Letters to the Editor
-
I would be delighted to have Biden or Dodd as President...
As opposed to any of the Republicans. Biden and Dodd will not win, I think, but they seem to be humans.
Hooray for all the Democratic candidates! They all hate the Iraq war, and none of them will torture. Let's vote one of them in, and give the rest important positions.
-
Joe Biden for president!
Seriously.
Oh, and kudos to NPR for a great debate. Can they all be on radio?
-
If they all can't be on the radio...
...can the NPR folks at least handle all of them regardless? No fooling around, no grandstanding, exactly as it should be.
And Biden and Dodd definitely owned the day. Very sad that they can't get an ounce of attention.
-
I only heard 45 minutes or so,
but in that time (mostly the China stuff) I thought Clinton was outstanding. I've avoided the televised debates -- too early, too many participants, and the cameras queer everything. I've heard about Clinton's debating skill, and she certainly put the other front-runners to shame -- Edwards was "branding" too obviously, the way he shoehorned his stump speech into any question, and Obama's inexperience was evident to me. The two of them, along with Kucinich, brought the least to the table, and this comes from someone who has toggled among exactly those three to this point in the process. Maybe someone who listened to the whole thing can dispute this claim -- I'd like to know.
Clinton was on point, confident, and contextual. And if those sound like wishy-washy qualities -- well, maybe they are. But I'm not in the mood for an ideologue, and I think the tenor of the nation agrees with me. Level-headedness and wisdom are the qualities I'm searching for. Clinton has them.
Biden's wealth of knowledge and experience was also evident. But though I try not to be cynical about process, we've seen what opposition research can do to a longtime Senator.
-
Good content from the debate, but it's lost on me. . .
I only was able to listen to a portion of the debate. But in the portion I heard, I was happy to hear actual issues discussed in response to good questions.
Experience counts, and I'm a fan of Biden, but unfortunately I live in a state with a late primary, and I probably will never get to vote for him. The media are in love with Clinton and Obama, and some a$$holes in Iowa and New Hampshire will decide the election before it ever gets to me.
So as they would say in Battlestar Galactica, frack me, and frack my vote. I don't count.
-
Dodd and Biden?
Nothing more than another pair of neoFascists. Fuck 'em.
-
I'm for Biden all the way!
Everyone wants to talk to Joe when these events unfold...well...he's the one we need at the HELM! Why suggest him for Sec of State when we could have his 35 years Foreign Relations experience & Judiciary exp. right in the Oval Office? Plus, he not only knows the Constitution, he teaches it! And I love it when he makes a statement & all the other candidates say, "I agree with Joe".
As for comments that he cant win, too bad, if everyone felt that way, no one would ever be elected...or we'd get another Bush/Cheney administration. We all get one vote...make it count. At this point, not one vote has been cast, not one vote has been counted.
Here's a link to his latest statement, "MEETING THE IRANIAN CHALLENGE"
-
Great, but...
There was no mention of Kucinich or Gravel. Were they not attending? I know why Bill Richardson wasn't there. What about them?
Its great to publish an article about how Biden and Dodd did well in a debate but to not include all the actors is just plain wrong.
I thought maybe Salon might break the mold and talk about the people with the best ideas and not who is leading in the polls. Yet again I am mistaken as everything I read is about polls, polls, polls.
I want policy discussions first and an analysis of that policy. Only after analysis can it be attributed to the candidates who embrace it. Why is that so hard?
-
The Usefulness of Engagement
With respect to Sen. Biden's foreign policy doctrine, engagement trumps prevention as a more effective long-term approach. Had we such a standing policy, the proliferation problems we currently face, the ones that make this an issue of such gravity now, would be minor by comparison. Southwest Asian nuclear proliferation is a concern today, in part, because the US hasn't been terribly interested in helping address regional tensions such as Kashmir or Waziristan.
Full engagement of the sort that goes beyond weapons development (including not only WTO entry but technical economic assistance, cultural and academic exchanges from the university to the primary school instructional levels, and encouraging longer-term election transparency, for example) can preclude the eventual need to address a problem in prevention terms.
Some will see this as pollyanish. Yet it's worth noting that one of the reasons why we have uncertain intelligence on Iran is that the country's policy mechanisms remain largely opaque to outsiders. Engagement might not produce immediate transparency but it's more likely to do so than no engagement at all.
-
Mishima, I am fracked too.
I live in Florida, which means that the ***holes in New Hampshire, etc., who want to be first have made it so my primary vote will not count. Our primary process is fracking insane.
-
Fairness in Media
Gotta hand it to Walter. One of the few media analysts who really tries to be objective and fair. While Walter had a different scoring of today's debate, he was fair enough to note that debate assessments are all subjective and to point to Mark Halprin's assessment that Edwards won the debate.
With Edwards surging in Iowa (according to the latest ARG poll, Edwards gained 8% in Iowa in November while Obama grew by 5% and Clinton lost 7%) and most objective observers calling it a dead heat, it's good to see some objective reporting rather than the constant Clinton-Obama-Clinton-Obama drum beat.
Remember a lot can change in just a few weeks. Just before the caucuses in 2004, Howard Dean was expected to have a cake walk and John Kerry was polling at 12% in Iowa polls (and Edwards was all the way back at 6%). But in less than a week, everything changed and Kerry won it with 39% (with Edwards at 32% and Dean far back in the pack).