Letters to the Editor
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More problems for Hillary: Advisor Sidney Blumenthal arrested.
Speaking of that nasty Clinton machine and those run it, longtime Clinton advisor and former Salon editorialist Sidney Blumenthal has been arrested and charged with an aggravated DWI. He was doing 70 mph in a 30 mph zone and swerving all over the road. My, my, what a fine, upstanding citizen. You may recall that back in the early ninties, when a group of Arkansas state troopers began leveling charges that Bill Clinton had a long history of philandering, Blumenthal shot his venom back at them in an article he wrote for The New Yorker, accusing the troopers themselves of marital infidelity and drunken driving. Yes, drunken driving!
Ahhh, poetic justice is so, so sweet.
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@chrissyx
"When Johnson said "he was doing something in the neighborhood" the author shouldn't presume he was referring to Obama's cocaine use."
Has someone maybe had a little too much Kool Aid with their morning barbiturates? Do you also believe that Clinton didn't really have sexual relations with that woman?
Johnson's meaning was clear, his commentary was stupid. He is a despicable man. Have you ever heard of TV One? It is a network that was created, at least in part, to respond to the disgust that many black people feel toward BET, Johnson's brain child. I never bought into this love fest that the media claims exists between the Clintons and the black community. Bill got support in the black community because 1) He's a Democrat 2) He didn't come across as some stuffy superior acting asshole 3) People were were still thoroughly pissed off for having to endure Reagan (remember Philadelphia, Miss.) and Bush (remember Willie Horton?); and finally because 4) The Republicans hated him and dogged him throughout his presidency. But despite their close relationships with some political types, prominent preachers, and other establishment types, most black people I know--especially in my age group--are presently no more enamored with him than we are with any other Democratic politician. And I guarantee that their selection of Bob Johnson as a cheerleader will not go over well with a lot of people. Too many, the man is a pariah. I can't tell you how many black parents I know (myself included) who refuse to let their children watch BET. I resent the hell out of the man, and the Clintons' association with him (I learned of their friendship over a year ago) has definitely not improved my opinion of them.
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Arguments aside...
I will not vote for HRC unless she runs against Giuliani, Huckabee, or Thompson. And I am sure a lot of Democrats feel the same way.
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BET is the new KKK
Not at all ironic that this race baiting would come from the founder of BET, which is more than any single entity responsible for the culture of failure plaguing African Americans.
If a white organization spent as much time as BET does convincing black youth that their goals should be to become gangstas, pimps and ho's, they'd be properly denounced as the ultimate racists.
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What's all this fuss about MILK?
Anyway, when I saw the subhead on CNN (sound off), that's what I asked myself. Milk? What does that have to do with the campaign?
OK, my eyes aren't as good as they used to be.
But man oh man, this debate is getting into some stupid territory. It's partly the candidates' fault, but also there are some pretty vapid "journalists" doing some of the interviewing.
Also, I feel compelled to address a couple of points brought up by previous letter writers.
One pointed out that Hillary and Bill were doing good works way back, while Barack was just goofing off and maybe smoking a little pot in high school. Well, maybe that's true, but that's only because Barack is YOUNGER. You can't really fault him for the year of his birth! That's kind of like criticizing him for not fighting in WWII. (For the record, I was goofing off in high school a bit at the same time Barack was.)
There's also a debate about whether it's appropriate to bring up past drug use, on the part of Obama or any other candidate. I think it is -- not as a gotcha, neener-neener thing but as a segue into a serious discussion of U.S. drug policy and the "War on Drugs." In my heart, I believe that most Americans would prefer to have drug abuse treated as a medical problem rather than a criminal problem. I'm not going to go all Ron Paul here, but some of the drug-related crime, and true public-safety problems, may stem more from participants being pushed into the criminal world rather than the drug substance itself. The public is way ahead of the politicians on this subject, and I think the public would welcome a frank, realistic discussion about new policy options.
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Beware any candidate who treats history as a complex subject
Bill Clinton's main problem these days--and why he can be a liability to his wife's campaign--is that he sometimes speaks straight from his considerable intellect and heart, and unfiltered through the "Bubba" pretense he used to get to the presidency himself. The fact is that any campaign utterance that is even slightly nuanced or based on a complex view of history or current events is inevitably distorted, dumbed-down and used as a cudgel against the campaign that produced it--and not just by that campaigns opponents, but by most of the mainstream news media.
I watch Meet the Press weekly (and, yes, often wonder why I bother anymore), and, in my opinion, Russert's reputation for toughness seems to be based on his relentless pursuit of sound bites from the candidates that can later be used against them. Yesterday, he clearly was dying to get Hillary to say she didn't think Obama was ready for the highest office. By not caving in to his childishly petulant persistence she wasn't being evasive, just refusing to commit political suicide. Anyway, the question is totally useless; if Clinton didn't think she'd make a better pres. than Obama, why would she even be running? Overall I thought Clinton did better than well with Russert, and if she didn't come across as warm and likable enough...well, that's not high on my list of qualifications for POTUS.