Letters to the Editor
andrek
Published Letters: 28 Editor's Choice: 5
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Schadenfraude for Democracy Lost?
[Read the article: Republicans gone wild]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Reading all this (and other summaries of Republican misbehavior) brings me to that point of despair where I just have to assume the dream is over. And then I get angry at the Clinton administration. Weren't they playing the same game, instead of doing everything possible to expose all this chicanery? Did Mr. Clinton have to leave himself wide open by not keeping his dick in his pants for 8 years? Wouldn't Mr. Gore be president now (with perhaps a Dem-controlled Senate if not Congress) if Mr. Clinton had a little more self-control, and if Mr. Gore himself trusted his personal instincts more (as he seems to do now)? The less said about Mr. Kerry's own lack of instincts the better.
I'm not trying to blame the Dems (or Nader for that matter), but if this crap has been going on for so long, where were they? Are they so incapable of exploiting the media in their favor (the media that supposedly favors them anyway)? Even now they seem weak and disoriented.
So maybe it's easier to shrug and give up, because frankly, I have no faith that prosecution of Abramoff and Co. is going to accomplish much.
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Ever the Good Soldier
[Read the article: McCain in 2008?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I respect John McCain for his service during the war and as a senator, his position on torture, his interest in campaign finance reform, and his general integrity. But I feel let down by him as a leader. He really should have been kicking ass when the kicking was most needed, way back in the primaries when he was being slandered. During the course of the current administration, he could have stood apart, instead of pursuing "opportunistic fawning over the president" in order to maintain his perceived benefits in keeping his Republicon branding. Most recently with the torture ban, the president gave McCain the middle finger with his signing statement. That statement "is fighting words". Where's the fight? McCain can get more press than anyone other than the top administration, why are we not seeing him in the press bringing on the fight? I suppose it's beneath him, but he's one of the few people in a position to be heard widely while taking this administration to task. I guess he's ever the good soldier like Powell.
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Brilliantly Painful
[Read the article: Making Colbert go away]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Colbert is brilliant and I devour every snippet of his work that gets posted online (I don't have premium cable or satellite service for home network). But was he funny on Saturday? I wasn't laughing with ha-ha belly laughs, because how could anyone laugh at the severity of his speaking truth to power? He's a hero for showing such terrific balls! But funny? How can we laugh at what is actually painful irony, about painful abuses of power. And how surreal is it that so many of the subjects of recent scandal attended the same event? How weird is Washington? What the fuck is Valerie Plame doing there having dinner in the same room as her mortal enemy?
I'm amazed that Colbert was able to go through his whole routine. It must have been easier to write it and rehearse it than to actually pull off what is essentially guerilla theater aimed at a man who can do anything he wants to you after the fact. And some of that nervousness showed in at least one screwup during the performance. It just makes me admire the guy even more, because it was obviously a hard thing to do, but he felt a duty to carry it through. That is the definition of hero.
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Edward Moore is right
[Read the article: "You want to shoot them"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Edward, thanks for your post, I wish it would be read by all the top brass, because all the screwups in "their" invasion of Iraq are based entirely on their stupidity. They continue to deploy trained and conditioned combat fighters as traffic cops, local politicians, contractors, and shit shovelers. That is not why these guys signed up, that is not what they are trained for. And because the top brass won't give our incompetent weasel-in-chief the straight story, these soldiers are overextended, let alone smashed on whatever dope they need to get through this crap. It just gauls me that Tommy Franks and Co. could not have foreseen that that they would be facing a guerrilla war here. Sure, Rumsfeld pushed him, but Rumsfeld is a chickenshit dumbass and generals aren't supposed to be pussies. Gen. William Wallace made it known that there was some understanding of planning for the wrong kind of enemy, so surely this was not a matter of rocket science. Defeating Saddam's fake, diversion army up front certainly was not something to gloat about except for the truly clueless. That of course applies to our current head-up-his-ass commander-in-chief, but the joint chiefs ought to know better, one would think.
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You can't fix a 50/50 divide
[Read the article: Illegitimate election]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm prepared to believe there was some election rigging, surely as there has ever been. Dems have done it too, as we all must know. And we have to change the system significantly to really fix the problem, but that will happen when hell freezes over (and it's only getting hotter here ain't it?). If we fix a few of the anomalies being reported, it should indeed make a difference as to who wins a close election. But then what? How much are we ever going to resolve as long as half of the people who bother to vote consider the guys running the show now as being just fine? Sure, the polls show Bush tanking, but are those being polled only folks who vote, I wonder? If we were looking at more of a landslide-like victory come next election, it would probably also reflect a change in congress and then we might be getting somewhere. If Kerry was elected with congress as it is now, wouldn't have done much good, and he would be under impeachment proceedings for picking his nose by now.