The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Shoring Up

9.12.05 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 7)

Contributing to the problem was the infamous "hippie" era and its "social justice" premise that influenced thinking of many impressionable youngsters. An increasing number of people have believed that government has the responsibility to provide for people, rather than the people providing for themselves. Indoctrinated in the socialist concept, they fail to realize that government demanding 100% of the GDP and redistributing it via government programs is the basic premise of the failed socialist concept of Karl Marx and others. Sweden tried the socialist premise for a time, but quietly abandoned it. And, the few remaining socialist enclaves such as Cuba are hardly examples of socialist economic utopian idealism.
-- Richard B.

THE BEN STEIN ERA
RE: Ben Stein's Get Off His Back, and Reader Mail's The Hurricane Continues, Ben Stein, Bush, and Katrina, Beaming Over Ben, and Ben Stein Held Over:

Thank you so much, Mr. Stein, for being an island of rationality and wit in a sea of ignorant, malicious, and malevolent diatribes.
-- Gary Cooke

As I follow nightly the Reader Mail, patriotic "pro" and the caterwauling "con," I tried to imagine a President John F. Kerry responding to the disaster.

Picture this: Kerry in his psychedelic knee-length Speedo, sliding down that wire from a helicopter to his waiting windsurfer below -- buffeted about by the elements and wash from the chopper blades -- hair oddly in place throughout.

As he clings to -- whatever you cling to as a windsurfer -- sailing swiftly through the sludge past the trapped and abandoned, I hear him shout: "This is worse than the Mekong Delta. I captained a swift boat there when I served in Vietnam, you know. But hang on, folks, Teresa will be along in our yacht any day to get you. Just wipe your feet before you go on board. She cannot abide filth."

Lucky lefties, they didn't get the president they deserved. Move on.
-- Diane Smith
South San Francisco, California

Ben Stein is a bright and intelligent guy. I just don't see where he addresses (really addresses) the issue of the top three positions at FEMA being unskilled for their appointments, bordering on flunkies.

Generally, if you're lucky, having a lackey running a large bureaucratic organization doesn't necessarily wreak havoc unless your luck runs out, like it did in New Orleans. The FEMA appointment was not some ambassadorship that you hand out to a college buddy and hope he doesn't embarrass you some day by passing gas during dinner with the English prime minister. The head of FEMA is just too important for that, especially for a president who made his candidacy all about 9/11.
-- Mitch Jaffe

First off, I cannot believe a person with your credentials would write such nonsense and make such juvenile and babyish arguments.

You have got to be kidding me!...

Let's get to the point at hand. We are blaming Bush for taking five days to get extra help to the Gulf Coast cities that they so desperately needed. As a USMC veteran, I know for a fact there could have been troops in the area hours after the storm hit, NOT days. Your article is absurd. There is only one point that in dispute and that is why it took five days to get the extra help. Not whether he caused the hurricane or that he caused any of your adolescent arguments. Just, WHY did it take him so long?

Before you call me a "Bush-basher," understand this... I, nor any of the unfortunate people of that area, do not care who was president at the time. Whether it was Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, or George W., you would still hear the same outcry from me and the rest of the nation. Why five days? I leave you with this thought. If everything was done as quickly and efficiently as possible, why is there a need to investigate the administration for doing the best they could?

One angered American that will NOT "Get Off His Back,"
-- Steve Feeser

Ben Stein is so off.... Michael Brown who?
-- Adam Biesk
Los Angeles, California

Letter to the Editor

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