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Unpublished
letters to the New York Times
Pundits
pushing down polls, sent July 22, 2007Melvyn D. Magree Christopher Caldwell asserts “Ron Paul will not be the next president of the United States.” (“The Antiwar, Anti-Abortion, Anti-Drug-Enforcement-Administration, Anti-Medicare Candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul”, New York Times, July 22, 2007) Is this making news rather than reporting news? Would not the more correct statement be, “Ron Paul probably will not be the next president of the United States.” By asserting that someone doesn’t have a chance of being elected, reporters deter people who believe in a candidate from voting for that candidate because “they’ll throw their vote away.” The only people who “throw their vote away” are those who don’t show up or those who vote for a “winner” they don’t wholeheartedly believe in. See also my Reader Weekly article “Making news or reporting news”. Their master's voice, sent May 22, 2007 in response to an editorial "Their master's voice", May 19, 2007. I feel rather perceptive about “Mr. Bush protects his embattled advisers because they are doing precisely what he told them to do.” I wrote an article on diversity for the Reader Weekly, an alternative paper in Duluth, Minnesota; it was published on March 8, 2001. Two paragraphs that are etched in my memory are: Much has been made of the number
of women, blacks, and Hispanics in President George W. Bush’s
cabinet. While the bean counters praise him for this, the cynics
point out that they all represent corporate interests or that most are
millionaires. What scares me is that President Bush, in
countering the criticism that they all think like he does, responded
that of course they did.
Such a response scares me regardless of the political philosophy of the President. This indicates that he is surrounding himself with “yes-people”, people who might not stand up to ideas that they believe are ill-conceived. Lyndon Johnson, a “liberal” did it, and others throughout history have done it. See the late historian Barbara Tuchman’s March to Folly. George Washington may have had a cabinet of all rich, white males, but at least they held strong, differing opinions. ©2007 Melvyn D. Magree |