ASTONISHING COLOR
Re: Bill Croke’s Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West:
Thanks to Bill Croke for the portrait of one of America’s most
colorful characters, Wm. Frederick Cody, whose partially
Buntline-conjured story I loved as a child (there was some
authentic heroism in Cody’s early years as well). I sometimes think
of Buffalo Bill’s 1917 death in Denver as a sort of historical
marker: My father was born only five months later in Kansas. My
maternal grandmother lived in a North Platte, Nebraska, house
rented from the Plainsman himself; she remembered him riding
horseback into town with his long yellow mane billowing from under
his hat. (For that matter, my paternal grandmother remembered an
on-the-run Frank James staying overnight at her house in Kansas.)
Just another reminder of what an astonishing, breathtaking span the
last century was.
— K. E. Grubbs Jr.
Irvine, CA
FRISKY DEMS
re: The Washington Prowler’s McAuliffe
Frisks Frist:
Is there any sentient voter left in the U.S. who actually
believes the Democrat Party has remaining any heart or soul, much
less a message — or that they give two hoots about the health,
welfare, and security of this country?
Rather than constructively using the Lott fiasco to bring
Americans together, lacking any direction or message they’ve become
divisive, destructive, infantile muck hunters. To wit, the Democrat
National Committee staffer saying of Sen. Frist, “… we’re certain
there is stuff in his past we’ll be able to dig up.”
The December 24 New York Times says it even more
bluntly on a page 1 lead: “Democrats around the country say the
replacement of Trent Lott with Bill Frist as Senate Republican
leader greatly complicates their task of taking advantage of the
racial furor sparked by Mr. Lott as they try to reassert themselves
in a town dominated by Republicans.”
When will more voters really throw the bums out?
— C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton, WV
I would appreciate some clarity. According to Sen. Frist and other
sources he had no part of “running” HCA. No doubt he had a
financial stake (I’m guessing that he helped finance it, although
it was started before he was out of Medical School). We need to
have clarity to protect him (if he deserves it). You know that you
will be quoted.
— Nancy Heil
State College, PA
The Prowler replies: It’s true that
Frist did not found HCA, but he has played a role in it over the
years. His brother is a founding partner. For obvious reasons,
given Frist’s work at Vanderbilt and elsewhere, he could not have
direct ties to the company. But the reality is that Frist will be
tied to HCA no matter what. You saw it occurring just this past
week with the settlement between HCA and the federal government.
Whether one likes it or not, Democrats will find a way to tie the
two together.
KERRY OUT
Re: Jed Babbin’s Who
Is John Kerry?
Don’t sweat Kerry…Hillary’s gonna whisper in his ear: “Get
lost, you putz, I’m running.” She’s too power happy and greedy to
wait until 2008.
Happy Holidays.
— Pete Brittain
Sandpoint, Idaho
Fine. But will the Republicans drum that message, quote Kerry’s
un-American Senate testimony and actually call him an unfit
military leader? No, I think not. As we have seen repeatedly,
Republicans neither defend themselves against lies nor do they
expose their opponents as un-American and left-wing liberals. The
only time they attack opponents and defend themselves is against
other Republicans in the primaries.
— Peter Gualtieri
Whenever I read anything about John F. Kerry, I can’t help but
think about another genuine American Hero who shed his blood for
our country. General Benedict Arnold, opportunist
extraordinaire….
— Dick Lambert
Jed Babbin replies: Yes, the
protesters did help the enemy in Vietnam, but I still don’t
classify Kerry as a traitor. Those — like Hanoi Jane then, and
Baghdad Jim McDermott today — are indeed traitors who should be
treated as such. Kerry, for all his foolishness, didn’t sink to
that level.
COKE BUFFETT
Re: Michael Craig’s Coke’s
Newest Flavor:
Just another example of executives in large corporations doing
whatever it takes to save their own skins and keep their huge
salaries. Michael Craig got it exactly right, Coke is not a go-go
company anymore, and hasn’t been for a while. and someone should
write an entire column on Warren Buffett. Again, Craig got it
right, Buffett is definitely not a friend.
— Mike Webster
Dallas, TX
My problem with the issue of “Earnings Guidance” has little to do
with Coca-Cola’s disclosures and more to do with how this
information is used by the market manipulators on Wall Street and
how the various reporting companies are forced to react to it.
The brokerage industry (market manipulator) hypes the
information and the companies either “manage” their earnings
guidance or outright “fudge” the numbers top cover their butts.
The brokerage industry has somehow pre-ordained earnings
guidance as the “Be all to end all” to support stock valuations.
The resulting frenzy that occurs when targets are missed or
exceeded causes great volatility and usually has little to do with
the fundamental values. This, in turn, gives the stock market the
aura of a casino and is very unnerving to so-called “buy and hold”
investors, who are conservative by nature.
I think that is the crux of the whole problem and why people
like me stay out of the market altogether.
— Jerome J. Brick
Beaver Dam, AZ
Michael Craig replies:
I support the decision of any investor who stays out of the market
for any reason, especially if they think it’s a rigged game. (My
problem is with the whiners who complain about the crooked markets
and continue to invest.) Mr. Brick’s fears, whether founded or not,
are what’s making it tougher for me and the other 50 million or so
Americans who are in the market. Every buck on the sidelines means
that much less liquidity, that much less efficiency.
That’s why, as much as I believe in the market working these
things out on its own, the government has to step up to the plate
here. We need someone telling us not that the market’s safe — if
McDonald’s can lose money, then any company can — but that we can
take the information out there at face value.
I don’t even think the Feds have to do very much. The way to win
the hearts and minds of American voters on financial issues is to
convince them of this and do those few things to give
investors a fair shot at making money.
Most important, investors have to be smarter themselves. Just
because Merrill Lynch tells us Cisco is going to the moon doesn’t
mean we have to believe it, especially because not 1 in 1,000 of us
actually reads what Merrill Lynch’s analyst wrote and 1,000 of
1,000 should know without Eliot Spitzer telling them that the
analyst’s opinion was the grease to get Cisco to do business with
Merrill. In fact, once the Cokes of the world stop giving guidance,
investors should do more than rely on those actual earnings
numbers. The earnings number is manipulated incredibly easily.
I believe, in most cases, the accurate information is available,
right from the horse’s mouth. Most investors have been,
unfortunately, getting it from another source or from the wrong end
of the animal.
RACIST RIOTS
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Byrd
Most Foul:
I assume this column is a response in kind for what happened to
Lott. Funny thing is that, with few exceptions, Democrats just sat
on the sidelines and watched the fun. At first, the press largely
ignored the birthday party good old boy platitude . The issue went
ballistic when the insufferably moralistically pure Neocons and
Blogocons stampeded for the windows and doors. Even now they are in
a cat fight over who has senior bragging rights as the first to
throw Lott’s head to the race war lords. Democrats have trained us
so very well. Ring the pavlovian race bell and watch us cannibalize
each other. Well, we are all racists now, thank you.
Poor Senator Frist (aka The Cat Killer). Daschle and all the
usual suspects are going to have a lot of fun with him. You
wouldn’t expect a pro sports team to make a greenhorn coach the
head coach. Apparently even the senior Republican senators want to
get in on the fun of having their way with the newbie!
As a southern I’m embarrassed by the picture of Senator Byrd as
one of our Confederate generals. He looks more like Roy Rogers’
side kick Gabby Hayes than one of our brilliant generals who fought
in the War of Northern Aggression. Of course, if the South had won
the war, we would have all — whoops! Never mind. Someone in the
DOJ or DOD might be monitoring your subversive website and report
me to the PC thought police.
Season’s Greetings
— P.T. Garrett
Great article about Sen. Byrd. I don’t think we’re going to see
Rather, Russert, Couric, Clintons etc. getting too upset about
this. They know they need this egomaniac to keep the margin close
in the Senate. Translation: he (Byrd) may be a racist — but he’s
our racist.
— Don Smith
Now that Senator Bob Byrd’s membership in the KKK is on the front
burner it might be worth finding out exactly when he was a member
of the organization and determine if there were any lynchings in
his state during that time. If so, maybe the question ought to be
raised if he was present at any lynchings.
— Dick Melville
Ozone Park, NY
HEALING IMPAIRED
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Born
to Lose:
R. Emmett Tyrrell’s recent column mentioned Christian Science as
a somewhat more salutory doctrine than liberalism today. May I note
Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Yvonne von Fettweis,
has some excellent, documented healings by the founder of Christian
Science. It would very likely be beneficial for Mr. Tyrrell to look
into it.
— Jim Smith
