Letter #2 is one of the greatest “letters of the day” ever, and kudos to the Strib letters editor for letting it run, and highlighting it.

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11 Comments

  1. A great letter. Let us hope that the newspaper breaks precedent and prints actor Danny Glover’s insight that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by the failure of Copenhagen Summit. I, and other MinnPost readers I am sure, would love to see Lily’s (or someone else’s) satiric take on Glover’s equally inane conclusion.

  2. Phil what do you mean are you Lilly’s long lost identical twin? We want more send lambert to it!!

  3. John – Glover’s conclusion is still less inane. He didn’t say the Haitians were asking for it, and that’s the source of most of the outrage.

  4. I’m not a huge Pat Robertson fan.

    But in your (pl) collective mania for bashing on all things conservative (to say nothing of the Strib’s letters section’s longstanding policy of apparently selecting letters from conservatives that do the philosophy the least credit possible), I’d like to point out that y’all are ignorant of a piece of Haitian history that gives some context, if not sense, to Robertson’s remarks:

    http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/13/haitis-real-deal-wit.html

    Not that actual context or reason stops the rhetorical anti-conservative feeding frenzy around these parts, but what’s a little chum anong friends? Or sharks?

  5. Mitch:

    I read http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/13/haitis-real-deal-wit.html. Thank you. It was well written and informative. However, it doesn’t add any sense or context to Robertson’s claim that a deal was made with Satan himself, or the acccusation that the country – including defenseless children – is now rightfully paying for it more than a century later. The link makes it clear that, with complicity from corrupt and/or desparate leaders, the world community, including the U.S., has profiteered Haiti to it’s destruction. Who’s the devil? Careful, Mitch. This is not the usual right-left pissing contest here. Robertson needs to be called out by everyone.

  6. Lilly Coyle appears to be a talented writer, and I hope we get to see more of her work.

    How does Mr Berg assume that others are “ignorant” of Haiti’s history, or that they would need to go to boingboing to get an accurate description of it? Berg says he is not a “huge” fan of Robertson. Does Mr Berg excuse Robertson’s grinding malevolence in this matter?

    We see here more of the baseless but widespread rant that the media is dominated by “liberals”. There is a reason why reporters tend to be a little more liberal than average, and that is that reporters as a group are a little closer to the facts of the world. But reporters are almost always dependent for income on media management and owners who are definitely not liberals. When the biggest media conglomerate in America is an obvious right-wing propaganda machine, how can anyone get away with the ludicrous claim that “the media are liberal”?

  7. Maggie Koerth-Baker’s BoingBoing post ends with the words “So, in a way, maybe Robertson is right. Haiti is caught in a deal with the devil, and the devil is us.”

    I think she would be disappointed that you would use her clearly sarcastic words to defend Robertson’s idiocy. This is one example where understanding the context does not mitigate what he said — it only makes it more clear that he is blaming the victim.

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