The American Spectator

Reader Mail

A LITTLE LEVITY
Re: Reader Mail's Not in the Mood and Dennis Menaced:

With all due respect, the two "Letters" sections were the best things in Thursday's edition. It was good to see Diane weigh in, but I missed seeing Beverly or Elaine. Seriously, I find the "Letters" section a refreshing combination of passion for issues, and yet a sense of humor and shared appreciation for each other. Well, with the exception of the liberal troll's letters that you publish for reasons of contrast, I suppose. I guess that is why I read the "Letters" section first. That is also why I felt safe in offering a little light hearted banter to Diane on her "spot on" letter, being sure that she would recognize the friendly teasing for what it was.

Well, back to the daily grind.

GEORGE BUSH FOR PRESIDENT -- OF MEXICO!!!
-- Ken Shreve

EXERCISED IN FUTILITY
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell's Not Too Swift:

Jean-Francois Kerry is trying to torpedo the Swift Boat Veterans for one reason and one reason only: he has no prayer in 2008 unless he can get rid of them. Now why he thinks he may have a prayer in 2008 is the real question for the psychiatrist.
-- Andrew J. Macfadyen, M.D.
Omaha, Nebraska

Hateful Tyrrell: Only in America can two tours of duty, three purple hearts, two bronze stars and a Silver Star mean that you are soft and an appeaser. Only in America can a war veteran and POW be snidely put down as psychologically questionable. Only in America can two draft dodgers and conscientious objectors ascend to Commander-In-Chief. And only in America can a dementia-ridden voodoo economist be lauded as a great Commander-In-Chief. C'mon guys, play the ball, not the man. Results matter. Personality does not!
-- Nathan Maskiell
Melbourne, Australia

Spot on, Mr. Tyrrell. Indeed a psychiatrist would offer fascinating insights into the minds of Jean-Francois and his ilk. However, your premise does give short shrift to the hard core political junkies/ hacks that invariably flock to these people. I believe, as you know all to well, that D.C. is full of such sycophants. I submit that Kerry's remarkable hubris in his transformation from war "hero" to war protester and 30 years hence back to war "hero" was not so much the product of fleeting sanity, but rather the machinations and calculations that cynical, dishonest and amoral, take no prisoners, political staffers love to produce. Kerry and his acolytes, like many in Washington, subscribe to a version of the famous aphorism, to wit; "While you can't fool all of the people all of the time, you can fool some of the people ALL of the time." Given the election results of 2004 and the current political sophistry produced by the left, I believe I'm safe in resting my case on the legal concept, Res ipsa loquitur. (It speaks for itself.) Or, more along your premise, as Freud once said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
-- A. DiPentima

I am still waiting for Kerry to release all his "war" records. After all he said he would, but that has been a couple of years and so far nothing. Don't anyone hold their breath, just seems if what he has said was true the records would have been released first thing. The only think Kerry is good at is marrying rich women.
-- Elaine Kyle
Cut & Shoot, Texas

One has only to read Evan Thomas's ELECTION 2004, an account of how he and the Newsweek staffers lap-dogged it around the country licking Kerry's boots, to confirm their suspicions that John Kerry has a serious psychosis.

I am not sure that Thomas meant to, but his "inside insights" into Kerry's foibles indicate an insecure, disturbed human being. From Kerry's tantrum over someone losing his hairbrush to giving unshirted hell to the guy who "caused" him to fall on a ski slope, to the final pathetic ending, where after a post-election interview at his Beacon Hill home in Boston, he followed the reporter down the street, holding a letter "that had just been left on his doorstep" -- purportedly written by a schoolgirl -- which read, in part, "John Kerry, you're the greatest!" This to buttress his claim that he was, indeed, liked. Following a reporter down the street with a missive such as that? What psychiatrist would not have a field day analyzing that pitiful gesture? Brings to mind Sally Field, accepting her Academy Award with "You like me, you really like me!"

And this was the man who was constantly asking, "What am I doing, even having to debate this guy?" Well, trying to get elected, John.

