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Comments - Week of June 29, 2009  

1. In her short tenure as New York's junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand has been something of a political kickball, as Stephen Rodrick notes in his profile of her ("The Reintroduction of Kirsten Gillibrand," June 15-22). That only continued in the nymag.com comments section, where antagonists antagonized and supporters supported, if a little more tepidly. Readers expressed their doubts about, among other things, her political sincerity. "It's obvious she's hardworking, diligent, and ambitious," said one critic. "It's equally obvious that she doesn't have much in the way of core values." Not so harsh, but try this: "If you think that her work for Big Tobacco should not count against her, then you probably think that none of the 'Good Germans' should have been found guilty at Nuremberg." The kinder comments tended to be like this: "Long on personality, short on policy, but a person would have to be a fool not to recognize Kirsten Gillibrand as a formidable force in future politics." Some simply thought Gillibrand deserves a break: "The fact is she represented an upstate district that rarely backed a Democrat. She helped turn it blue, and now she's adapting to representing an entire state." Another spoke to her personableness: "Let her opponents dream about notional ads about guns, immigration, and work she did long ago in private practice. She will be working on the No. 1 issue--the economy, stupid--and meeting more voters every weekend, winning the vast majority of them over."

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