The right strikes back...at me

[thatcrazycajun]

I've had numerous letters printed in newspapers in the various places I've lived, but this is the first time one has generated a published rebuttal. After my letter re the L. Brent Bozell column printed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week (see entry below), Pete Bondesen of Brookhaven, a northern Atlanta neighborhood, was stirred to write in accusing me of being a hypocrite and deliberately distorting facts. His diatribe appears here.

A quick check of the relevant Wikipedia page shows that the conviction of Mel Reynolds was for sex with a 16-year-old. Wikipedia also says "The age of consent varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The median seems to range from fourteen to sixteen years, but laws stating ages as young as twelve and as old as twenty-one do exist" (see here). So it seems to me that this is an arguable "misstatement of fact." He also asserts that former President Bill Clinton was prosecuted for lying under oath, not for his actual sexual misconduct; but this does not obviate the fact that Clinton's head on a platter was being called for by the right long before the sex scandal broke.

My take on the rebuttal is that even if I did make an unintentional error in one or two specifics, the central points of the letter are still valid: that (a) the same standards the GOP insisted on so vehemently for Clinton et al. should be applied uniformly to all politicians, including theirs; and (b) pointing out the opposition's ethical missteps in no way constitutes a valid defense of your own. And it seems to me that I'm not the one guilty of deliberate distortions here.

Is this enough for a rebuttal letter of my own to the rebuttal? Or am I missing something? Other opinions welcome.

Comments

[wouldyoueva.livejournal.com]

I don't know that the right wingers really want to hear about the long term conspiracy against Clinton that led to him making the stupid mis-steps that got him impeached. We weren't there, so I think it's a matter of opinion whether it was sexual harrassment or a consensual affair. They'll never admit that it was really about sex, so any letter you could send would be like trying to teach a pig to sing.

They leave out the other half of the 1983 Congressional sex scandal, the one involving Crane and the female page. Hmm, yet Gerry Studds is fair game.

But perhaps a short letter making points a and b would be worthwhile.