Letters to the Editor
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Insensitive
In light of Tony Snow's insensitive comments about pressuring Ashcroft while he was in intensive care ("...because he had an appendectomy, his brain didn't work?"), one feels like applying the same standard to Snow. Snow just recently had to take a break from his White House duties after his colon cancer returned. If he thinks it so easy for the AG to do his job from the hospital why did he take the time off himself?
There is a key difference: while unbelievably insensitive and ridiculous, an appendectomy does not in fact impair brain function, but in his job, Tony Snow frequently talks out of his ass.
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@kovie
"... But I do have a problem with knee-jerk cynical pronouncements ..."
Then stop making so many of them.
Your words are those of the classic wild-eyed lefty --- a cliche. You assume that because I am anti-Bush that I think that Democrats are the answer. As a libertarian, I find your kind to be potentially just as dangerous. The left is less dangerous at the moment only because they are out of power for now.
Both sides want to dominate and control --- you only differ on who should hold the whip. (or bombs)
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How Was Comey Able to Testify?
It's perfectly understandable that Attorney General Toad would not want Comey or Ashcroft to testify, but what exactly overrode his claim of executive privilege regarding "internal deliberations? How did Comey get to testify?
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Re Ignoring or Banning jake007
It's as obvious to me as it is to anyone else here that the mentality that "jake007" manifests in this forum, whether he's sincere or consciously satirizing militaristic nationalism, represents an egregiously authoritarian mindset, mindlessly embracing the notion that the end justifies the means, even if the means involves torturing children.
The question is, "How should one deal with the opinions of such a person?"
I want to suggest that anyone laboring under the burden of such a mindset should not only be read attentively, but engaged. Not only does engagement create the possibility that he will be made to think outside his usually sclerotic parameters, it also potentially benefits others who share his consciousness, e.g., who may be "lurking" here.
I've learned a number of interesting and important historical facts from the posts of the people who've attempted to disabuse jake of his ignorance and/or prejudiced interpretations of historical and contemporary events, which might not have come to my attention if others hadn't responded to his attempted defenses of the guardians of the Fatherland.
It also encourages those of us who find repellent his sado-masochistic politics to think about and articulate even more clearly our own positions, placing us in a better position to influence the thinking of
anyone with whom we interact, whether they're initially sympathetic, apathetic, or antipathetic to our own positions on issues.
Banning benighted people from fora is analogous to executing serial killers who personally dispatch their victims, rather than delegating the authority for mass murder to the government: doing so precludes the possibility of gaining insight into the perpetrators' consciousness, let alone enlightening them in any degree.
So let's hear from the jakester and any of his fellow travelers, try to understand how they've come to such a pass as to endorse the torture of their fellow human beings, enlighten them to the best of our ability, and offer them forgiveness should they be able to see and renounce the error of their ways.