Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________DR. JEKYLL AND MR. STARR BY GARY KAMIYA (11/20/98)

It is ironic that an article accusing Ken Starr of partisan zealotry also exhibits its own zealotry. While characterizing Starr as being oblivious to his bias, is Gary Kamiya simultaneously oblivious to his own bias?
Starr may be marked with the Scarlet "C" for "conservative," but if he had been a liberal investigating a conservative president, would Kamiya vilify him all the same? I have a difficult time imagining it. The question, of course, is not whether a judge or "quasi-judge" (as Kamiya calls Starr's role) has his own views; the question is if the evidence gathered is relevant to this case. Is the president so beyond defending that his defenders must resort to the only tactic left -- kill the messenger? Why the ad hominem tactics? Despite all its gory detail, perhaps the Starr report does have some relevancy after all.
While reading through the transcripts and seeing Starr's testimony, I find that Starr the person is much different from Starr the media creation. Perhaps it is the fact that Starr turns out not to be the villain we've been hearing about all these months that prompts Kamiya to attack him so vigorously in attempts to keep the image of the villain alive. Whereas I too was caught up in the mass hysteria of outrage over the Starr Report and viewing Starr as the new Joe MacCarthy, now, after hearing the man finally speak to the public, I find that it may be time to exercise some fairness and realize that we all might have been too quick to judge.
-- Boris Chen
I've read Salon almost every weekday since you began. What drew me to the site as my homepage away from my homepage was the irreverent, hip articles and columns from interesting writers, and the mélange of different political ideologies and cultural aesthetics.
Sadly, ever since the First Penis became the subject of national discourse, Salon has been overrun by a tendency to run a one-sided campaign against the Clintonistas.
I've been reading the transcripts of Starr's testimony online, and I found Gary Kamiya's lack of insight and analysis disappointing. In politics, at least on this issue, Salon seems to have become so steeped in a Democratic atmosphere where revulsion at Starr goes without saying, that an unbiased, thoughtful analysis of the hearings and testimonies are impossible.
-- Gib Wallis

_______________MEDIA CIRCUS BY SUSAN LEHMAN (11/19/98)

Though it would indeed be pretty to think of a New Yorker magazine where the sex and name recognition of contributors was irrelevant, I must respond to the assertion that when Tina Brown became the editor, name and male writers were favored.
My first fiction in print appeared in the New Yorker in January 1993. It was taken off the slush pile in August 1992 by Dan Menaker, who decided to wait for Robert Gottlieb to leave and Tina Brown to arrive before officially accepting the story. "Let's let her discover you," he said.
I hasten to report that I have had no luck placing any other stories there since Mr. Buford took over the department, but I have had all sorts of semi-encouraging communications over the years, most recently a request out of the blue from a fiction editor there who wanted to see some new stories, though she subsequently turned them all down.
I, for one, am encouraged by the direction David Remnick seems to be taking the magazine, and I have hopes that the fiction department will be broadening its mandate in the coming months.
It would be wonderful if the New Yorker ran two stories a week instead of one, but it will probably never happen again on a regular basis. Other publications fill the gap, to a degree. Story runs the kind of writing that used to appear in the New Yorker, for example, though it's a quarterly.
-- Katharine Weber
N E X T+P A G E+| Second thoughts on Sallie Tisdale's "modest proposal"

_______________DR. JEKYLL AND MR. STARR BY GARY KAMIYA (11/20/98)
	It is ironic that an article accusing Ken Starr of partisan zealotry also exhibits its own zealotry. While characterizing Starr as being oblivious to his bias, is Gary Kamiya simultaneously oblivious to his own bias? Starr may be marked with the Scarlet "C" for "conservative," but if he had been a liberal investigating a conservative president, would Kamiya vilify him all the same? I have a difficult time imagining it. The question, of course, is not whether a judge or "quasi-judge" (as Kamiya calls Starr's role) has his own views; the question is if the evidence gathered is relevant to this case. Is the president so beyond defending that his defenders must resort to the only tactic left -- kill the messenger? Why the ad hominem tactics? Despite all its gory detail, perhaps the Starr report does have some relevancy after all. While reading through the transcripts and seeing Starr's testimony, I find that Starr the person is much different from Starr the media creation. Perhaps it is the fact that Starr turns out not to be the villain we've been hearing about all these months that prompts Kamiya to attack him so vigorously in attempts to keep the image of the villain alive. Whereas I too was caught up in the mass hysteria of outrage over the Starr Report and viewing Starr as the new Joe MacCarthy, now, after hearing the man finally speak to the public, I find that it may be time to exercise some fairness and realize that we all might have been too quick to judge. -- Boris Chen I've read Salon almost every weekday since you began. What drew me to the site as my homepage away from my homepage was the irreverent, hip articles and columns from interesting writers, and the mélange of different political ideologies and cultural aesthetics. Sadly, ever since the First Penis became the subject of national discourse, Salon has been overrun by a tendency to run a one-sided campaign against the Clintonistas. I've been reading the transcripts of Starr's testimony online, and I found Gary Kamiya's lack of insight and analysis disappointing. In politics, at least on this issue, Salon seems to have become so steeped in a Democratic atmosphere where revulsion at Starr goes without saying, that an unbiased, thoughtful analysis of the hearings and testimonies are impossible. -- Gib Wallis
_______________MEDIA CIRCUS BY SUSAN LEHMAN (11/19/98)
	Though it would indeed be pretty to think of a New Yorker magazine where the sex and name recognition of contributors was irrelevant, I must respond to the assertion that when Tina Brown became the editor, name and male writers were favored. My first fiction in print appeared in the New Yorker in January 1993. It was taken off the slush pile in August 1992 by Dan Menaker, who decided to wait for Robert Gottlieb to leave and Tina Brown to arrive before officially accepting the story. "Let's let her discover you," he said. I hasten to report that I have had no luck placing any other stories there since Mr. Buford took over the department, but I have had all sorts of semi-encouraging communications over the years, most recently a request out of the blue from a fiction editor there who wanted to see some new stories, though she subsequently turned them all down. I, for one, am encouraged by the direction David Remnick seems to be taking the magazine, and I have hopes that the fiction department will be broadening its mandate in the coming months. It would be wonderful if the New Yorker ran two stories a week instead of one, but it will probably never happen again on a regular basis. Other publications fill the gap, to a degree. Story runs the kind of writing that used to appear in the New Yorker, for example, though it's a quarterly. -- Katharine Weber N E X T+P A G E+\| Second thoughts on Sallie Tisdale's "modest proposal"