driving and nationalizing those oil fields.
Anyway. Come on Salon. I'd prefer Ann Coulter.
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"Amazed at Salon"
[Read the article: Real inconvenient truths]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dude, you are so full of crap.
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The debate, MSNBC, and the Politico
[Read the article: War as reality rather than cartoon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the most biting commentary on the Republican debate came right at the end of the post-debate gab-fest hosted by MSNBC and the Politico...after nearly two hours of talking non-stop about McCain, Giuliana and Romney, one of the pundits mentioned, in the last two seconds of the program, that the news network's own website viewer poll currently put Ron Paul, who was mentioned only once (and ridiculed) by the assorted purveyors of conventional wisdom.
The same thing had happened in the democratic contest last week, where viewers also leaned heavily toward Mike Gravel, who was largely ignored when not ridiculed by the assembled MSNBC personalities...the most disturbing thing to hear at the end of the republican debate, when the viewer poll was announced, was the laughter--presumably at the audience for listening to the content of the debate rather than using it as a platform for talking about the three candidates most favored by the news networks...