Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 120 Editor's Choice: 4
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McCain stumbles on Commander in Chief threshold
[Read the article: McCain claims al-Qaida, Iran link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My only regret about Senator Obama's stirring and courageous speech in Philadelphia yesterday was that the widespread coverage of it took public attention away from Senator McCain's catastrophic blunder. McCain said repeatedly in a press conference and in a radio interview in Jordan that Iran was training and arming the Sunni Al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq.
Only two interpretations for this enormous gaffe come to mind: 1) McCain believes this patently false statement to be true which is why he is trying to beat this into the consciousness of the American people as a prelude to war with Iran; or 2) he is losing control of his mental faculties.
No matter whether one or both are true, McCain has shown clearly that his shaky grasp of global reality disqualifies him for serving as president in these perilous times. He has already admitted that he knows nothing about economics, now we learn that he knows nothing about international affairs either.
The two speeches yesterday gave us a good look at contrasting qualities in two presidential candidates. Obama confronted the complex issues of race and history with the subtlety, intelligence and candor we need in a national leader. McCain fumbled his way around the Middle East displaying a frighteningly slippery grasp on reality.
The choice before us is becoming clearer with each passing day.
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Clinton at the threshold
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton's long strange journey on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am a 57 year old woman with many friends supporting both Democratic candidates this season. I do not consider any of them "Clintonistas" or "Obamatrons" but rather good, intelligent people who think deeply about the key questions confronting our nation today.
All of us recognized at the time that a vote authorizing Bush's war on Iraq was unjustified and immoral. Senator Clinton would have had ample information to understand the same thing had she read the NIE reports or even just the daily newspapers from around the globe. The fact that she cravenly chose to vote for Bush and the war is the signal evidence of her flawed political and moral judgement.
This was not an accidental vote, but rather an actively considered choice. That is why Senator Clinton has not admitted her mistake in voting to authorize the war. She did not make a "mistake" in terms of her political calculation. To try to blame her wrongheaded choices on male advisers in her coterie is unworthy and anti-feminist indeed.
Senator Clinton has taken the expedient rather than the right path on numerous ocassions, with the Iraq war vote being only the most obvious one. Her decision to use underhanded campaign smear tactics; her attempt to reverse the DNC rules in Michigan and Florida to her profit; her calculated injection of race into the South Carolina campaign and of baseless fear in the Ohio and Texas contests; her exaggeration of her own policy contributions as First Lady; her outrageous contention that only she and McCain have crossed the Commander in Chief threshold, her inability or refusal to engage on a high intellectual plane with the central moral issue of our era, race -- all of these failures of leadership weigh heavily against her in my view.
So I am old, I am a woman and I am supporting Barack Obama.
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Faux news
[Read the article: The real reason Barack Obama's divisive]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why is Salon giving Bill O'Reilly a platform to spew his repugnant and inaccurate blather? And why would Barack Obama give Fox a chance to strengthen its ratings by appearing on their shows?
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Schedule of Sad
[Read the article: A closer look at Clinton's Bosnia schedule]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The released White House schedules document a long-time suspicion: Senator Clinton did not do anything particularly remarkable or noteworthy while First Lady. She did not participate in policy discussions or Cabinet meetings or determinations of key international or domestic issues. She met with many counterpart first ladies from other countries, attended funerals, and generally represented the president at ceremonial events of little substance.
While I do not belittle the value of this sort of 'representational' contact, it think that any fair observer would have to say that Senator Clinton's claim to "35 years of experience" is now revealed to be a rather grandiose and embarrassing exaggeration. In fact, she has served fewer years in elective office than Senator Obama.
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Opinion polls, spinning pols
[Read the article: Penn memo claims "shift to Hillary"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Opinion polls, like the ones cited by the dubious Mark Penn in his slenderly researched memo, are worth less than the paper they are inked on. Two weeks before the Ohio primary Senator Clinton was leading by more than 20 points; Obama closed that gap handily and although he did not win outright he did pick up 46 delegates to Clinton's 53.
Other polls showed her leading in Texas by a notable margin going into the March 4 vote, but Obama came within two percentage points in the popular vote and won in the caucus to give him an overall win in delegates in Texas where he won 50 delegates to her 49.
The only numbers I will be interested only in counting are the delegate totals, number of states won, and the popular vote results after all the primaries are concluded in June. You can be sure that Mark Penn will be spinning like a desperate dervish at that point.
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What wierdness!
[Read the article: Obama passport file breached]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here are my questions about this bizarre incident:
1) which private company held the contract to do consular work for the State Department? Blackwater? Haliburton?
2)what prompted these contract employees to look on three (or more?) separate ocassions into Obama's passport files? Idle curiosity about a celebrity or malign intent toward a possible future president?
3) who did these contractors share their findings with?
4) why didn't higher level State Department officials learn about these breaches until yesterday although they happened several months ago?
5) why was the news leaked to the Washington Times, of all places?
6) will the cover-up of these incidents, rather than the initial crime, prove to be the more serious violation of law and ethics?
And yes, I am paranoid enough to suspect that Dick Cheney is behind all of this!