Letters to the Editor
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Xrandadu
you are just the bomb! I cannot say more ...
I don't know why, but I've been thinking of "The Big Chill" and I picture a Hurt-ish ltjwalker scratching his head and saying "you're just so analytical" ... :)
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ljlwalker
I sympathize with your distaste for name-calling. I don't like Hillbots, Obamabots, Obambi, Billary, B. Hussein Obama or the recent Hildebeast anymore than the next feminazi does. And it's sometimes tempting to call other posters names, but I refrain, and I wince when others do not extend the same courtesy.
But several of the things you call name-calling are arguably legitimate political - not personal - criticisms. And certainly not name-calling. "Triangulating," for example. I'm not going to go through your entire list, but you might want to re-think what you consider to be name-calling instead of substantive arguments.
Tom Payne has been posting offensive things here for years, so lumping him in with other "offensive" Obama supporters is questionable.
Anyone who accuses Clinton of being a lesbian or cunt is a right-wing troll, safely ignored. In fact, I think the worst name-calling on both "sides" has come from right-wing trolls, trying to drive wedges between liberal and conservative Democrats. Sadly, they have sometimes succeeded.
I have great respect for Clinton, and her campaign has disappointed me this year. If she somehow pulls through the next two months and gets the nomination, I will be happy to vote for her. But after her recent attempts at right-wing-style character assassination, I think it's pretty ironic that you would accuse Obama supporters of name-calling. I am fairly neutral, leaning toward Obama (today anyway, but it could change tomorrow...), and against name calling, but I don't judge the candidates by the way people who claim to be their supporters conduct themselves on Salon's message boards. Though I have been shocked and horrified by some of the veiled and not-so-veiled sexist comments (and it IS easier to get away with those than it is to get away with racist ones), I try to judge the candidates by their own conduct. And the one who is launching the most non-substantive attacks, in my opinion, is Clinton.
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xrandadu hutman
"billcap: Pro-Clinton. Offensive: "...Saint Obama. Obama supporters: Always gracious in victory. One hopes the man is better than his supporters.""
Xrandadu
If you're going to quote me as an example of being "offensive", perhaps in the spirit of not giving offense you might not cut off the compliment to Obama which comes after the line, "one hopes the man is better than his supporters". You know, the line that says "I personally believe he is".
I suppose we must now add you to the list of offensive for chopping up a quote so as to make it appear worse than it was originally?
And I'd say it's hardly fair to equate a response to an initiation. In other words, if the Obama supporters I'm responding to have just called her an egomaniac, accused her of dirty tricks, equated her with Sauron, of sacrificing humanity (yes, she can't just be wrong--she has to actually sacrifice humanity), running only because it's about her, describing her campaign as "cow flop", etc. somehow I'm the offensive one for saying sarcastically saying these statements are hardly "gracious"?
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@ ljwalker53
"To those who are calling for Sen. Clinton to step down, I have one question: If your candidate, Barack Obama, were in the same position as Hillary Clinton, would he step down? I can't answer that, but my hunch is that, no, he would not."
I will indeed give that much respect to Hillary Clinton. No one can say she's not determined or tenacious. She thinks she has the solutions, she thinks she's doing the right thing, and she's going to do what she feels she must do. I'd expect no less from any serious candidate. I hope Obama wouldn't step down at this point--she deserves the same freedom of conscience, regardless of whether I agree with her vision for this country.
I don't like her, her proposals, or a lot of what she says...but that's why I will never call for her to step down from this race. She has to do what she has to do.
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@ billcap
"Pick out a single line of a woman in her 50's (I'm guessing) and argue it represents her thinking on how she values youth? When she's raised a daughter?"
Since she has never apologized for that statement or taken it back, then yes, I have to take it as representative of how she thinks. (Yes, I know she said "I know you work hard" to Chelsea. But no, she never apologized to the rest of us.) I have no idea what her relationship with her daughter is like, but plenty of people raise children and still devalue younger people.