March 01, 2006
Another Idiot Reads the Gray Lady
We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have oft remarked on the unfathomably low quality of letters featured in The New York Times. If you ask us, the missives in the Paper of Record are so awful that they make Maureen Dowd’s columns seem like unadulterated genius. And that, friends, is saying something.
Under these circumstances, we suppose that it isn’t terribly surprising that the February 22 number of the Times features the typical smattering of dunderheaded letters. Yet one of these struck us as so feeble, so obtuse that it warrants quoting in full.
The epistle reads as follows:
To the Editor:
That Israel has suspended tax money due the Palestinians leaves me incredulous. I was under the false impression that both the United States and Israel wanted democracy in the Middle East.
When a people make a choice at the ballot box, who has the right to challenge that vote if it is democratic? No one!
It reminds me of Henry Ford’s proclamation on giving customers a color choice for the Model T. Ford famously said, “You can buy it in any color, as long as it’s black.”
The Palestinians can choose any government they want, so long as Israel and America approve! So much for democracy! So much for hypocrisy!
Frank A. Walter
Chicago, Feb. 20, 2006
We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t mean to be impolite, but Frank A. Walter is a moron. His short letter makes so many mistakes, we hardly know where to begin.
First, we suppose we should note that the United States and Israel have vehemently denied any rumors—such as those printed in the Times itself—that they are interested in toppling the new Palestinian government. So the idiotic Mr. Walter is dead wrong in suggesting that they are subverting democratic elections.
Rather, Mr. Walter appears to suggest that a given polity need not suffer any ramifications of its own actions, provided those actions were the result of a vote. Thus any Palestinian decision—provided it came about as the result of Palestinians heading to the polls—should never be criticized. In fact, other states have no right to take action against these decisions at all.
This, of course, is simply ludicrous. The Palestinians have a right to vote for a terrorist organization as their government. But other states have a right to react to that decision. There is no reason to think that the world should act otherwise.
After all, what if, say, the citizens of Poland voted to kill all of its Jewish inhabitants? Should no one bother to complain, since the decision was based on voting? This is madness.
(And let’s simply skip over the bit about no one having the right to challenge decisions if “a people make a choice at the ballot box.” Perhaps Mr. Walter has never heard of something called the judiciary. Undemocratic as it might seem to Mr. Walter’s small brain, judges actually overrule decisions determined as the result of popular votes.)
We suppose, then, that Mr. Walter, following his own dictates, has never criticized George W. Bush, because he is the democratically elected president of the United States. Oh, that’s right: Mr. Walter’s letter does criticize President Bush.
So much for democracy! So much for hypocrisy!
