Letters to the Editor
slb
Published Letters: 158 Editor's Choice: 10
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About TPM, Jebbie...
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe what you saw about Obama saying he was going to vote against FISA was in one of the comment threads to one of the TPM reader posts on this issue. It was based on something that the commenter said he/she was told by a staffer. Someone else later contacted his Senate office, and the spokesman there said they did not know which way the Senator was going to vote.
Based on the number of times Obama has said staffers were mistaken about what they represented his positions on various issues to be (they have no better idea what he stands for than any of the rest of us, apparently), I wouldn't believe anything said about his position unless it came from Obama himself, and even then I would take it with a grain of salt.
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You think they care about stains?
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While that may immunize them from liability and limit the amount the public will ever learn about the NSA programs, it will still be a "guilty" plea and a stain on the entire administration.
There are so many stains on this administration already, that you're going to be hard-pressed even to see where another one has been added.
As Dean -through Olbermann-pointed out, the admission of guilt was the reason Nixon never pardoned any of his aides.
Nixon, for all his faults, did at least care what posterity thought of him. Bush doesn't give a rat's ass. He doesn't care if people know he is guilty of breaking the law. He knows that we already know that. His attitude is, "But what can you do about it? Heh, heh, heh."
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@cbarney1
[Read the article: Rush Limbaugh was right]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]as a longtime obama supporter and sometime small donor, i urge folks to lighten up. perhaps that way they won't be so frightened.
Interesting you should say that, because the title of the cartoon is "The Politics of Fear."
The cover art title, by the way, can always be found inside the magazine below the table of contents (and that's true online as well). It can usually make clear the intent of the most opaque of covers (even if it feels a little like cheating to peek).
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OK, I know this isn't your error ...
[Read the article: Obama camp makes play to reframe national security debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... but I still have to say this. (OK, I'm a compulsive. So sue me.)
But this seems like exactly the right tact he should be taking
The word is tack, not tact: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/tact.html
Geez, I can't believe Jonathan Chait and The New Republic made an error like that. Dumbya English has infected everyone!
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Wrong paper
[Read the article: Tom Friedman doesn't understand why America is unpopular in the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But then the owner of the Times died didn't she?
I think you're thinking of the Washington Post, which was owned by Katharine Graham, whose father, Eugene Meyer, had purchased the paper at a bankruptcy auction in 1933, and then passed it along to his son-in-law when he died. Mrs. Graham took over as publisher of the paper when her husband committed suicide in 1963 and remained in that position until 1979, when her son Donald assumed the role. Mrs. Graham maintained control of the Washington Post Company as CEO and Chairman of the Board, though, until 1993, when Donald Graham assumed those duties as well. She remained on as the chairman of the company's executive committee until her death in 2001.
Donald Graham is still Chairman of the Board, but he turned over the position of publisher and CEO to someone else in 2000, and I think the paper has gone sadly downhill since. It's turned into a neocon rag.
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I'm with wysiwig as well
[Read the article: Rove map shows Obama beating McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wouldn't put any more faith in Karl Rove's maps than in Karl Rove's math. He's playing head games, and there's no point in paying any attention to him at all.
It seems to me at this point that the race is likely to be close, even though it seems incredible that it should be, given the history of the outgoing administration. But whether I'm right or wrong about that, the worst thing that Obama supporters could do now is to get overconfident.
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Have the last 7 years robbed us of all compassion, too?
[Read the article: Novak has tumor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just in time to rehabilitate his image as a hit-and-run driver.
Hey, I don't have any great love for Robert Novak, either, but common decency requires giving his side of the story a fair hearing, even if he would not be willing to do that in return.
When I first heard the story about his hitting a pedestrian, my first reaction was to wonder if he had been drinking. If he were inebriated, he might well not have noticed the pedestrian in the crosswalk, and maybe not even have registered the guy splayed out on the hood of his car. Or maybe he missed the pedestrian in the crosswalk and kept going to keep from being cited for a DWI. I thought the liklihood he deliberately ran the guy down in broad daylight on a busy street unlikely, but I didn't completely discount it, either.
But a brain tumor could explain why a pedestrian in the crosswalk or on the hood of his car did not register with him. And depending on how long the tumor has been there, it might explain a number of other things about his behavior in the last couple of years as well. That it was only discovered now is maybe not so strange; if he truly did miss noticing the whole incident, and knew that he had not been drinking or taking heavy medication, he might well have gone to the doctor, or been encouraged to do so, to discover if he had suffered a stroke or something else along that line.
Or maybe not. But I'm not willing to condemn the guy until we know for sure what is going on with him. And as much as I despise his politics and his nasty demeanor, I will still find it regrettable if it turns out he is suffering from something incurable, because that's just a sad situation for anyone to have to face.