Letters to the Editor
GlennGreenwald
Published Letters: 2221 Editor's Choice: 18
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Logical reasoning:
[Read the article: Support for al-Qaida plots on large right-wing blog]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Golden Boy:
but isn't it just as silly to hang all conservatives because of a few commentators as it is do that to all liberals because of a few who wished that the Muslims had killed Cheney? Isn't that the real message, that Malkin and Kurtz et al were wrong to make a scandal out of the comments on the internet? Can't really have it both ways, you know.
There are two ideas:
(1) Standard X is wrong; but,
(2) If you're going to use Standard X, it should be applied equally.
To insist on (2) is not to deny the truth of (1).
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Mike:
[Read the article: Support for al-Qaida plots on large right-wing blog]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Don't waste effort with the right-wing blogosphere.
Come on. It's the idiot, right-wing blogosphere where day is night and up is down depending on the fancies of the denizens of those lunatic asylums. Better just to build a big fence around it and contain the stupidity within it than to waste your efforts to reform them with the power of their genuinely non-existent cognitive dissonance. They won't get it, and if they feel the slightest shame they'll either claim it was a joke, ala Ann Coultier, or justified in their hypocrisy, ala Michelle Malkin.Don't waste effort with the right-wing blogosphere.
Great point. Let's do that with the Swift Boat veterans and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, too. If only we just pretend they don't exist, they won't, and the media will pay them no attention.
Great strategy.
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Che Pasa:
[Read the article: Gonzales' unprecedented efforts to block a FISA investigation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wanna bet?
Where do you think the letter came from that served as the basis for these two posts, and could serve as the basis for 10 more posts? You think it's a big coincidence that for six years, they ignored all these questions, and now that Democrats have taken over and have (and are using) subpoena power, they are answering? Have you read the 120 pages or so of DOJ resopnses which you apparently have decided is bereft of any worthwhile answers?
As I said, getting full information is going to take a lot more than letters or subpoena powers, but the swirling scandals and uncovered information is susbstantial and clearly the by-product of the Democratic takeover of Congress.
Yes, they haven't dragged George Bush and Dick Cheney off yet for their hangings at the Hague - and some people will insist that "nothing is changed" until that happens (and probably still will still insist on that even then) -- but the incremental progress in forcing out information is self-evident.
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CAU:
[Read the article: The significance of the FBI's law-breaking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's the "Communications Analysis Unit" of the FBI, through which these demands for records are issued.
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"The CAU, it would appear, was most interested in CYAing."
[Read the article: The significance of the FBI's law-breaking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, I actually intended to include a paragraph about that aspect of the story, and may add something later - once some FBI officials found out about the illegal demands for information, they issued -- sometimes months later -- the requisite paperwork in order to make it appear as though there was compliance, rather than actually doing anything to prevent future abuse.
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Zack:
[Read the article: The significance of the FBI's law-breaking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, but “insultingly stupid” works just fine for them. All they need is just one catchphrase (or an out of context comment) and they’ll use it as “proof” of something; and then they’ll repeat it over and over again until it becomes (in their universe) “a fact.”
We just saw that in the Plame case, where they parsed a phrase into total meaninglessness and then use the resulting confusion to state that up is in fact down (insisting that Plame's testimony proves she was not “covert” at all) - and it doesn’t even matter what the CIA or General Hayden says about her status.
One “insultingly stupid” assertion from one wingnut pundit is all they’ll ever need to spin it into a “non-issue” or a “win” for their point of view.
I know we've talked about this a little bit recently, but I really understand your mindset. Read the three paragraphs here. It makes it sound like "they" are winning so easily, that they just get some buzzphrases and say them over and over and over and then they win.
Leave aside "their" smashing defeat in the November, 2006 elections. You picked the Libby case as your example. Polls show overwhelmingly - something like 70-25 -- that people OPPOSE a pardon for Lewis Libby and believe there was wrongdoing in that case. So why do you keep saying that "they parsed a phrase into total meaninglessness and then use the resulting confusion to state that up is in fact down."
That might be what they TRIED to do - just as they tried to do it with Iraq and a whole slew of other issues. And they may have succeeded in the past. But they aren't succeeding now. These methods are failing. So why do you keep talking about them like they are winning everything and are so invulnerable and have these super-slick tactics that nobody can defeat?
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Ads
[Read the article: The significance of the FBI's law-breaking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do we really have to have advertisements interspersed within the comments section itself? Isn't it enough to have them at the top/bottom, or the margins of a page?
Do you watch television ever? They have ads at the beginning of the show, multiple times in the middle, and then at the end.
Do you read Josh Marshall's blog? He has ads bewteen posts as you scroll down.
Do you listen the radio? Most talk show hosts read ads in between their various sgements.
Apparently, Salon - which has struggled every year to remain financially viable - can generate income by selling ads between comments. Do you really think it's so much of a burden that it's worth complaining about?
It's pretty disruptive IMHO to have to enounter ads as I am scrolling from one post to the next.
I don't have any involvement in the process of selling ads, but my guess is that Salon considers it more disruptive not to be able to pay their bills. A lot of entities in their position apparently make the same assessmet.