The American Spectator

Reader Mail

QUESTION TIME
Re: Enemy Central's Fathers and Sons and When All Is Sarandon (Again):

Why is it that the Hollywood lefties (Hoffman, Sarandon, Woodhead Harrelson, etc.) make all their anti-American sentiments known while in London?
-- George O'Neil

Enemy Central replies: Because there they think they're among people who appreciate fine acting.

BORDERLY LOVE
Re: Gene Healy's Don't Militarize the Borders:

I will remind Mr. Gene Healy who wrote the article "Don't Militarize the Borders" that for some fifty years the U.S. Army has been on guard duty at South Korea's border with the North. How is it that for a half century our military has been an effective border guard on the Korean peninsula, yet it would be so terribly ineffective on the U.S. border? The United States suffers the "invasion" of 125,000 illegal immigrants across our southern border every month. This is an attack upon the U.S., and, in effect, it is war.

Let us immediately bring home to the United States the 37,000 effective border guards from Korea and put them on the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
-- Bill Tucker
Ferguson, MO

Gene Healy's "Don't Militarize the Borders" demonstrates a lack of understanding of the problems on our borders. Americans along our southern border are terrorized every day by illegal immigrant criminals while the Bush Administration looks the other way. Simply strengthening the Border Patrol and INS is an idea that has come and gone. Ten years ago it might have been adequate but not now. As Canada has an extremely open immigration policy with Middle Eastern countries, the northern border will have to be watched with greater vigilance too. As Mr. Healy is a shill for the open borders Cato Institute, going to him for advice on border security is like going to George McGovern for advice on defense policy at the height of the Cold War. Immigration Policy and National Security are too important to this country's survival to be left to libertarians who would leave us vulnerable to attack.
-- John Kenney

I agree with your position and would like to add that you didn't mention the flip side of the issue. After you train military people to assume law enforcement duties, they are no longer warriors (soldiers).
-- Bruce Demo
Carlsbad, CA

FREE AT LAST
Re: Francis X. Rocca's Learning to Love the Set:

Our son will be eight this coming May. We had problems with the satellite dish in May 2001. We decided to get rid of it. We have no problems or regrets without TV. We do watch the local news and weather in the morning and our son is allowed about an hour of TV in the morning also.

When my wife was my fiancée she had to have the set on for "background noise." The house was too quite without the set on. Now we find the TV left on annoying.

I'm not sure why I'm responding to your article other than to witness that there is life after the idiot box! Thanks.
-- Howard Wimbrow
Ocean City, MD

GO FINGER
Re: Jeremy Lott's Pounding Ploughshares Into Swords:

Jeremy:

Why is it that people like you believe you are somehow in a better position to describe and categorize what I do and what my staff does than I am or than they are?

I'll never understand that.

I'll also never understand why seemingly intelligent people are so eager to place people in convenient little ideological boxes -- even when those people lifelong journalists who have never sought to run for office, campaign for any candidate, nor even register for a political party.

I'll never understand why I, in particular, and WorldNetDaily, in general, is accused of being pro-Bush. The editor, founder and CEO of the company wrote more than one column explaining before the election that he could never vote for Bush -- even while faced with the terrible choice of a Gore victory as an alternative. You might be interested to know that we get more criticism on the other score -- that we are way too tough on Bush.

But of all the suggestions you made in your very offensive column, the most offensive one to me personally -- someone who, quite frankly, has more journalistic experience and integrity in his little finger than you are likely to accumulate in a lifetime -- is that WND reflects the opposite of the Wall Street Journal, a paper that is, as you suggest, "fair and balanced" in its news presentation and ideological on its editorial page.

It's ridiculous. No. 1, the Wall Street Journal's news pages are as biased as the Washington Post's, the New York Times' and the newscasts of CNN -- and they are biased in the same ways. The Journal is, thus, America's most schizophrenic paper -- socialist in its news pages and capitalist on its editorial pages. It will pay a price for this schizophrenia some day, just as our culture does every day.

WorldNetDaily is run by a man who hates the term "conservative" and fully explains why in great detail in columns and in his new book. Yet you suggest he runs a "conservative" news section.

I kid you not: I would quit what I am doing tomorrow if your perception were reality. Nothing would displease me more. I am not a conservative and I believe every single staffer at WorldNetDaily would agree that I am the moving philosophical and journalistic force at WND. So, tell me, how can that be?

You are seeing the world through your own narrow lens. You break the world down into neat little packages of liberals and conservatives. Good for you. Just don't insult your colleagues because of your own hangups. We don't see the world that way.

Further, if you performed the kind of editing of the magazine you describe in your article, you should seriously consider refunding whatever meager funds we paid you. Obviously you were overpaid. Obviously you stole money for work not really completed honestly and professionally. I am shocked you would make such a confession public. And I am embarrassed that we ever employed you in any way.
-- Joseph Farah

topics:
Hollywood, Law, Military, Immigration