I Write Letters

An e-mail I just sent to Anne Kornblut of the New York Times:

This is the beginning of your piece entitled "Clinton, in Arkansas, Says Democrats Are 'Wasting Time'" dated July 16, 2006:

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, returning to her red-state ties, chastised Democrats Saturday for taking on issues that arouse conservatives and turn out Republican voters rather than finding consensus on mainstream subjects.

Without mentioning specific subjects like gay marriage, Mrs. Clinton said: “We do things that are controversial. We do things that try to inflame their base.”

“We are wasting time,” the senator told a group of Democratic women here, on part of a two-day swing through a state that could provide an alternate hub to New York if she starts a national political campaign."

Here's what she actually said:

"You have to ask yourself, we have all these problems, and we have solutions sitting out there, why can't we move in the right direction? And it really comes down to a difference in values and philosophy. You know the nine women Democratic Senators, anybody see us on Larry King's show? We put out what we call our Checklist for Change. I don't know about you, but I am a list maker. I guess it's like a part of the DNA for women. I make lists about lists. And so we were talking one day and saying, you know, we as individuals, we have all of this legislation, we can't get it on the floor of the Senate. We can't get a vote on it because the Republican majority wants to vote on other things. So we pulled all our best ideas together. Wouldn't this be a good agenda for America: safeguard America's pensions; good jobs for Americans; make college affordable for all; protect America and our military families; prepare for future disasters; make America energy independent; make small business and healthcare affordable, invest in life saving science; and protect our air, land, and water. You know, Blanche Lincoln has a bill to make healthcare affordable for small business, I have a bill I was talking to you about with respect to energy independence, we have legislation sitting in the Senate to address these problems. But with the Republican majority, that's not their priority. So we do other things, we do things that are controversial, we do things that try to inflame their base so that they can turn people out and vote for their candidates. I think we are wasting time, we are wasting lives, we need to get back to making America work again, in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way." You should take this piece down and issue a correction. You owe Senator Clinton and your readers an apology. Emphasis added

The Senator is clearly pointing at the Republican majority when she levels her criticism about nothing substantitve coming out of this Congress, not her fellow Democrats. Your article grossly distorts her message in order to fit it into the script you and you millionaire pundit cohort have developed - i.e., that the fringe left of the Democratic party hates Hillary and she's got to play to the red-state voters if she wants to be President. It's a joke. It's the GOP that brings up gay marriage, flag-burning, and all of these social issues that are not high in the list of prorities of the average American. That's what the Senator is getting at.

How many more times is the NYT going to be intimidated by the right-wing accusations of treason before it stands up and fights back? How many times are you going to spew the GOP's talking points before you realize that no amount of kissing the right's behind is going to stop their using the NYT as a punching bag?

How much longer are you going to make the decent Americans in this country put up with this pathetic political discourse that you keep shoving in our faces? How much more of this garbage are we going to have to take?