Comments on: Good Riddance To The Gingrichites

CBS' Meyer: GOP 'Chess Club' Ruled The House For 12 Years And Won't Be Missed

[tojby_2000]

The title for your column needs changing. Instead of "Against the Grain" you might want to consider "Better Late than Never" or "Courage Free Zone."
I think you get the idea.

[rhbrandon]

No guts, no glory.

You didn't have any guts 12 years ago (and, frankly, looking at how the media is covering the incoming Democratic majorities in Congress, none now).

You don't have any glory now.

Want some? Make up for the last 12 years: cover all of the Republican scandals. Will they call you "liberals?" Sure. This country was founded by liberals. All the best things about this country came from liberals.

Republicans haven't accomplished anything of any substance since Teddy Roosevelt, and he would be considered liberal by the likes of Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, and Rush Limbaugh. Who gives a *** what they think? Republicans don't believe in a free press anyway; why be nice to them? They're a bunch of thugs anyway.

What you all in the media need to be doing - to have been doing - is kicking them in the *** and tell them to behave. Get started.

[rhbrandon]

No guts, no glory.

You didn't have any guts 12 years ago (and, frankly, looking at how the media is covering the incoming Democratic majorities in Congress, none now).

You don't have any glory now.

Want some? Make up for the last 12 years: cover all of the Republican scandals. Will they call you "liberals?" Sure. This country was founded by liberals. All the best things about this country came from liberals.

Republicans haven't accomplished anything of any substance since Teddy Roosevelt, and he would be considered liberal by the likes of Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, and Rush Limbaugh. Who gives a *** what they think? Republicans don't believe in a free press anyway; why be nice to them? They're a bunch of thugs anyway.

What you all in the media need to be doing - to have been doing - is kicking them in the *** and tell them to behave. Get started.

[imaitland]

Let me get this right.

If you don't make pots of money, you are unqualified to advocate free markets?

If you are against big government, then you should stay in the private sector? (So the only people who are permitted to serve in government are those who believe in big government? Ingenious!).

If you have an extramarital affair, you can't vote to impeach a President for perjury? Huh?

You have to have worn a uniform before you are entitled to have an opinion about whether we should go to war? Was F.D.R. a hypocrite for serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and getting us into WWII?

Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay are cut from the same cloth? ...Eyes but you see not!

Newt Gingrich's favorite target was the sexual immorality of Democrats? What a grotesque fib!

Kennedy's "best and the brightest" were great leaders and intellectuals who inspired and motivated one another to extraordinary achievement? That's funny. And I thought David Halberstam coined the term "the best and the brightest" to describe the geniuses who got us mired in the quagmire of Vietnam.

By your own account, you failed us back in 1994. One thing hasn't changed.

Good riddance? I wish.

Oh, and Lucian. Didn't your mother tell you it high time you were in bed?

Ian Maitland

[lktiv]

Meyer missed the thread that connected not only the Republican House leaders, but the Murderers Row that comprised the so-called "House Managers" who ran the impeachment of Bill Clinton:

To a man -- and they were all men -- they evinced enormous resentment of anyone who partook of the freewheeling 60's, instead of sitting it out as they so obviously did, members firmly in hand as they studied old Hoover and Taft speeches in their dusty dorm rooms, while outside demonstrators marched and partook of stuffl like *** and drugs and rock and roll.

Far too little attention has been paid to the pathology that connects the Republican dots of the last 30 years: They're a bunch of angry, ***** men to married the first woman they ever went to bed with, and to whom they found themselves forever bound due to the so-called "values" promoted by their party and themselves.

And one other thing Meyer left out: how much fun it's been to watch these resentful rats go down, one after another, in such obvious, boring ways. Back in '98 when they were frothing at the mouth under the delusion they were crushing Clinton rather than themselves, if you had pitched a novel or a movie with a story that turned out the way this one has, you would have been turned down across the board. No one would have believed that (1) so many of them were so boringly corrupt, or (2) that they would go down in such gloriously appropriate flames.

Lucian K. Truscott IV

Maybe the MEDIA doesn't think it's job is to "call a duck a duck" but JOURNALISTS do. One reason we are still struggling under the catastrophic Bush Administration is because the MEDIA thinks their job is to entertain the American people with a lot of fluff and fantasy and not tell us the truth. Possibly had the MEDIA not gushed over the "Churchillian" qualities of G. W. Bush in his early years his very obvious shortcomings would have sunk in a lot sooner with the American public.

[tinker3478]

Isn't 72 hours up yet?

[nbcnews2]

Please explain why your job isn't to call a duck a duck. Is it because you were afraid of being bullied by the Republicans in power? If so, shame on you. By not exposing the illegal actions of those in power, you abet them.

[tinker3478]

What's really cool is all the lame ducks. Teeheeheeheeeeee!

[buckythepony]

"And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do."

Wrong. So completely wrong. That is exactly what you are meant to do. The press has a special place in - and receives special protections from - our Constitution. There is a reason for that. Have you ever heard the term "Fourth Estate?"

It is precisely the job of the press to "call a duck a duck," as you put it.

Would highly recommend reading Helen Thomas' latest book, "Watchdogs of Democracy." You could learn a few things. Thomas is a great journalist who understands the role of the press in a functioning democracy.