Allow me to be one of those cranks of which you complain: Why do you have to do this? Why is it so funny to say that "Al Gore invented the internet"? He never said that, never implied it, and it's only been lazy political reporters who have perpetuated that myth. Perhaps fewer readers would write to complain about you work if you put a modicum of effort into making it accurate and not a boring recitation of convention (and wrong) wisdom.

Al Gore inventing the internet would be funny IF he had won what should have been a walk-over. Instead we put up with the "left wing media" attacking him for lying while letting an "aw shucks" pretend hillbilly lie with impunity. Now we have spent 6 years with an incompetent administration and are in a war with no good options apparent for victory.

I'm sorry this is humorless--but "Springtime for Hitler" wouldn't be as funny if the Thousand Year Reich lasted longer than it did. The point is, in using that cheap Al Gore joke (which was used sincerely on Talk of the Nation too a few weeks ago) it is validating the continued mockery of someone who was right on pretty much everything that he said concerning climate change, the war, etc. It really just makes the point that perhaps instead of letters hurting their feelings when someone makes a stupid comment that hurts discourse (I'm thinking Maureen Dowd) readers should be able to issue an electric shock to the pundit in question.

There's no doubt in my mind SR that you probably would get a lot of hate mail and death threats if you posted your name. You're seldom satisfied with just stating your opinion and leaving it at that. It seems you have to add some kind of put-down to other LWs who wrote in before you.

If you stop crapping on people, they'll stop getting angry with you. As I said before, I seldom go after people who have not gone after me first. I believe in reciprocity. You sling shit at me, I sling back.

BTW SR, for what it's worth, there are many times when I agree completely with your posts.

But on to my Subject topic:

There is a subtle difference between a well-established handle and somebody who writes No Name Given or Anonymous. At least someone who writes consistently under the same name establishes a basis of identity among the regulars here, even if he's a total flaming asshole troll like "joe" or "A.J."

Writers with regularly used handles develop a persona. I have come to expect a certain point of view from an SR, as you can expect to see some consistency in my handle. Sure, you don't know who I am and I don't know who you are, but I know that if we met, you and I would probably get along. And if I ever met "joe" ... oh man, I don't even want to say what I'm thinking about him!

I think Gary and Joan Walsh and Tim Grieve know what they need to do to enhance the quality of the letters: Get rid of the assholes.

I can deal with an opposing view just fine, as long as it's a reasoned and rational opinion, not one of those, "Yu libtards want Osama Bin Ladin to win, why don't you move to Canada you cowards, and how come yu hate America?"

When that kind of shit gets filtered out, we haven't missed anything and the quality of the dialog will improve.

Gary Kamiya and a number of those who've posted letters seem to put a lot of stock in being nice. Respond, be thoughtful and critical, but be nice about it. Don't call the writer with the prissy interests by a cutesy name (guilty). Everybody, be nice. Let's make nice. Nice nice nice.

I don't know, isn't it sometimes okay not to be nice? Critics, incisive critics, are often downright mean. I'm thinking, for example, of Edmund Wilson. Of Renata Adler. Of Anthony Lane. Of Stephen Colbert at last year's White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Bless that paisan's heart.

A lot of the snarkier letter writers seem simply to want to take the piss out of Salon pieces and their writers. And that's an honorable--and, for a few reasons, defendable--intention.

The "I" writers sometimes talk about, the voice in a personal essay or opinion piece (I do not turn to Salon for journalism), is a pretty damn important aspect of both its style and argument. Part of a reader's assessment of a given Salon essay is an assessment of the essay's voice. What biases does the writer reveal? Why do or don't I trust the speaker's opinion? What does this essay's "I" fail to see? Who's talking here?

I see the ad hominem attacks that sprinkle readers' letters as assessments--sometimes astute, sometimes not--of voice: Writer, you sound like a priss or you sound like a bully or you sound stuck-up or you sound very comfortably liberal or very comfortably conservative or very comfortably independent. Take your mac and powdered cheese rant and shove it, @$$7*!#!

I really appreciate the snarkier letters. This is a decidedly middle to upper-middle class venue. It's a salon, for Chrissake. And in a salon, especially in a salon, it's easy to overlook the privileges and biases and obsessions of class. Until somebody farts.

As a reader, even a critical reader, I can let arguments that affirm my lifestyle and my point of view--arguments that don't really implicate me--fly. And then I read a snarky letter and realize how smug we writers and readers can be. Reading a snarky letter is like hearing a voice from the street, the street I grew up on: I'll show you twelve steps! I don't always need that voice, it's usually pretty loud in my head. But sometimes I do.

If Salon really wants to be a salon (ugh, does it?) and only those letters written by civilized readers are to be published, well Mr. Who?-Me?-Stendhal?-Oh, Stop!-Really?, you and your editor can take your hoity-toity salon and...

Kamiya's essay is provocative and that's good. And so are many, many of the letters written in response. Even the mean ones.