Letters to the Editor

• Ultimately, the Readers win (i.e., they are informed)

  [Read the article: Kicking some anti-feminist ass]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Ditto on the Kudos, Rebecca. (Too bad Deborah Howell couldn't follow suit.)

  I didn't comment on your original piece... there were already so many comments, and very little to add to the controversy over which one of you won.

  However, I could have said-- and Jill's response at Feministe makes this point even clearer-- that an interview is not the same thing as a debate. (Cable News has really blurred that distinction.)

  I did think that your interview accomplished the job of beginning to reveal Kate O'Beirne to your readers. A significant accomplishment, considering that she could not have been an easy interview subject, and probably has more than a few decades of verbal sparring to her advantage. At a minimum, you set her up well enough for the Feministe response showing her to be a woman who, given the chance, would "make things worse" for other women.

  Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about straw men and straw women. A more useful comparison-- to me-- would be some sports metaphor... volleyball, maybe (and I'm not even a big sports fan), since to so many readers it seemed like a contest between you and O'Beirne, rather than an interview.

  I'm younger than O'Beirne, but not by much, and can remember when married women could not have their own credit, could not use their own names, and would often have to "give up" their jobs when they married, and especially when they became pregnant. Later on, I remember when it was acceptable to ask women personal questions during interviews about how they would manage/balance their personal and working lives. (Has anyone ever asked a man such a question?) I can remember (and from personal experience, too) when it was considered no big deal if a woman's boss either made a pass at her, or made crude, sexual remarks in the office. Boys being boys, and all. And, I am pre Title IX. Thus, the lack of interest in Sports.

  More recently, I have been dismayed that so many younger women seem to consider feminism as passe', something that really has no relevance to them or their lives. Kate O'Beirnes without the history.

  So, I am just grateful that there is an ongoing discussion at all, and to you for your part in it.

  Permalink Thursday, January 19, 2006 09:17 PM

• Can any message really matter-- even the (Stupids') War!-- when our votes aren't counted?

  [Read the article: Rove: It's the (eternal) war, stupid!]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Would it really matter if the Democratic Party were to have a GOP-style "lock-step" message on policy matters, including the "Eternal War," ...since we consistently lose elections, not because of the substantive issues (on which we mostly rate higher), but because our "actual" majority mysteriously "loses" just enough votes for the GOP to squeak through to another so-called "Victory?"

  Although I appreciate hearing a summary of Rove's points, so that I'll recognize their journalistic spin later, we all know that the GOP has other more tried-and-true methods for ensuring political "wins," techniques that date from Rove & Co's beginnings with the College Republicans. Ultimately, the bullet points in Rove's speeches are little more than smoke-screen.

  Even for the skeptics among us (e.g., Farhad Manjoo), there should now enough evidence of the GOP's illegal election tactics. Why isn't the DNC making voters' rights an issue of primary importance? Beats me. But then, I didn't understand why both Gore and Kerry folded their winning hands and went home after the last two presidential elections.

  As for a unified Democratic platform... surely, beginning with the most democratic issue of all-- "Everyone Gets to Vote; All of the Votes Get Counted"-- would lead naturally to other issues of democratic inclusiveness, such as health care (as mentioned above), truly equal opportunities for education, the importance of an informed public (which, for some time now, has been neglected by the Journalism Party), the disparities in access to government provided the rich vs. the rest of us, etc., etc.

  Why is it so hard to arrive at a consensus on the simple primacy of the Vote, when that one issue underlies everything else? ...and is, at its heart, the essence of what the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for?

  Again, it beats me... but maybe those political consultants' large fees have something to do with it.

  Permalink Saturday, January 21, 2006 11:52 AM