MONDAY'S LETTERS: Media Sexism, Tom Edsall, Richard Cohen

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, readers praise Greg Mitchell's recent columns about Richard Cohen and Tom Edsall, and another writes that sexism remains "alive and well" in the media.

***

Pelosi and Media Sexism

Regarding the AP article on your Web site about the attention given House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi's wardrobe: How many times have you heard or seen media reports on a male member of Congress refer to the member as a "grandfather"? Surely there are many grandfathers in Congress, yet I can't recall ever hearing the media refer to one of them by that label. For some reason, the media can't resist referring to Ms. Pelosi as a "66-year-old grandmother," just as the AP article does.

Yes, sexism is alive and well.

Denise Civiletti
Co-publisher
Times/Review Newspapers Corp.
Mattituck, N.Y.

***

On Richard Cohen, Iraq, and Vietnam

Good comment on Cohen's dismal column. Therapeutic violence? Because Americans are angry, we're entitled to go off and murder -- a loaded word, but it fits in this case -- Arabs or others who had nothing to do with 9/11? What gives us that right?

I too read the casualty lists in the New York Times -- I figure it's the least I can do. You might do a survey of how many other papers publish them, by the way. The Times seems to have a few names every day; I believe they've published them all, with name, rank, home town and outfit. Other papers do not seem to publish the names of the dead, unless it's a local guy or doll. ...

Edward Furey



Like you, when I finished the Cohen column the other day I wanted to reach for an airsick bag. It's not enough that Cohen supported the war when it began, but his begging off it now hides/disguises/makes light of the fact that a lot of us opposed it from the beginning -- and we couldn't make ourselves heard because people like Cohen and the op-ed editors at The Post., Times, Courant, Globe and dozens of other so-called liberal voices ignored our columns and letters because what we were saying didn't mesh with what they were hearing from the administration, or because they were so cowed by the administration that they thought it safer to simply go along and not publish any dissenting voices.

I know: I was one of those dissenters and after 30 years of writing columns (I have worked as a daily columnist for five years, a weekly columnist, and 20 years of having editors across the country accept my op-eds on any number of topics), in the autumn of 2002 I found myself virtually voiceless. I did column after column on my opposition to the war -- why it was a misuse of resources; why it wasn't a good idea; why history was against it; trading on my experience as a veteran, my wide reading of military history and my own track record of often writing about minilitary issue.

I e-mailed column after column to editors who had bought my material for years -- and sold almost nothing. Three years and 2,800 dead Americans later, Cohen and others like him suddenly decide the war is a dumb idea. I knew that a long time ago. I tried to tell people like Cohen -- but Rove, Bush and Cheney got there first.

Bill Earls
Middletown, Conn.

***

Considering Edsall

[Greg Mitchell's] writing has been helpful in my surviving (so far) this individual's soiled "presidency."

With respect to the following sentence: "Edsall was so eager to sell his new book that he appeared recently on rightwing radio host Hugh Hewitt's program, where he admitted that the mainstream media has an 'overwhelmingly' strong liberal bias -- making the job for his former colleagues in the industry so much easier -- and estimated that Democrats outnumber Republicans in newsrooms by 15 or 25 to 1."

It has also been found that to an even greater degree journalists believe that the Earth is round and that the it revolves around the Sun.

In addition, it is also a fact that low-brow, right-wing talk radio hosts uniformly believe that President Bush is a genius and a man who is honest to a fault.

They also believe as one that the phenomenon of Global Warming is a complete fiction, and that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq (they all had Hoekstra and Santorum on their "shows" to make the assertion).

I would like to tell Mr. Edsall the above. And I'm glad you're there.

Jay Diamond



In last week's NY Times, Edsall concocted stories about how white males helped Democrats to victory ... true, but in N.Y., Conn. and Pa. where I (along with others such as Rothenberg) think there is a realignment. In the South, the white males and females went heavily for the GOP as usual. Edsall is full of crap. I think Tom Schaller's book on how the Dems can win without the South is more relevant today than the garbage put out by Edsall.

Chell G.



I am a Democrat from Minnesota and I am getting slightly annoyed by the various media predictions about our imminent demise and the so called 'Civil War' inside the Democratic Party. Fortunately we get it from both the [Republican] sycophants and the so called Independent Progressives on various "lefty" Yahoo Groups. I came to your column when I got sick reading the Washington Post and its President Bush boot-licking Iraq pronouncements. Sadly, over the last 6 years the Washington Post's Editorial Pages became just White House Court Press.

I am glad that Mr. Tierney is on "vacation" but I am also already sick of his replacement. The NYT is lucky to survive both his and Judy [Miller]'s twisted anti-liberal biased reporting, all within one decade! I am grateful for the Guardian as the only remaining truly Liberal English Paper in the Twenty-First Century.

We Democrats fortunately debate the issues, and this must be real strange to the world after 10 years of absolute GOP secrecy! Please get used to it and I can also assure you that Ms Pelosi will not tolerate any Marxist economic policies nor the [Republican] Regime-supported Chinese Communist influence into our economy. Just for your information I am a one time refugee from Hungary and neither a GOP Chicken Hawk nor a friend of the Communist System. I have been under AK to Katyusa to JS Tank fire and I count all those whose military use AKs among the enemies of our country. I wish the neocons would also stick to this simple rule!

George Matkovits
Minnesota