Letters to the Editor
midnight04
Published Letters: 225 Editor's Choice: 9
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Hillary is from Chicago
[Read the article: Does Obama's baritone give him an edge?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She has the flatness of the Midwest in her voice and that's a bit wearing on people. It's not a matter of timbre but of geography. She never quite got into the Southern cadences of Bill and New York is so polyglot that it never became a deficit because most folks are from somewhere else anyway, at least downstate.
I admit to being delighted by Obama's voice but I am not so far gone that he doesn't actually have to say something.
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Oh, rats
[Read the article: Quarter of Clinton supporters would vote McCain over Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The tactics of her campaign are eroding any respect and support I may have for her.
She cannot destroy her party. If she does that, if she subjects this country to four more years of Bush, then she is an assassin and she has destroyed a future for all of us.
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The only alternative
[Read the article: Should Florida and Michigan vote again? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The only alternative to an expensive revote is to split Florida and Michigan 50/50 so that each gets half the delegates in each state. Howard Dean has turned it over to the parties in both states and said that he would favor seating the delegates chosen in a revote.
What a mess!! The superdelegates CANNOT overturn the pledged delegates without starting a rebellion. It has to be settled by the time the opening gavel falls.
Karen
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Self cutting
[Read the article: Why girls cut themselves]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is an overdetermined (many causes) phenomenon. There is no direct correlation between mother and self-cutting as there might be between serotonin and self-cutting and no clear lines between mother and serotonin levels. Also, the diagnostic categories are not really clear. I would love to see a clear diagnostic determination according to the Research Diagnostic Criteria (as determined by the SADS clinical interview) and self-cutting. For instance, there are borderline diagnosed self-cutters and borderline non-self-cutters. There are non-borderline self-cutters and non-borderline non-self-cutters. Very often depressives are self-cutters as well. It may be a minor suicidal act that prevents more serious ones.
I want to see the entire research report before I reach any conclusions about it.
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Man enough or mean enough?
[Read the article: War cheerleaders ask: "Is Obama man enough to be president?"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I had to re-read the headline there, Glenn.
I was thinking about Hillary's claim about being tougher and having more experience and all that and I wondered whether that includes the non-response to the Rwandan genocide. Does she want to claim that, too? Does that give her the veneer of toughness when she presumably was right at the President's side making decisions? Does letting men, women and children die by machete make her tough?
I would rather risk it with Obama, thanks.
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Tragedy?
[Read the article: The tragic fall of Eliot Spitzer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe it's tragic for his wife and kids but, from what I gather, tragedy requires a certain nobility and nowhere do I see that in Spitzer himself.
He reminds me of Bobby Fisher. Winning wasn't enough. He had to also personalize it.
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The Experience of Politics (or vice versa)
[Read the article: Obama camp targets Clinton experience claims]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If Hillary wants to tout her experience, she has to take responsibility for it. Where was she when Rwanda started falling apart? What was her influence? How did she make her statements? What did she do to save 800,000 people? Can she claim that she tossed Bill's sorry butt out of bed or refused to feed him until he sent troops in to save the Tutsis and moderate Hutus who were being hacked to death?
She can't claim that experience prepared her to do anything until she can answer those questions. I wonder why Barack Obama hasn't pinned her ears back on Rwanda. She cannot make any moral statement about what kind of leader she would be in the future unless she can prove that she tried to lead. Even more than any vote she claims she was gulled into making on Iraq, this is a deal breaker on experience.
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Is nothing sacred?
[Read the article: The bowel movement]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is about the height (or depth) of grossness. If we are so absorbed in the quality of our ****, why are we so messed up politically, economically and otherwise?
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Ambition
[Read the article: John McCain runs for George Bush's third term]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]John McCain is willing to kick every value he ever held in the privates to get elected. He is even willing to vote against his own experience on the bill to limit the CIA's range of tortures. The man who spent over five years in a prison camp is dead, killed by the man he became. It's ugly and it's more reason why we have to work against his election.
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Hah
[Read the article: Which Democratic candidate has the longest coattails?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Given the way Hillary Clinton and her surrogates are behaving, I wouldn't doubt for a second that Barack Obama would be more apt to be asked to dinner. She is practicing a scorched earth campaign that is going to tell other candidates that she doesn't give two hoots for them.
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Makes sense
[Read the article: Clinton, Obama talk peace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Both Obama and Clinton are charismatic figures but they are also both adults and neither of them want to give the election to McCain. That means they have a lot at stake and a lot of motivation to keep it civil and not totally trash one another.
Surrogates are just that. They may feel they are part of the candidate's retinue but they are not the candidates themselves. They have to be curbed and they often have to be told to go to their rooms or told to stay away from their candidates. It is the candidate's responsibility to set limits. To the extent that Ferraro acted badly, she has to be told that any comments she makes will not reflect the views of the candidate -- i.e. she has to be told she will be marginalized.
There are too many real issues at stake for people to hiss and spit at one another like aggrieved tomcats.
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Quid pro quo
[Read the article: McCain worries al-Qaida will attack to keep him out of office]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bin Laden's tapes in 2004 were a quid pro quo. Bin Laden needed Bush's incompetence to score points and Bush needed Bin Laden's boogie man appeal to get re-elected. Bush allowed Bin Laden to get out of Tora Bora alive by making sure that the Marines didn't go after him but used surrogates so Bin Laden reciprocated by scaring the living **** out of people.
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Awed
[Read the article: Obama's speech on race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am awed and I am moved by the speech. I consider the race issue effectively handled and now let's move on.