Letters to the Editor
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Paul Dirks. Please delete commenter @ 4 : 34? (apologies)
The other day thinking that I was deleted was a mistake. It was a Glenn-3-post day. Weary.
I believe I was only deleted one time. On a Garrison Keillor post, I commented that I saw coons
in a cherry tree.
I was not sensitive.
The proper word should have been?
Black eye raccoons. I see them often.
Cute. They visit a back porch for food.
Bandits. They will steal a shiny beer cap.
Good night. i'll pawn a raccoon for a beer.
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Opinions about opinions about opinions
Let's not make too too much of this, shall we?
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Thanks, Glenn
I appreciate your taking the time to reply.
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Speaking of the comments....
I have so far avoided posting any comments about comments, but since it is a topic at the moment I would like to ask - probaby futilely, true, but it might be worth a try - that those of you who:
a. Post way off-topic stuff that
b. Is often plain nonsensical or cutesy and is
c. Intended for only a small audience of a few people who
d. Post over and over and over, "letter" after letter so that
e. There are times when I have to wade through page after page of annoying, cloying drivel
- could you (and you must know who you are) find a way to communicate privately? Exchange emails or something?
The problem isn't the occasional jocular exchange that caps a substantive back and forth. The problem is those few people who (in my view) basically abuse the intent of a letter to the editor.
In short - will some of you please at least think twice before you click the "Publish my letter" button? Ask yourself if what you are writing has anything to do with the topic - anything at all? Ask yourself if you are just having a online chat as if this were a chat room?
Which is what I am doing now but I won't ask again.
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Egad!
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/05/19/main-core/
Pleasant dreams!
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@QS, WT
Probably nothing important. In the last thread, there are about four pages of comments between bedtime and this morning (EST). Some folks refer to comments that they say are no longer there, and I saw some inline pastes from previous comments I hadn't seen, but it could be that I just missed 'em the first time. Could be other people did too.
I was in bed asleep so I can only speak from what I know and infer from what have managed to see in the posts.
One L.W.M. comment addressed to adnoto's friend posting as adnoto and one Ron Pauliac that probably was addressed to bucky about adnoto using sockpuppets (I couldn't resist). They were deleted, I expect intentionally, and if some of GC's were deleted, it may have not been Glenn's intent. The bulk of the deletions were you know who.
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@ GG
Yeah, I was really shocked at how pro-Obama Brooks was being when Brooks:
* said that his statement about Hezbollah "has the whiff of what President Bush described yesterday as appeasement";
* asked rhetorically: "Is Obama naïve enough to think that an extremist ideological organization like Hezbollah can be mollified with a less corrupt patronage system and some electoral reform?"
* concluded: "If Obama believes all this, he’s not just a Jimmy Carter-style liberal. He’s off in Noam Chomskyland."
I don't know why you felt the need to reprint the first part of Brooks' piece as if I hadn't read it and as if I hadn't already argued that Brooks uses these points as softballs. But since you did, I'll repeat: the way I read it, these are strawmen that he props up just to then let Obama knock down, in extremely flattering style, I might add. By the end of the piece Brooks makes people who believe such things - such as George W. - look a little silly. THAT I think was the point of bringing up H.W. Bush at the end, to tweak W.
Jestaplero has made numerous statements suggesting that he's a pedophile. Can he really be as sexually attracted to small children as it seems from his statements?
Good grief, Glenn, that analogy is about is inapt as it is tasteless. No one's accusing me of such things, while half this nation's punditry, his GOP rival, and the frickin' president are all running around accusing Obama of saying the very things Brooks uses to set up the piece. That's why it's not a spurious or gratuitous ploy - and why your pedophile analogy, frankly, sucks.
Earlier someone asked "Who is the Brooks piece supposed to please?" Good point. It's not aimed at you or me or UT readers. It's aimed at reasonably intelligent Reagan Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans who can't stand Bush and yet are actually trying to decide between Obama and McCain, believe it or not, and want some reassurance Obama is tough enough. That describes half the people I know and virtually everyone I work with. They are also the people Obama needs to win over to win the general election. Columns like this will be helpful to Obama with this demographic, trust me. I'm shocked that it came from a source such as Brooks.
Finally, I'm really amazed at how frequently people come and say: "You described what this person wrote inaccurately because they said X," when I explicitly described X.
You described it inaccurately: factually (where did it say Obama "had to call Brooks"? did you make that up or was it reported elsewhere?), and thematically. You held it out as an example of lack of diversity, i.e; another anti-Obama piece, when I (and others) found it rather positive.
Finally, I'm really amazed at how thin-skinned you can be sometimes. It's a minor critique I thought was reasonable, why the flame-thrower? Can you really not see how that column could reasonably be construed as helpful?
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@ Jim White
Yes, Digby's onto this as well. I remember Glenn saying, when he was posting a lot of material on the ongoing saga of FISA and warrantless eavesdropping that this is the stuff we know about, but that there may well be stuff that we don't know about which is worse -- far worse.
Main Core seems to be exactly the kind of worse that we've all feared. I have to say that it seems entirely plausible, given the details that we already know, and the equally well-known penchant GWB et al. have for planning things as contingencies which they'd have absolutely no compunctions about deploying should they be given -- or be able to fake -- even the slightest excuse.
I know that it's a truism by now, but it does make you wonder why all those earnest Congressmen and women even bothered to hold the Watergate Hearings. Certainly the legislation which came out of them didn't take very long to subvert.