Letters to the Editor
melthough
Published Letters: 1264 Editor's Choice: 102
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Keep on shucking and jiving, Wilentz.
[Read the article: Is Obama playing the race card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think both sides were too sensitive to racist and sexist attacks a few months ago. The difference is that Obama's campaign mostly corrected that, while Clinton's only got worse and worse - primarily because she wasn't being listened to and so kept talking about it more and more loudly. The Obama campaign, more wisely, dropped the subject until the recent turban photo (which I think they reponded to with too much anger, as Obama did to the Farrakhan question last night).
I do sympathize with her campaign, because I believe it is much, much easier to get in sexist digs than it is to get in racist ones, and come off still looking reasonable or even innocent. But I think the repeated attempts to make a case about systemic sexism - even though I have agreed with many of the arguments! - have hurt Clinton rather than helped her. Also, I do not think the sexist digs have come primarily from the Obama campaign itself. I feel that she has been fighting the media, which is practically hopeless, instead of staying on message.
Even though I would love to see her as president, watching how she deals with attacks compared with Obama has led me to feel more excited about Obama than I do about her - which means he is more likely to get my vote next Tuesday in Vermont (yes, we're voting too!). She keeps talking about what a great fighter she is, and she is absolutely right. But I don't think she has chosen her battles very well.
This latest opinion from one of her supporters illustrates the case. The campaign has consistently tried to appeal for a redress of grievances instead of just moving on and getting back to its own message. I think Obama's campaign did the latter more successfully, starting in late January/early February, and he has been the frontrunner ever since. You can argue all sorts of reasons why that is. Or you can get back to the business of spreading your message. And Clinton's meta-campaign has done a great deal of the former, to the detriment of actually campaigning. It makes me sad, but I hope many female candidates will throw their hats into the ring in the next four, eight, sixteen, and sixty-four years. Every year! Wouldn't that be great? I hope they do. Thanks, Hillary, for being the first. It is really hard to take that heat, and I admire her for it. She is still one of my heroes.
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jebldmm
[Read the article: Is Obama playing the race card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do you also see Clinton as having run a "sleath campaign" of trying to turn every attack into a sexist one? Frankly, many of the comments and digs at her ARE inherently sexist. Just as "shuck and jive," and, to a lesser extent, its "just speeches" variation are. (I didn't think the cocaine thing was, but that's arguable.) My question is: why keep letting that matter? Once you realize you are not going to change it or even raise awareness about it among the people who have never been discriminated against in the way you are being discrimated against, why not just let it go and get back to your message? Show us who you are instead of telling us and complaining about the fact that no one is listening? I believe that's what Obama did, and what Clinton failed to do. She has allowed her campaign to be in constant defense mode - the very same beleagured attitude that lost both Gore and Kerry the election. And, finally, watching it in comparison to the way Obama has dealt with McCain's little proto-attacks, I have finally become quite clear that I won't vote for her on Tuesday. I wish the Democrats would field more progressive candidates, but I'm happy to settle for Obama first. I think he will beat McCain easily. Clinton has a very good chance against McCain as well, but her constant defensiveness makes me nervous.
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Haugh Haugh Limbaugh
[Read the article: McCain on contraception [12-second pause]]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for the heads up, DurianJoe. Since militant feminism existed only as a straw structure in his own mind, I'm perfectly happy to see him bury it and piss on its grave.
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Don't try to buy my vote.
[Read the article: Are Barack Obama and John McCain hypocrites?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The best thing he could do to get my vote is "be the change." I'm quite serious. Don't be tempted to go back on a clear promise. The smears will happen anyway, and he already knows how to deflect them. All those great deflections will have a flatter ring if you open yourself up to the charge of hypocrisy, or even understandable fear about the high stakes. Integrity IS his product. Public financing is a risk he must take. But I don't think it will turn out to have been much of a risk.
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The common physical ailments of women
[Read the article: The double standard of student-teacher sex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]are often different from the common physical ailments of men. The same is true for mental and psychiatric ailments. But there is huge overlap - plenty of men with borderline personality disorder, or cognitive deficiences or devlopmental issues that mean they relate to teenagers better than they relate to women.
These women are not getting a free pass. They have served time, after guilty pleas. But I think their teenage boyfriends should be protected from them just as teenage girlfriends are from men who "relate to" them more readily than they "relate to" grown women. However, rather than thinking the "expert" quoted is wrong about these women, I mainly came away from the story wishing we could see the same kind of expertise about men's emotional states when they fall in love with teenagers and want to marry them.