TUESDAY'S LETTERS: Nominations for the 'Absurd Political Journalism' Award

By: E&P Staff Today's letters weigh New Orleans reconstruction costs versus the need for political reform, strategies for Iraq pullout and the political fallout, and one reader addresses what he views as a lack of substance in political reporting. If you have your own nominations for the "Absurd Political Journalism Award," send them to letters@editorandpublisher.com.

Curveballs and Hatchet Jobs

Re: Governor Threw a Curveball on Baseball Career

I thought I had witnessed the ultimate in newspaper hatchet jobs and curve balls in political journalism, but this latest "discovery" by the Albuquerque Journal that Bill Richardson was not drafted by Kansas City A's ought to win some kind of new prize for "Absurd Political Journalism," since this story even was printed in the New York Times!

Forty years ago, drafts were discussed generally, hinted at, and not accompanied by clear-cut contracts. The Governor's recent biography makes this perfectly clear, and I believe that he truly believed that he had been drafted by them and several other teams. At that point, he was 19; who has not made any errors of judgment when they were 19?

What Bill Richardson pitches to the New Mexico Legislature about health, elementary education, fiscal policies, environmental policies, higher education, consumer protection: these are a lot more important to me than ancient baseball history and whether the guy was drafted by the A's or not.

I abhor the astonishing fact that conservative papers across the nation has picked this up and even some have described it as if he had been caught in a lie. This is a dismal and failed attempt at character assassination.

How about the other party's leaders' protracted and elaborate lies about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction," which were grandiloquently strewn forth in the United Nations General Assembly before the ill-informed invasion? Are Americans just supposed to forget about those really big lies which directly resulted in 2000 dead G.I.'s, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, and billions of wasted-unless-you-are-Halliburton dollars they have caused, while the entire nation is side-tracked by absurd articles on the Sports and political pages about Bill Richardson?

Are these our new priorities in national politics and qualities of leadership? Let's get really real here, folks, for a change!

Stephen Fox
Santa Fe, N.M.

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Truth, Innocence, and Honor Lost

Re: 'LA Times' Profiles U.S. Officer Who Committed Suicide in Iraq

When war was declared, I was torn. I felt that the idea of replacing a brutal dictatorship with something less brutal was an admirable goal, but that we were going about it in the absolute worst way possible. I watched. I didn't march. I wrote letters in a voice I felt was fair. I argued with deference to friends who were there, had relatives there, or lost relatives there. I hoped that the inherent honor of most U.S. soldiers would hold the line against corruption, and dare I say, human rights abuses and violations of the rules of war.

Needless to say, my hopes have been dashed. The lines of decency were redrawn by those orchestrating their equivalent of Mozart's "Musical Joke."

Scenes such as interviews with corporate leeches in the film "Fahrenheit 911" enraged me as it confirmed what I felt were my worst fears -- that we were going to war to enrich those who financially supported the Administration -- that it was perhaps the worst case of war profiteering in U.S. history, and that it was organized to be exactly that from the outset. Suited hogs were lining up to feed before ever the border was violated. We would hand reconstruction over to the "free market," and liberal democracy would flower...

Reading your article entitled, "'LA Times' Profiles U.S. Officer Who Committed Suicide in Iraq," I almost wish I hadn't read it. Despite lack of confirmation of their authenticity, recent "home videos" of security contractors randomly gunning down Iraqi motorists pour lemon juice into the wounds. Reading about someone who tried to stop the true "evildoers" and failed so badly that he felt the need to take his own life... It's just too much... I suppose my country has rarely, if ever, truly lived up to its ideals, but to see those ideals falsely held up by maggots to support a purely corrupt enterprise...

If truth is the first casualty of war, and innocence the second, I suppose honor is the third.

John D. Powers
Alpharetta, Ga.


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Weighing NOLA Help Against Needed Reforms

Please don't hold your breath waiting for President Bush to fulfill his promise to rebuild New Orleans. His trail of failures is well marked where ever he has been. While the U.S. has some very bright people, I would suggest having some engineers from Belgium help design any future levees'. They have kept back the ocean from their country for a long time.

Being from a distant state, all I have seen is selected news from the MSM, which is very doubtful to say the least. Also, my state has problems of it's own, and how can a person (taxes) afford to fix both places? This goes straight back to the President and his tax relief policies. It also concerns the possible graft that occurs in your state government and in your cities. We have the same problem in all states and cities across this nation.

The leaders in NOLA have known for years the levees were defected against a huge hurricane, but nothing was ever done by those leaders. Why not? While most of America's citizens feel for you, we can't help but wonder why nothing was ever fixed in the past. I have enough trouble paying taxes in my state and cannot afford to pay more to help you. And yes, NOLA is important to America, but politics in and around NOLA must change before I want my tax money to help you.

Allen Hoff
Vancouver, Wash.

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Cut 'N' Run Blame

I've enjoyed your editorials for a while now, and feel your publication's Katrina coverage was better than most of the mainstream media's coverage.

But please watch your step writing about the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Not that I am opposed to withdrawal. I felt the war was unlawful from the first day. It's just that now the Bush Admin are themselves considering "cut 'n' run" options, they are also trying to figure out how to blame the antiwar for their miserable failure.

Kenneth Turner

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Explaining Woodward

So, the current spin of this story is that Woodward is part of the problem? Well, duh. When are you guys going to call him/the Mainstream media on it? Mistakes were maid is not going to cut it anymore.

Diss-gruntled.

James Oxendine