MONDAY'S LETTERS: The Last Word On Judy Miller? Hardly

By: E&P Staff Today readers wonder whether "Millertime" has run its course. Others take aim at Greg Mitchell's latest column, seek to define what "dead heat" means, and offer an impassioned plea for wisdom to infect the Bush administration. If you have something to say, say it here.

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Re: Greg Mitchell's latest Pressing Issues column, "It's Your War Now"

While Greg Mitchell's piece calling for newspaper editorial pages to follow the example of John Edwards and admit that they were wrong for promoting the war in Iraq during the run-up is worthy of praise, I'd like to point out that a number of American papers, including the Niagara Falls Reporter, were against the war from the start. We began publishing anti-war columns and editorials in January 2003 -- two months before the war began -- and have included at least one piece in each weekly edition since.

We weren't alone, and I'm sure the editors of like-minded papers around the country have their own stories about e-mail bombardments accusing them of everything from not supporting the troops to treason.

Mike Hudson
Editor
Niagara Falls Reporter

Ed's Note: If any editors out there have experienced said e-mail bombardments, share your stories with the group. E-mails will be reprinted in this space as they arrive.

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The sad state of American affairs is more than just the Iraq war of aggression. Our national disgrace is 9/11/01. That horrific disaster is an excuse rather than the clarion wake-up call that it should be.

The sad state of American affairs is the illegal detentions of Muslim men, women, and children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and it would seem in Eastern Europe. Where is the noble tradition of American justice? All people are entitled to the right of due process. How does America justify keeping these people in a state of limbo that only grows worse as each and every day passes.

The sad state of American affairs is the ghastly conception of torture. I couldn't care one flying fig what Dick Cheney wants or thinks about torture and its abhorrent use. Torture is a war crime and our wondrous government can't paint a new "abuse" face on it.

The American government is planting the seeds of our own destruction mainly by the ill conceived and stupid foreign policies of Bush and his administration. Withdrawal from Iraq is just the tip of an impeachment iceberg. The Bush gang of forty treasonous war criminals MUST be held to account. Their evil cannot stand or go unchallenged or unchecked any longer.

The longer these evil miscreants hold the reigns of government, the longer the suffering of the American people will be. Our Congress is so mired in its own spreading corruption, they are more than likely not to be up to the task of doing the decent and honest thing.

I'm uncertain where the American people can turn to for some relief and some seriously over due justice. That is as scary as it is disheartening.

Don Nash
Murray, Utah

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With respect to my former wretched ink-stained colleagues (I'm a recovering journalist), I have an idea for a small thing they could do to keep up the pressure for withdrawal from Iraq sooner rather than later. I seem to recall that during the Iran-hostage crisis of 1979-80, a number of newspapers ran a front-page banner or box with a running count of the number of days Americans had been held hostage.

Today, the cumulative U.S. death toll in Iraq (2,067 as of this morning) is relegated -- if noted at all -- to the inside pages of the A section. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle provides this information in a gray box listing the names of the latest dead, run as a small sidebar to the A-3 or A-4 Iraq story of the day. Instead of sweeping our war dead under the rug of inside pages, newspaper editors should be running this dismal news prominently on page one every day. Perhaps you could do something to encourage them in this regard.

Steve Shender
Aptos, Calif.
Former reporter and copy editor at the Santa Cruz Sentinel, 1984-1993

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'Miller Time' is Over

Re: The Terrell Owens-Judy Miller Connection

I think "Miller Time" is over. There are no new substantive public issues in play, and the constant reiteration of who said what where just serves as publicity for the principals. (Can you say "book tour" or "book deal?")

The current wrangle is unseemly, which is unfortunate--but it's also not news, which makes it bad copy.

Louise Kosta
Endwell, N.Y.

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Re: 'The Onion' Tackles Source Protection Issue, Judy-Style

As usual, the hilarious slice of The Onion on your menu today calls for not only the requisite grain of salt, but a quick and easy side dish of reality check -- to see the underlying secret ingredient -- a grain of truth. See the archives of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald -- and you'll find a long time contributor canned for another recipe-related, source disclosure debacle.

Her offense, however was one of journalistic sin, not virtue.

Thanks, and keep up the great work.

Andrew Mahoney
Morning Host/News Director
KIUL/ Western Kansas Broadcast Center
Garden City, Kan.

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Re: Possible "Dead Heat" Explanation

Ed's Note: In our letters column on Friday, we asked readers to chime in on what constitutes a "dead heat," the often-used phrase meant to refer to a statistical tie. Two responses to our query follow.

The definition of dead head is the 2004 Washington state governor's race. Two recounts had different results, but only a handful of votes separated the two candidates in both of the recounts. A court eventually upheld the 129-vote hand recount margin over the machine recount of the 2.8 million votes cast.

Ken Robertson
Executive Editor
Tri-City Herald
Kennewick, Wash.

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Bush's 2.48% margin of victory is within a statistical allowance of a + or - 3% error factor and, boy did we error.

Jerry Fankhauser

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Re: Sulzberger Says 'Morale is Just Great' at 'NY Times'

I watched this and Sulzberger would be an excellent employee of the bush administration. Talk about BSing, he is a champ and Charlie couldn't shake him at all. Too bad he wasted a full hour on PBS.

Florence Murphy

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Re: Judy Miller Fights Back

Judith Miller: Self-absorbed to the last. Don't her long-winded responses to each and every criticism remind you of two lovers who have broken up, arguing back and forth what he said and she meant and "you don't understand me," and all to try to get in the last word? Miller should go somewhere gently. She's becoming old news, and most certainly becoming a bore. Prattling on and on about herself will cause more ears to go deaf to her words. She should go now while some people still give a hoot.

Julia Charles
Delray Beach, Fla.

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Re: McClellan Deflects Questions on Torture Exemption a Couple Dozen Times

I have found it appalling to learn how expendable the current Corporate Cronie Administration in the White House regards life on Earth. The concept of fighting the ill will of fanaticism and bringing someone to "justice" is their transparent way of using words to camouflage their every action to promote, sanction, and condone inhumanity, brutality, and other forms of extreme violence to satisfy their anger and incapabilities.

They are comfortable in their safe havens, waiving terms of the Geneva Convention in order to extend their vengeful emotions into inhumane actions. They can eat and sleep well whilst others do their bidding, carrying out crippling deeds of torture behind secret (and not so) walls, with filthy cruelty that defies comprehension. This too is fanaticism, no better than anyone else's.

How dare they speak through the words of Scott McClellan to state the collective view of the American people. If they had the capacity to, they would understand that decent people all over this world find cruelty abhorrent, no matter the criminal. No spirituality ever lived, felt, or uttered could ever opt for torture.

Democracy, reason, and soul dictate we ever strive for honest justice, holding criminals against life on Earth responsible for their crimes as we live lives that adhere to humanity, no matter how difficult it may feel in times of pain and fear.

Solving the root causes of violent fanaticism requires wisdom and will. It appears only reactionary ignorance, arrogance, and selfishness waft out with great power from this administration as they sit at the helm, affecting us all with their spendthrift venom.

Their own violent fanaticism is bankrupting every aspect of lives here and around the world, including the sanctuaries of Truth and Hope.

Lynne Barnum