Letters to the Editor
Picko
Published Letters: 265 Editor's Choice: 11
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@ brewmn
[Read the article: Clinton, Obama and Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The sad thing is that a moderate 1970's style Republican would be a relief from what we've had over the past seven years. I have a friend who remarks that today's Republicans always have a way of making you nostalgic for yesterday's Republicans. When you think Nixon is as bad as it can get, you get Reagan; when you think Reagan is as bad as you can get, you get Newt Gingrich; when you think Newt Gingrich is as bad as you can get, you get George W. Bush. After a while, Barry Goldwater starts sounding like a reasonable guy.
The political "center" has been redefined so far to the right at this point that we have politicians taking stands FOR and against torture (and also candidates playing coy about the issue). That's absolutely amazing. I would venture to guess that if this had ever come up in previous political campaigns, you would have had everybody standing resolutely AGAINST torture, but now it's come to the point that politicians are often too cowardly to take that position. These are crazy times we live in.
I've said that I wish the moderate Republicans and the DLC would split off and form a party, then the progressives could have the Democratic party and the far right could have the Republican party. That way everyone would have a party that represents their interests. The problem is, whenever someone gets up the guts to run a third party, it has the exact opposite of the intended effect - instead of enfranchising the disenfrancised, it throws the election to the party that has the absolute antithetical values, by siphoning off votes from the party that you only moderately disagree with.
I think this election could potentially be the beginning of a realignment where the center starts drifting back in the correct (leftward) direction. I don't know whether the political change is going to be dramatic or incremential. There may be a period of Democrats who are Republican Lites before we can get a real Democrat again. I don't know. I keep thinking about Rick Perstein's book "Before The Storm," where he argues that Goldwater's losing campaign was the beginning of the political revolution upon which the recent Republican majority was based. Perlstein points out that when Goldwater sought the nomination, the Republicans were in the same position the Democrats are in now - the candidates they were running were considered little more than watered-down Democrats. So maybe we need to start losing elections with the right candidates before we start winning elections with the right candidates. Maybe that beats winning elections with the wrong candidates.
I just fear for the direction of the country if the Republicans run it for another four years. Even a highly compromised Democrat is better than a Republican at this point. Even the new Democratic congress - which has been frustrating, to say the least - is better than its Republican precedessors. At this point, every tiny step away from the edge of the abyss counts....
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@ brewmn
[Read the article: Clinton, Obama and Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree. I think that if Obama is able to win the nomination, he may be the best candidate for the general election. The only reason I defend Hillary at all is that there's no point in demonizing her now if we're all going to have to end up voting for her in the general election. Fortunately, this last debate seems to have given the other candidates an opening.
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@ Jeffrey P. Harrison
[Read the article: Clinton and the men, again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Three names." Wow, that is insulting. To refer to Hillary Rodham Clinton as "three names" is sooo bad! Do you really mean to pour scorn on her simply because she chose to retain her maiden name as part of her name? Is that really defensible? Did you refer to George Herbert Walker Bush as "four names?"
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@ anonymous
[Read the article: Clinton and the men, again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's really funny that someone who is posting anonymously is accusing other people of cowardice.
Meanwhile, look at all the loaded language you use in your response.
You start by accusing of someone you disagree with as being non-thinking. Should I bother pointing out that calling someone stupid is not really an argument?
Then you accuse Dana Runs of being "cutesy" (I assume you're answering Dana Runs; it's the only posting that you plausibly could be responding to). But I don't really see what is so cutesy about the language she is using. Is she being "cutesy" simply because she is a woman saying something you don't like?
You haven't really refuted any of the substance of what she has said - you've merely taken the word "angry" and used it as the basis for an angry rant.
If you have strong lucid arguments for your position, you're really doing a poor job of making them!
Of course, maybe you're posting anonymously because you know you should be ashamed of your overheated rhetoric.