Letters to the Editor
Dmagnificent
Published Letters: 123 Editor's Choice: 6
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Off the Mark
[Read the article: Is the Internet eroding America's Puritanism -- or making it worse?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that Mr. Kamiya is reaching in his arguments about the reaction to the Paterson revelations. I think that the Paterson case was different from the other incedents and was less scandalous for rather mundane reasons mostly.
As the article points out, the Paterson revelations came on the heels of the Spitzer meltdown. Spitzer was brought down not by sex, but by crime. He didn't just fool around, he broke the law in doing so and not in a way that could be parsed with creative language, as the Clintons are wont to do.
Paterson's infidelity was not your typical politician-sleeping-around affair. His marriage was all but dead and his wife was fooling around, too. Yes, it was adultery, but it was a situation that all too many Americans can probably relate to. The fact that they went to counseling and saved their marriage from a seemingly inevitable doom actually puts the affairs in a pro-marriage light that had to dull the impact of the actual affair in the public eye.
As for the drug revelation, there clearly has been a shift, but that shift is the inevitable result of the 60s and every decade since. Finding a politician who didn't do some drugs in his/her youth is hard to do. Getting busted for lying about past drug use is far worse than admitting that you made mistakes when you were young. And on that count, the right can't really attack because it brings up the "youthful indescretions" of their Chosen One, who was "youthful" well into his 30s. Bush probably has more to do with the silence from the right than the internet. Everyone knows that Bush did coke. There isn't quite enough evidence to prove it, but there is enough to make it a part of any discussion over Paterson's youth. This is also reflected in the fact that most of the attacks on Obama's youthful mistakes are coming from Hillary, not from McCain (which bolsters the case that Hillary is running a scorched earth campaign to ensure that if she can't get the nomination, Obama can't win in November).
Paterson's case is uniquely Paterson's. The particulars of his case and its timing probably have more to do with the lack of a negative reaction than any softening of Puritanism. At least he wasn't with a hooker. At least he wasn't soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom. At least he wasn't cybering with the male pages. And while drugs have brought people down in the past, there is also Marion Barry to remember. America has always been a dichotomy of freedom and repression and that continues to this day.
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April Fool's Was Last Week
[Read the article: My last word (for now) on sexism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This has to be one of the most ludicrous claims that Ms. Walsh has trotted out this primary season (and that is saying a LOT). Gender has HELPED Hillary Clinton if anything.
Men have been divided fairly evenly between Clinton and Obama. Women, on the other hand, have been solidly behind Clinton, especially older women. Yes, Obama has had a lock on the black vote, but there is a key difference: numbers.
There just aren't as many black voters as there are women voters. There aren't as many men voters as there are women voters. Hillary controls the biggest voting block in the democratic primaries: older women. Why are older women so solidly behind Clinton? Racism and gender seem the most likely reasons, as the policy differences aren't large enough to support the gap. Of the two, I would put my money on gender. I would guess that many older women see Hillary as the best chance they have to see a woman president in their lifetimes.
Yes, Obama is helped by race among black voters, but there are differences:
* Black voters are a much smaller voting block, so even if race and gender are keys for the two candidates among the groups Hillary comes out on top due to the numbers.
* Obama's appeal to black voters isn't just rooted in his race. A lot of his appeal is cultural. His oratory style is from the same tradition as MLK and numerous other black pastors. While his oratory skills give him a boost across all demographics, they help him even more among people who grew up listening to speakers from the same rich tradition.
* Most importantly, the Obama campaign hasn't made a concerted effort to label Hillary as the "woman candidate" in order to lessen her support among men. Hillary's team, on the other hand, has made marginalizing Obama as the "black candidate" central to their campaign. My favorite piece of data from the Louisiana exit polls was the fact that among people who expressly said that race was a key factor in their vote, half voted against Obama.
There are volumes of reasons to despise Hillary Clinton. The fact that she is a woman is less harmful for her campaign than the fact that she is too "Clintonesque", too sleazy, too racist, too wrapped up in her self, too calculating, too egomaniacal. It is possible to dislike her because she is a "bitch", without disliking her because she is a woman. The same traits would have a different name if she were a man, but they would still be vilified.