Letters to the Editor
Steve1us
Published Letters: 102
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More laughable excuse-making from Salon's Clintonistas
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's most laughable is the headline which, just like Conason's previous rationalization of the Clinton's misdeeds, is misleading - which is fitting for this piece and all of Salon's articles on this race. Quoting a discredited Clintonista like Wilentz and making the specious charge that "Obama does it too" is about all Conason offers in the way of excuses after saying she "seemed to be equating, etc." It's really sad to see people like Conason who I used to admire continue to debase themselves for their former masters. Of course we have yet to hear from Joke Walsh now that the race is over and her candidate lost - unless you're one who thinks summarizing a two-minute disagreement on CNN counts as a contribution after the single biggest day of the primary season. Guess it's hard for the Clintonistas to face reality too now that their candidate has been exposed and rejected.
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Bill and Ted do history, Salon style
[Read the article: Is everything we know about American history wrong?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I know Salon is not supposed to be peer-reviewed journal material but good grief, making this book out to be some new kind of novel historical insight is just more evidence of the rapidly declining quality of this site. A guy who doesn't know history writing about a book by a guy who doesn't know history and, like Bill and Ted, think they've discovered some great notion. The worst part was when Bill and .. I mean Louis and Tony reveal that the "Indians they encountered were not the happy, dancing savages of New Age imaginings." Yes, Native history should only be viewed through white mans lenses; both ill-informed wannabe historians like Tony and Louis and New Agers. The facts are that millions of Indians lived in the Americas prior to Columbus and, yes, there was war and some starvation, but there was also cooperation, life-enhancing traditions and approaches to our interactions with the environment that we could learn and benefit from today. To portray millions of diverse peoples with long cultural traditions as a few thousand dung-eaters living under a despot is beyond ignorant and unfortunately reflective of the mindset of Tony and Ted, I mean Louis. Yet another disappointment from a Salon that is becoming a total embarrassment under Walsh.
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Walsh can't have an honest discussion with herself
[Read the article: Can Democrats learn to talk about race?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So who the hell are you to tell others to have an honest discussion about race? You're a dishonest shill for Hillary who slants everything you have written about the race, making every excuse you can think of for her every misstep. Or, as in the case of her Bosnia lie, you and your staffers just ignore it while you feed for days on anything negative about Obama. Walsh needs to take a long hard look at herself and do a mea culpa before handing out any advice. What a joke Salon has for an editor.
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Why Salon completely sucks
[Read the article: Why Ronald Reagan didn't completely suck]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, giving big play to a discredited hack like Wilentz for the second time in a month; second, having "writers" like Bayard who uncritically buy into what hacks like Wilentz and Horwitz spew out without any historical context and who are only counterbalanced by one true writer, GG, and finally and most important, having the most unprofessional, dishonest "editor" any publication could have: Joan Walsh who has a much business editing this type of site as Bush does running a country.
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The discredited pundit class
[Read the article: "Actual journalists" as government spokespeople]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hate to use yet another sports analogy but it describes our pundit class so perfectly I can't resist. Last night watching Klein's fellow pundits repeat the same tired canards about the primary, I couldn't help but think of washed up announcers from the 80s the first time Joe Montana led the 49ers to the Super Bowl. Here was a new-fangled passing game that no one had ever seen before, the 49ers were rolling opponents and yet the announcers kept talking about how they HAD TO HAVE a ground game to win it all. They went on to win title after title with their West coast offense. Obama, the pundits all say, just HAS TO EARN the hard-working white votes over; in fact he is crumblign withotu their help. Obama came out of nowhere to win more votes than any primary candidate ever, beat an anointed candidate with a former prez as spokesman, brought millions of new voters to the ranks, developed new-fangled ways of reaching those voters and their pocketbooks, operated a groundbreaking new strategy for winning the nomination, and ALL the pundits can talk about is he can't get the lower class white vote. You would think at this point in the election they might give him and his campaign managers some credit for knowing what they are doing and that maybe their strategy for the general election is just as solid. The point is that pundits like Klein or Buchanan or Friedman just keep coming back with the same old bromides about elections (they were wrong about Wright having an effect), foreign affairs (wrong too many times to list), domestic policy (everything from the debt crisis to Katrina)and they are being proven WRONG time and time again. Yet nobody except for GG is pointing out the little emperors have no clothes.