Letters posted here are associated with the following article:

405
Letters
Monday, July 7, 2008 12:00 AM

Beltway myth: "The left-wing base" vs. "the American people" on Iraq

Mara Liasson falsely claims that "the American people" only want to leave Iraq when "conditions on the ground" permit it.

The letters thread is now closed.

View:
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 09:58 AM

3 Explanations

Corporate Media.

Corporate Media.

Corporate Media

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 07:02 AM

Beltway myth - which of "the American people" are they referring to?

Any pundit who uses the broad term of "the American people" is like a teenager who says "everybody does it/ has one/ will be there" and should be called on it. Unfortunately there's only one Glenn Greenawald around to do the dastardly deed. All the other pundits just agree and nod like a bunch of bobble heads. Producing survey results such as in this article can provide credibility to media speak but too many people conjure up their own ideas and volunteer "the American people" to back them up.

Glenn, please keep pointing out these phonies. Hopefully some other writers will notice and maybe do some thinking (God forbid) and critiquing on their own.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 05:14 AM

One more reason MSM is evaporating

Mara 'Lie'asson is one more reason America's mainstream media is fading fast. No one in their right mind watches her or the other liars in the MSM. The 1/3 that do and still support the war are the uninformed and do not count.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 03:14 AM

Another false meme

There is another blatantly false meme working its way through both the right and the left, and that is "Iraq is the bad war, and Afghanistan is the good war that we've been neglecting." This is a fringe position embraced as conventional wisdom by both the left and the right.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 10:45 PM

Dishonest or Stupid?

If Liasson were anything but an empty vessel filled with comfortable non-sense, she wouldn't be on Fox News.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 07:13 PM

SEE THIS IS THE PROBLEM WITH BARACK OBAMA

and it won't be going away. He is the presumptive nominee because he hugged up to the left wing of the Democratic Party. They wanted "pure" left, right down to a virgin on the Iraq war. Clinton's vote made her "unpure" in their eyes. Of course, the were NEVER happy with the Clintons anyway.

Obama has been flip-flopping so much since last year that's it hard to figure out where he really stands and what is written on his teleprompter for political convenience. He has pissed off the left-wing with his now "refinement" comment about visiting Iraq and "refining" his position on Iraq. The left-wing wants our troops out NOW. Not in a year. Not when it's responsible to do so. Not when the Iraqi government suggests. Now. If Obama goes back on that, there will be hell to pay in the Party. (Like there isn't enough hell to go around right now!)

Obama has also been less than honest about FISA, partial-birth abortion, and any number of other issues important to the left-wing, and many "centered" Americans. He is not looking like the "new" or "turn the page" candidate anymore. He's looking remarkably like every other political opportunist.

Should Obama fool some of the people some of the time this November, he will not fool all of the people all of the time. He will be a one-term wonder who happened to make history before he went off to make himself richer.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 05:29 PM

The Creepy Average

There is a creepy average, in the 30s, in these polls, of people who still support the war and continuing American military presence in Iraq. It is an unfortunate tribute to the propaganda waged by the Bush Administration and its enablers, but it also speaks to how stubbornly uninformed these folks are. Of course, none of them read Salon, much less the author's works.

Hey, if you know them, you've go to beat some sense into them. There is too much at stake.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 02:47 PM

She is merely leaning back against the cushion, it's awfully comfortable

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

-Harold Pinter

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:16 PM

Seriously, tho...

You can't go on TV and say Americans don't want War! Not wanting war makes you a draft-dodging, cowardly, America-hating, HIV-positive HIPPIE!

Do you really think they should go on TV and insult their audience? Not gonna happen.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 12:12 PM

So, Americans believe...

that it's better for their young men (and women) to lie around the house, eating up all the food in the refrigerator (or worse, doing what Portnoy did to his family's liver dinner) and not cutting the grass or weeding the garden, and then sneaking off at night to have sex with their slutty girlfriends, and wasting gas and wrecking the family car into the bargain? Americans believe that kind of behavior is better than joining up and making a man and a mensch and an officer and a gentleman and going and throwing some shitty little Arab country up against the wall and telling them to "suck on this"?

No, I don't believe it! Furdermore, what about the guys already over there? They should come home with no victory!!?!? Victorious interruptus you would give them?

I'm sorry, but those must have been outlieing left-wing polls.

Besides, if they stop the War, we will all lose our jobs!!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 09:12 AM

Repeat after me

There's WMD in Iraq! The people support us staying the curse -- oops! course. We'll get out when we're asked. The sun rises in the south. No; the south is gonna rise again. We're headed south. Am I confused? Or deaf? Are you?

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 09:10 AM

There's death; now taxes

Isn't it funny, how the republicans rant about Democrats "wanting to raise taxes?" I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard that; I'd be talking ship-to-shore if I did. You see, Thomas, when the republicans are in power they trim taxes, especially for the well-off. That lets them invest the dough (it says here). Think of all that "liquidity" Uncle Greenspan provided from 2001 until 2007; did any of it end up in the pockets of the "man on the street?" Anyway, back to brass bal___, er, tax: when the r's are "in" a LOT gets left undone, like infrastructure, health care, education, helping veterans of the economic wars they start, etc., etc. So WHEN THE DEMOCRATS GET "IN," WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME CAN THEY DO? THERE IS SO MUCH OVERHANG OF UNFUNDED NEEDS THEY HAVE NO CHOICE? When and how does this reality ever seep into Joe Six-Pack's -- er -- thinking??!

Most Active Letters Threads

561

Everybody hates mommy

We're "stroller Nazis." We're whiny "breeders." Why is there so much contempt for mothers these days?
331

The extreme secrecy of the federal courts

Judges are not only permitted, but required, to conceal anything the government declares to be secret.
308

Greg Craig and Obama's worsening civil liberties record

A new Time account of the fall of Obama's White House counsel sheds much light on rule of law issues.
222

I'm thankful I'm not President Obama

Backers deride Katrina-style negligence, haters hate him more each day. Can this presidency be saved? Of course
219

Praying for Obama's death

Pastors are invoking Psalm 109 -- "May his days be few" -- in hopes of saving our country, and our souls

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon