The American Spectator

Reader Mail

ROUND TWO
I am glad you are back. Just glancing at the article titles and authors, for the first time, on this website, I clicked on "Add to Favorites." Good Luck.
-- John Macchia

This is the second week I believe, I can say that I've visited several times, I'm so glad to see this type of site back, I'm doing double cartwheels, and I'm too out of shape to keep that up. Thanks folk for a great site.
-- George Roper

Glad you're on the net. Look forward to your views.
-- G. Lloyd
Charlottesville, VA

Welcome back. I'm just now realizing what I missed from your earlier web pub -- you remain on target and perceptive. Thanks.
-- Robert L. Taylor
Birmingham, AL

I miss the old magazine, but it looks like I've found a replacement in the "Prowler." Thanks Again, I already check it every day!
-- Vernon Rocco
Freeland, MD

Thanks for regrouping. Even up here in the Great White North you were missed!
-- Nick Chadwick
Moose Creek, Ontario

What a refreshing addition to online media sites. Lucianne.com is a several times a day habit, and now you will be, also. .. All is well now that my familiar scribes and curmudgeons are available at TheAmericanProwler.org.
-- Linda Culbertson

Just found you. EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-- Alan Walton

Love it! Just keep on keepin' on! Keep Smiling,
-- Andy B.

Appreciate your new site, a welcome addition to the web. Please continue the fight to bring honest reporting and conservative opinion to the American people.
-- Patrick McDonough

Good to see you back! Congratulations.
-- Ed Maciula

Glad to have you back. "The Weekly Standard" and "National Review" are good stuff but lack your always on target rapier wit and poison pen. Expectantly,
-- Robert C. Royce, Esq.

Due to financial reverses I haven't been able to get my news stand magazine fix of the "American Spectator" and other magazines, so when the online site went away I was almost despondent. Ever since I read the line ".... and his lovely wife Bruno," I have been an addicted fan. Of course I realize your crack staff of writers will constantly scoop the competition and keep the citizens informed, but it was the sinking of the verbal bodkin into the enflamed kidney of the leftists that made my day.
-- Douglas Chandler

I liked the "American Spectator" and am so happy to be able to get some news to offset the horrible biased garbage the regular news media passes out.
-- B. Knight

Thanx for giving us the opportunity of tasting the delicious prose of Wlady and R. Emmett again! Bon appetit to all.
-- A. Robinson
Buchanan, TN

Welcome back. I've missed that conservatism with an edge without whining outraged indignation. Refreshing indeed.
-- [unsigned]

BTW, I am here because Howard Kurtz mentioned [your site], so be nice to him.
-- Patrick McGuinness
Austin, Texas

It's good to have you guys back; we need to stay alert and watch out for a new Bill Clinton. Eight years of him is a lifetime for anyone. We need your voice to point out what the major media is covering up for the Democrats.
-- Bill Schafer
Edgewood, MD

Thank you for all you're doing. Your website is a wonderful political deep-thought resource. Keep up the good work!
-- Barry Mann

Thank God you're back -- life was really meaningless there for about a year.
-- Mark Stoffel

MISSING PERSONS
Please bring back "Ben Stein's Diary." Ben is a rarity in columnists these days: he is both optimistic and grateful. Being grateful to others for their help and for what you have is a rare thing these days. It is extremely rare in media people of all stripes. His remembrances of his parents are beautiful and his recounting of his father's last days were heartrending.

Can we at least get "Ask Ben Stein" back?

Grateful for any Ben Stein you can give us,
-- John Clark

Joe Conason -- I can't believe he still spews his DNC marching papers. How come we don't know anything about this guy? I'd love to see the "Prowler" do an expose on Joe. Or at least some pithy analysis. I mean, why is this guy still employed?
-- Mike Baron

BLOG ON
In "Is the Web Driving Us Nuts?" Wlady Pleszczynski writes:

"[H]ow long is anything said by a so-called "blogger" ... to remain valid?

"'The Weekly Standard' this week posted a definitive parody of run-amok blogging and the wacky back and forths and cross-linking and self-referentiality and full immersion in the increasingly ephemeral that the genre inspires. In this climate, it seems, nothing lasting can be said, nor even anything remotely serious."

This from a veteran of a medium that is notoriously used to line
birdcages.

Is Mr. Pleszczynski willing to bear the test he imposes on Josh Marshall? Let us examine his first published impressions of George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and maybe one or two others, and demand that he either stand by them or admit he cannot remotely be taken seriously.
-- Fritz Anderson
Chicago, Illinois

Loved the article but am amazed you did not reference Glenn Reynolds's InstaPundit blog. Far and away the best pure blog out there.
-- Mike Daley

SAFETY IN WEAKNESS
Thanks for Reid Collins's common sense article "What Would Have Worked." Unfortunately, Americans don't have much regard for common sense any more, thus the author's solution will be roundly ignored, if not laughed at. Today's Americans have joined their English-speaking brethren around the world in holding to the ridiculous principle, "The more helpless we are the safer we are."
-- Keith Collins
Cody, WY

MUSTANG SILLY
Mr. Shiflett may need some remedial geography lessons, and perhaps history lessons as well. In "Check, Please" he says: "Enron, as most readers know, was a Texas-based house of ill repute, much like the Mustang Ranch in nearby Nevada but without meaningful state oversight or lasting financial stability." While his simile is colorful, and conveys a certain meaning, it is quite wrong in geographical terms and perhaps a bit misleading in historical terms.

Geographically, few would consider Houston, Texas, and Reno, Nevada nearby.

Historically, the Mustang Ranch has been closed since 1999 when the Federal Government (IRS) took it over in an income tax case.
-- Warren Stewart

Dave Shiflett replies: As a former westerner, I can assure readers that anything within 3-4 states is thought of as in the neighborhood.

RENO EVIL
"'At least I have a track record of proving that it doesn't affect my work ability,' she said," according to Washington Prowler.

I've long wondered: What, exactly, is her work ability? To look the other way? Seriously, I can't think of a lasting positive thing Janet Reno did in the eight years she "served" as attorney general. Can you?
-- William M. Macfadyen
Santa Barbara, CA

MARRY ME
I enjoyed the wit of Messrs. Mason and Felder in their article "The Pope and Jewish Lawyers," but I must throw some cold water on the spirit of their argument. First, I would say that I have not read the Pope's edict regarding the lawyers use of their profession for "an end that is contrary to justice, like divorce," therefore, I would not even try to interpret or characterize the Pope's statements, but we should all be aware of the cost of divorce.

Weddings, though ritualistic by nature, are replete with meaning and substance. Should anyone take casually vows made before God and man with the caveat "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder"? The responsibility of marriage is upon the man and woman, there is no question, but spiritual leaders have both an interest and a biblical mandate to shepherd the flock. The Bible declares that God hates divorce (Mal. 2:16), I believe, because He knows the high cost it imposes on humanity. In my opinion, it is from there that all pastors, as voiced by the Pope, have, in fact, a vested interest in "marriage and divorce."...

The blight of divorce spoils all it touches. I would be the first to agree that there are some instances which there really is no alternative, but in reality that is not what we are talking about here. The casual approach to marriage and divorce has waged a high toll, however. It can be seen in the ruined lives of men, women, and their children. We should all be concerned, including the lawyers.
-- Brian Prunty

I'm not a Catholic, but I don't think the Pope's proclamation represents any kind of breach between Church and the State. He did exactly what the Church is supposed to do, set a standard and apply church discipline to those who don't follow the rules. The state is not involved at all. If the state wants divorce available, it can certainly have it without the participation of the faithful.
-- Hunter Baker
Jonesboro, GA

"We pride ourselves on having a separation between church and state. Even in countries that do not have this absolute prohibition, governments -- outside of totalitarian states -- do not attempt to pass laws that affect church practices. Yet this is exactly what the Pope now attempts. He attempts to affect the business of the state by a declaration of church law."

Nice try, but you've got it backwards. The Pope is pronouncing on an institution whose origins are prior to the State (Genesis 2:24). The covenant between husband and wife before God precedes the establishment of any and all governments. The Mosaic marriage laws in Deuteronomy are religious, not secular. The pronouncements by Jesus in Matthew 5:31, Mark 10:3-9, and Luke 16:18 forbid divorce for virtually any reason, and claim that to marry a divorced person constitutes adultery. Therefore, the Pope is, as always, telling us to do what we are commanded by God to do. The Church yields jurisdiction to the State only those aspects of a broken marriage -- property distribution and child custody and care -- which properly fall to the State. He takes that "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder" stuff very seriously.

Unfortunately, a lot of Catholics also don't understand this about the Catholic Church. We don't get a vote on this stuff. We're an orthodox religion and the Pope is defending the teachings he inherited. That's his job. The Pope will never cede to the State on matters such as divorce, contraception, abortion, and extra-marital relations (whether hetero- or homosexual). We're free to ignore him, but he's not out of line. The Church's position is that the State has no business undermining traditional Judaeo-Christian morality.

By the way, all priests are born into married families, most are heterosexual, and all hear more about marriages in the confessional than most of us would ever care to hear. They get all the complaints and none of the good stuff.
-- Dennis DiMuzio
Cincinnati, OH

I'm a Jackie Mason fan, but "The Pope and Jewish Lawyers" was not funny. Criticizing religious beliefs never is.

And criticizing a defense of marriage on a "conservative" site just doesn't make sense. The jury is still out on "The Prowler".
-- W.R. Watts
Crockett, VA

topics:
Bill Clinton, Business, Religion, Abortion, Law, Conservatism, Oil