LETTER: Shannon has no substance
Published: October 10, 2009
I was taken aback by the rantings of Michael Shannon directed towards Creigh Deeds. While this is no attempt to endorse Mr. Deeds, I do feel the need to defend the man as a human being. Mr.
Shannon rambles about discussing the Washington Post and its support of the candidate and dismisses it as merely a good look at a GPS system.
He follows the first few paragraphs of his diatribe with countless country boy insults and demeaning comments with regard to Mr. Deed’s character and intelligence, all based on the fact that he comes
from Bath County, speaks slowly and has an affection for the more down-to-earth things in life.
The highlight of the wasted space on your opinion page is when he tries to say that Mr. Deed’s story of leaving home with $80 is somehow misguided and incorrect.
He does so by trying, albeit poorly, to say that the money (four twenty-dollar bills) that Mr. Deeds left home with in 1976 would be worth $224 in today’s money. He is imploring the time value of money
and the supposed appreciation of Mr. Deed’s money over the given time period. He does admit that he is no economist and that is blaringly evident. He also says that this shows that Democrats don’t
know anything about money. While I am quite sure that Mr. Deeds was not appealing to the “my-parents-spent-$100,000-to-send-me-to-school-for-six-years-so-that-I-could-graduate-with-an-English-degree-
and-write-on-the-opinion-page crowd,” I have to believe that what he was trying to put across is that expenses are out of hand and we need to get a handle on them.
To call the story “Lame” only goes to accentuate the point that Mr. Shannon has virtually no idea what it is like to embark on an underfunded educational journey in which you don’t know how you’re going
to purchase the next text book or pay your rent in a given month!
That’s the point! Mr. Shannon employs the oldest of GOP tricks, which is to insult a lot of people, to show that he can use the Internet, thus further proving his superiority to Mr. Deeds, and to pepper his
writing with some type of fictional science in an effort to hide the fact that he really has nothing of substance to say.
By the way, four twenty-dollar bills were four twenty-dollar bills in 1976 and are the same four twenty-dollars bills today.
MICHAEL MATTHEWS
Manassas
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Reader Reactions
vmj seems to be quiet on my question to her/him of whether she/he used the term “rambling old man” in a post. Got too close to the clothes wringer—part of the anatomy evidently got caught and wrung off.
“maybe Deeds should have just yelled “You Lie!“ at her. Seems to me, that would have been perfectly acceptable to any Republican now-a-days.“
Ron, or dropped the Dick Cheney F-bomb on her ....
THAT’S showing respect eh? !!
Vmj,
“It’s not the words ‘young lady,‘ it was the ‘dressing her down’ that was offensive.“
maybe Deeds should have just yelled “You Lie!“ at her. Seems to me, that would have been perfectly acceptable to any Republican now-a-days.
“Deeds meant it ‘exactly’ the way he said it, to shut her up…“ Yes, he probably did. So what? Reporters keep asking questions that the candidates keep answering, but when they don’t like the answer they keep hounding them in the hopes that they will change their answer and than they can call them a liar.
It’s too bad for her that he had to spell it out for her by saying, “I think I made myself clear young lady” If she had listened up the first time he wouldn’t have had to say anything.
willow:
I totally agree with you. Maybe he could have called her “old lady” or “bit$ch”—something the Repubs could understand better.
Remember the senior citizen and the restaurant incident where the waitress called the person “honey”. Caused an uproar.
I’ve heard so many of there terms—- all used in good taste—all my life. Guess life was obscene and vulgar speechwise while growing up.
Face it: these people like vmj have nothing else to do but complain. They haven’t had any in such a long time….
vmj:
Wasn’t it you who used the term “rambling old man” in a post?
If it wasn’t you, I apologize. But it was a Republican—like you.
I guess the standards are diffeent when it’s a Republican doing the calling, eh?
It’s not the words ‘young lady,‘ it was the ‘dressing her down’ that was offensive.
“I think I’ve made myself clear young lady.“
Or how about, ‘I think I’ve made myself clear young man’.
Deeds meant it ‘exactly’ the way he said it, to shut her up and if this is how he is under pressure, how is he going to deal with the real pressure as governor of Virginia?
Very telling to me but that’s just my opinion….
And what’s up with McDonnell supporters attacking Deeds for addressing a reporter as “young lady”?
Do they not know that “lady” is a term of respect that is more than a thousand years old. How would they have had him address her? As “reporter person”? Are the producers of this ad actually femi-nazis; determined to remove all reference to gender from the American language? If so, what are they doing in McDonnell’s camp?
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