On Wed, 21 Feb 1996, Declan McCullagh wrote:
You seem to be unduly critical of my report. *shrug* I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I suppose I should be happy that you think I'm "95% right," whatever that means.
No, you shouldn't care what I think. You should care about being right. Which I think you are, at least 95% of the time. But calling for Chiluba's ouster after a couple hours' reading is a little hasty IMO. I'd have stopped at something like, "Chiluba again showed his lack of respect for democratic institutions and the free press by censoring the newspaper reproduced below. He has also been criticized by the US State Department and Amnesty International, though Zambia's record is better than that of many other Sub-Saharan African states, most notably Nigeria, Rwanda, and Burundi (which you might consider small praise indeed)." He's no hero, but I'd reserve the "Get the hell out" rhetoric for complete tyrants who kill people for fun, and tolerate no independent press at all. There's plenty of those around. You'll be taken more seriously (and I think you SHOULD be taken more seriously) if you don't overreact. -rich