Letters to the Editor
Renegade Iconoclast
Published Letters: 660 Editor's Choice: 11
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Salon doesn't need a parody during this election
[Read the article: Big weekend news]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Increasingly, your blog itself is good for a (dark) laugh.
It's really unfortunate, because I've always liked you Joan, and I still do. I don't think you're nearly the debater of the likes of Al Franken or Janeane Garofalo, but your appearance on the cable shows over the last year or two has been heartening, after years of complete intellectual bankruptcy in that sphere.
For me, you really crossed the line today from concern trolling to just flat out flamebait. Obama explains his action quite reasonably as protecting his church and his campaign from unfair attacks, but it isn't good enough for you, instead, either Obama stopped beating Michelle yesterday, or he hit her again today.
Abortion rights aren't the only ones jeopardized by you, failing at your job, which is now quite frankly to get Obama elected. Let me be quite clear in saying that I'm not arguing that the Nominee should be sacred, and you should always be completely uncritical. I'm saying that you should be maybe just a little more gracious, and take him at his word when he is gracious enough to explain what is a deeply personal matter, and not in fact, "big news," for any other reason that our entire media culture is incredibly vapid.
Salon was once a buttress from this ethical decay in media. Now all we've got is Frontline and Glenn Greenwald, pretty much. It's not that you never do a good story. It's that I can't be assured of at least one per day.
I once was a subscriber, and you could still win me back. I subscribed because the magazine was actually important to me. Here's to hoping it someday regains relevance as something other than ObamaConcernTrollingTwentyFourSeven.com.
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Memo to Treeple
[Read the article: Big weekend news]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From: My living room.
Xrandadu Hutman is among the few voices of reason here. When I use the word, reason, I mean it literally, in that he actually attempts to reason with his ideological opponents. Okay, sometimes he gets a little upset. Big deal.
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I don't find the "popular vote" argument very scary
[Read the article: Puerto Rico goes to the polls]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'll concede FL, even though it was flawed, it certainly wasn't as flawed as MI, where Uncommitted and 30,000 spoiled write-in ballots tied with the only major candidate on the ballot.
Ultimately, though, the nomination is not decided by popular vote. You can argue the merits of this, but in fact, some places are awarded per-capita more delegates than others, because they tend to vote Democratic more often, and are therefore felt to better represent the party as a whole.
No, it all comes down to the superdelegates, who aren't racing to endorse Clinton, and aren't likely to do so. I'm resigned to the fact that she will choose to take the fight to the convention, and lose. She'll probably claim to be standing for party unity while she's at it.
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Karen22 continues her clown routine
[Read the article: Why not let Clinton keep the four Michigan delegates?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What total nonsense. The election was certified by the Michigan Secretary of State.
That would be Terri Lynn Land, a Republican. She would have absolutely no reason whatsoever to certify a deeply flawed Democratic election, would she? Besides, the FL 2000 election was certified by Katherine Harris. Did that make it fair?
As for Obama's name not being on the ballot--he voluntarily removed his mame from the ballot, and his surrogates encouraged people to voter for "Uncommitted." Hillary should not be penalized for Obama's bad decision.
Obama supporters should not be penalized for Hillary's craven and cynical attempt to disenfranchise them. She agreed MI would face penalty, and she said that's why she left her name on the ballot.
You would prefer the 200k+ people who voted against Clinton, the vast majority for Obama, no doubt, to have no vote at all, and you pretend that this is the fairest solution. In the end it's not about voters, it's about your identity politics. When you say Clinton shouldn't be penalized, you act as though this is a tennis match. Ultimately, the entire decision was not about Clinton, or Obama. It was about the voters, and coming up with a crappy compromise in a crappy situation. A situation which was not brought about by Obama, but by MI and FL.
That's where you should be putting your blame.
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@Chief
[Read the article: Obama's delegate roundup]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh and I agree the cost of gasoline is way too much...but if the war was for oil, then where is it? Seems to me if it WAS about oil, the price of gasoline would have dropped, wouldn't it? Maybe it WASN'T about the oil???
Well, to buy that line of goods, you would have to first agree that Bush is somehow competent.
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@Chief
[Read the article: Obama's delegate roundup]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ok...but then to go with that, you have to admit that Al Gore and John Kerry LOST to an incompetent.
So...which is it?
You seem to feel that I'm somehow going to disagree. That's kind of weird. Are you under the impression that we Democrats uncritically worship our fearless intrepid leaders like the right wingers do? Have you been in the same room with like, three liberals, ever? How much did they agree on?