Letters to the Editor
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Joan
I'm profoundly sorry that your take on these letter threads is one of demoralization. I can't emphasize enough how much my posts at least are in good-faith.
This election season has affected me deeply, not in my outrage over Clinton's behavior so much (because that came on gradually, as you'd see in my letter history) but in my total discomfiture at the tribalism going on here. I used to think that was a Republican thing.
I wonder now, and I have wondered before, do you reflect on your own partisanship? I ask out of genuine curiosity and comradeship, conceding always that I see reality through my own bias, however curious it is that we arrived at different biases. My sense is that you should feel obligated to do so (reflect) given your position. You might say or think, Of course, but you see, don't you, that that is not evident here? That is, in fact, the central complaint.
You have not answered, so far as I know, why you never addressed, for example, the Geraldine Ferraro story, even as you managed to bring up Reverend Wright in several posts. And the questions or observations from posters that you choose to address are so small and specific. You have failed to answer to the larger, more philosophical points brought up by many here. I suppose I am not alone in wondering which of us you find "creepy," and it is no credit to you that those of us who have been mostly civil believe you capable of thinking that our honest challenges are on your potential creepy list.
Count me among those who think you have a difficult job. One that many of us would love, mind you, but one that clearly takes an emotional toll. I have been--only once--on the receiving end of public criticism, and I literally went into a clinical depression for six months. But my sympathy for your beleaguered status here, and I think it is--I think your views are not reflective of your readers' in the aggregate--simply does not go so far as excusing what I believe to be lapses in judgment, fairness, and thoughtful analysis.
I have a feeling I would like you very much in person, and I think you would like me. I don't know what the hell that might mean to you, but you can take it for what it's worth: my (and others'?) postings here are largely intellectual. That is, we mean what we say and have thought a lot about it, but at the end of the day, it's all just a distant conversation about stuff that doesn't quite measure up to the problems of daily living--Is it garbage night? Will baseball practice be rained out? Is my kid being picked on in school? Will anyone help me clean out the attic full of boxes?
If you're ever feeling down about the kind of hold some of us as readers have over your mental state, feel better by thinking this: "I'm sitting here with a national audience and a cool job that involves intellectualism, politics, and writing, and lateagain is a fricking substitute teacher."
Have a nice night. And now I'm going to find some video of your Hardball comments and probably be appalled that you sold out the presumptive Democratic nominee and maybe come back at you. But now you know what to think to yourself. :)