Yale Daily News

You keep shoveling this garbage about how Obama is all about empty slogans. Everybody knows that slogans are generally meaningless (e.g. "Country First"). They are inspirational, but what reason do you have to believe that those who adhere to them are necessarily impotent? Obama supporters have not just spent the last year chanting slogans; they've been doing hard work getting Obama's message out there--and, again, this does not simply involve going door-to-door shouting "Yes, we can" at people. It involves explaining policies. This inspiration has led to action, not in the name of a name, or some empty signifiers, but of a program for change.

What's ridiculous is your steadfast unwillingness to acknowledge that Obama has policy proposals. He wants to change health care, change environmental policy, pull us out of Iraq, raise taxes on people making over $250,000 per year. His backers, at least those who are most enthusiastic about him, agree with these policies. They want to see them put into effect. The real obstacle is how much opposition the Republican minority will put up. After the Democrats took control in 2006 the Republicans set a record for filibustering a two-year session in just one year. Now it is quite likely they will fight whatever Obama proposes. The Republican motto is "Status Quo." You're very eager to blame Obama for eventually failing to make change happen--but be honest about the causes of why it might not. You don't want it to. The Republicans don't want it to. Obama needs to be effective at persuading them, and his history shows that he will do so through compromise. If even this isn't enough to get things done, it will be disappointing, but it would be way too simple-minded to chalk such a failure up to ideological emptiness.

You're a Republican--you have a platform (as Sarah Palin told Charles Dobson, it has very solid planks in it). Instead of engaging in overwrought conceits that are far flung from any specifics of the day, why don't you just debate actual issues? I would say I'm surprised to see someone accuse another of empty, uh, "verbage" while writing such an abstract piece of fluff, but then such hypocrisy is just what I've come to expect from Republicans.

Excellent column Peter.

The above comment only proves your point.

The program of Obama is not change- that is the platitude spouted.

Obama brings no change- only the Democratic party line, which he is towing behind him.

Just wait until he unearths the usual Democratic retreds for his cabinet.

Jimmy Carter 2.0

The Black George W. Bush.

The Gen X FDR.

Disaster has struck- let's hope there are enough people to resist

Peter, your columns would be better if your writing was snappier. Be kind to us! I have a hard time understanding you a lot of time because you load down your sentences with three phrases instead of kicking away the two bad ones. Be short and quick. Don't describe when you don't have to. An example:

What is one to think the morning after? The passion that reached its climax the night before, giving way to a hazy afterglow and eventually sleep, is now cold and distant. Think about it long enough and the stirrings of desire return, but not in the same way.

A change: What is one to think the morning after? The mid-night passion has faded into a hazy afterglow. Think about it long enough and the stirrings of desire return--but not in the same way.

This is just a suggestion. It's up to you to perfect your own writing, and also to show the reader why such descriptions are important in the first place (I am unsure if the first two paragraphs are, as your column stands). I do have other problems with this column, but this general trend is most important and even helps you answer your own questions. Clear writing is more important than anything. You are never going to change people's minds by sending out fog. Part of what makes Obama so appealing to Americans is that he knows the English language--and how to use it far beyond the hollow slogan of 'change.'

What's with the sexual metaphors? A little heavy-handed and unnecessary.

Precisely, the iceberg of disaster has struck, though we could have seen it coming and we could have prepared better — in the form of 28 years of Republican-led neocon and neoliberal orthodoxy. You might have noticed that a majority of the country feels that the government is not doing enough to protect them. Sure, it's willing to fight foreign wars, but at home — forget about it. Let Katrina sink, deregulate everything (except when small businesses want to do something that might threaten corporate businesses, like voluntary testing of all cattle for BSF: then they regulate that away).

It's excellent! Look how great the country's doing! We have extremely rich people doing extremely well — and we can all live in myth-land, where nonrenewable resources never run out, global warming doesn't pose any threat whatsoever, and charity is more important than wide-spread suffering.

You lost the election. Deal with it. Might as well follow Bush and Rove in pretending that everyone voted because it was "historic"; that way you can pretend that it wasn't actually a rejection of a corrupt ideology. Or, like conservatives of many stripes before you, you can watch from the stern, so that if the ship goes under, you'll be the last one to remain afloat.

omg sexiest pj column EVER

Dear Mr. Johnston,
I wouldn't take anyone who goes by the name of "Velvet Fog" too seriously, especially when his or her anonymous comment ends with a snide, stereotyping remark about Republicans being collectively hypocritical (what childish name-calling from one who refuses to give a name). To address this person's remark very briefly, though, I would say:
(1) beware, my dear Fog! All general statements are false;
(2) a president is supposed to talk about the issues at hand, while an opinion columnist (for a college daily) can write about whatever he darn well pleases;
(3) a vote for a candidate is not a mandate for his every policy (surely you've heard of the single-issue voter?); and
(4) you shouldn't be so quick to wish to stifle dissent just to achieve an unexamined promise of change (or to assume that discussion & compromise would diminish that change's effectiveness or lasting power). I've found that people become more thoughtful and their ideas more compelling when they are challenged on them. While President-Elect Obama has specific policy proposals, no one yet (perhaps not even he) knows what he actually will do as President (especially in as of yet unforeseen circumstances); neither he nor his policies have been put to the test.

And so Mr. Johnston's article quite aptly puts the question to Obama and his supporters: what will come next? Really, Fog, there's no need to get defensive (and in turn attack Mr. Johnston's article).

Now, finally, I get to the one point of contention I bear against this article and its author: Mr. Johnston, was the particular conceit you chose REALLY necessary for the sake of your arguments? The strain produced by this choice of metaphor on my sensibility and sense of propriety was such that I was completely distracted from the sentiments therein expressed. I don't know if the extended suggestion was inspired by recent experience (say, Whitman's erotic passages in "Song of Myself" - I think I recognized the "hazy afterglow"?) or what, but I must ask you to refrain from debasing your content with such a container in the future.

Best wishes,
Meredith

Meredith--Yeah, I was challenging his ideas. This isn't stifling dissent. It's arguing. I expressly asked him not to shut up, but rather to make clearer arguments. You say it's a good thing to have one's ideas challenged, then get perturbed that I would challenge Peter's. Most of all, I was challenging how he presents his ideas abstractly rather than just coming out and stating his beliefs. Of course a columnist can write about whatever he wants. A commenter can also tell him when he's doing a bad job of it and how he can do a better job of making an argument, kind of like how you told him you didn't like his conceit.
Also, it is true that many voters for Obama may have no real connection to his policies (which is why I differentiated between his enthusiastic supporters and just voters), but then Peter appeared to be addressing those enthusiastic supporters.

Why is there so much sexual imagery in this column? I think you'd be a much happier person if you engaged in some "non-imaginary" consummation yourself.