Letter from 2004, Slogan from 2007

Subj: 07/02/04 comments

To: NYT

Dear Mr. Kristof:

I am an ordinary, 48 year old American women. I am taxpaying and law-abiding. I am currently visiting my sister in Ohio, and read your column in The Columbus Dispatch today. I work as a pediatric audiologist, I did recreational drugs as a young adult, and today, I take no stronger drugs than tylenol and tea. I have done whitewater kayaking and camping for decades, so I know the outdoors. I have gotten very politically active in the last couple of years, and I do this BECAUSE I THINK MY COUNTRY NEEDS ME. It is headed down the toilet.

In your article, the statement "In fact, of course, Bush did stretch the truth. The run-up to Iraq was all about exaggerations, but not flat-out lies." So, it all depends on what the definition of *IS* is.

Then you go on to say "Indeed, there's some evidence that Bush carefully avoids the most blatant lies: witness his meticulous descriptions of the periods in which he did not use illegal drugs."

You cannot imagine how reading stuff like this makes me want to puke. Clinton was a liar, and you hold him and Lieberman up as examples? Maybe you should ask yourself: EXAMPLES OF WHAT??? People who commit adultery, promote war, drop bombs on whomever, lie constantly, chase after power, and then excuse every damn thing that comes along? Of what good use are people such as this? Why aren't they all ridiculed and thrown in jail?

What Bush has done is a million times worse than what Clinton did, although most Americans are way too stupid to see that fact yet. Clinton may have ended the UN weapons inspections in Iraq, and put those brutal sanctions on the Iraqis, and bombed innocent pharmaceutical plants, but he has not killed tens of thousands of innocents, nor did he do what Bush did to promote terrorism against the USA. Bush did that, and we will all pay and pay and pay. But that is in the future.

Bush did not get into this mess by overdosing on moral clarity. He has no moral clarity. He is a liar. So is Clinton. So is Ken Lay. (funny how that buddy of Bush's is still running around free..... funny how they made the people in California go without electricity for no damn good reason.... ha, ha, ha. I'm just overcome with humor at the evil ways of our elected and selected officials, and their buddies... which most likely, includes you.)

The main difference between the conservatives and the liberals, in my opinion, is that the conservatives are more likely to use violence to further their aims, and more likely to stick their noses where they don't belong. The liberals are just as good at lying, and almost as good at acting in immoral ways. That's why we have liberals like Kerry and Edwards voting for war, and then not voting against war profiteering bills, and making a huge bunch of money from the military-industrial company's stocks. That's why Kerry's policies on Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are indistinguishable from Bush's. They are all immoral, in my opinion. And this recent war and occupation of Iraq was immoral, illegal, and very very stupid. More stupid than you are capable of imagining at this point. Way more stupid.

And you are right that radio and TV "news" is all about entertaining people. It is infotainment. It is there to sell advertisements, to sell products. So, what is the excuse of the NYT? If I could figure out that Iraq was not a threat, did not have WMDs, how come all the staff at the NYT was too stupid to figure this out? How come they did not put information on the front page that refuted the nonsense coming out of all the Bushies' mouths? How come there was a front page apology for Jayson Blair, but not for Judith Miller? WHAT SHE IS WAS TEN THOUSAND TIMES WORSE. How come there are so few articles and pictures on how the Iraqi people are dying, injured and suffering under the evil misguided American policies in Iraq? What is your excuse, you want to entertain people? Is that it? Or are you, and the NYT, genuinely stupid? or liars? what is your excuse for your poor showing of journalism on the lead up to, and follow-up to this optional war for bogus reasons?

I saw Moore's film. I know enough to know that he does sloppy work, makes lots of mistakes. Underneath it all, however, he often makes a good point. The best point of his film is that the Iraq people, and the people here in the USA, are suffering from Bush's LIES. Make no mistake: HE LIED. And tens of thousands have been killed or injured because of his lies.

The fact that Clinton did too means nothing. The fact that you can point out that Moore made mistakes or reached the wrong conclusions means nothing, since your own paper does the very same thing, only on a bigger scale, and more regularly.

Bush got us into a mess all right (with a lot of help from Miller), and you are clueless to how bad a mess it is. Your comment "how sad that many liberals now seem intent on making the same mistakes" is like a three year old screaming "how dare you do what I did!" to some perceived injustice after acting like a total idiot. There is no way that liberals could do what Bush has done, and no way they could even come close without starting up a war for no damn good reason. And do you really think that the "so called liberal media" such as the NYT would let them do that? And play stenographer (liked Miller did) for such a thing? I don't think so.

I am a progressive, and I want nothing to do with the slimy, immoral liberals, and I am hoping the evil conservatives get locked up in jail (after a trial, of course, I do believe in the rule of law). And I hope papers like the NYT either start doing some actual journalism, or go under.

On some European websites, the skull and bones is listed as "America's flag". And your articles on "Those Sexy Iranians" was both stupid and insulting to Iranians. I'm confident you think you are above it all with your "moral clarity". Let me just tell you, from my perspective, you have no morals worth noting at all.