Regarding swift boats: I was told once that they are Boston Whalers. Is that true? If so, I was taught to pilot one (or at least keep it from running into a sandbar) in an afternoon. Of course, this was the gulf waters off Texas, not the swamps of Cambodia. But it was a kind of combat, as all on board (except me) were full of beer and rowdy fishing lies. I kept my wits about me and never thought I had ventured into the Caribbean. That was my sole experience, but it probably equals John Kerry's.
-- Diane Smith
South San Francisco, California

What is it with the Democratic Party? Why are so many of its leaders wacky?

As Emmett Tyrrell shows, John Kerry has so incorporated his delusions of grander into his thinking that the French-looking senator is actively trying to re-shape reality and rewrite history. And this obsession that Jean-Francois and his fellow Democrats have with the Swifties only makes me happier that I contributed to the Swift Boat Veterans during the campaign.

And who hasn't seen displays of serious mental unbalance by Al Gore and screaming Howard Dean? And Hillary, one look at her with those eyes bugging out, and for the sake of Christian charity, you pray that the white coated men with nets come and quietly take her to a padded cell before she harms herself or others.

This concentration of loons and loonettes must a tremendous type of political gravitation force, attracting the likes of John McCain to become a Democrat. How much longer, I wonder, before the senator from Arizona gives in and answers the siren call to join the Party of the Unhinged (POU)? (My prediction? It will happen when McCain is once again denied the GOP presidential nomination.)
-- Peter Skurkiss
Stow, Ohio

I too read the Times article about Kerry once again attempting to "set the record straight" regarding his "Holiday in Cambodia" and other 'heroic' Vietnam exploits. This tells us a few things: The left's continual obsession with Vietnam. You can't watch PBS for a week and not see a Vietnam retrospective. Another is the left's obsession with inconvenient facts: That whatever Kerry or a liberal says, has to be true, because he/they feel it to be true. "Sounds good…go with it."

Third: Kerry's own admission at the "congressional hearings" in which by projection, he attempted to indict other Veterans for what his own military record in Vietnam revealed: the cheap shots that killed the naked teenager behind the hut, shooting up the fisherman's family while out on the skimmer, his filming of his exploits to record what that should have been, rather than what reality was. Finally, his refusal to authorize the release his complete medical file that describes his "war" wounds that led to his receipt of the much disputed and ever paraded Purple Heart medals.

We could talk about the flinging of someone else's citations over the fence of the White House, being "for it before he was against it," and regarding his 2004 presidential defeat: we still don't know WHAT THE PLAN WAS!

Enough said.
-- P. Aaron Jones
Huntington Woods, Michigan

I repeat the question I asked by many Kerry supporters during the last campaign and has never been answered in a satisfying manner.

Why doesn't he engage the services of an attorney and sue for libel? The people who made these charges against him were not lurking in the shadows -- they had names and addresses where they could be served by a court. They were men of some substance -- they had assets that were worth protecting. If I were one of these men I would tell Kerry to either put up or shut up in a forum with a referee and some real cash in the game.
-- Russ Fisher
Royal Oak, Michigan

Superb...
-- T. Fitzgerald
"Charlie Company"
2nd Bn. 18th Infantry
1st Infantry Division
Republic of Viet Nam
Class of 67
"Our Cause Was Just"

Back in August 2004 when I was writing on behalf of the Swift Boat Vets, I wrote in this piece:

Think about this: John Kerry had to know that his fabrications were ultimately unsustainable and that the men he falsely condemned would not remain silent were he to run for the presidency. Yet he has ignored that reality and attempted to build his whole campaign on his wartime service and his questionable awards. It would be interesting to hear what a psychiatrist might conclude from such bifurcated reasoning. Which brings us, unavoidably, to this question:

Does this sound like the kind of judgment we want in a Commander in Chief in this time of terror?

Additionally, in response to a piece I have just written for The American Thinker here, I have received a suggestion from Steve Gardner, whom, you may recall was the enlisted gunner's mate who served on Kerry's boat and who flat-out said Kerry's battle action accounts were so much fiction.

Gardner reminded me that he took a lie detector test, the results of which substantiated his version of events. Mr. Kerry, if he is so adamant that all his detractors are lying, could bolster his position significantly by taking a polygraph examination himself. Or could he?
-- Russ Vaughn

From a purely Algebraic perspective, there is one truism that can never be violated. And that is that the left side of the equation must always equal the right side. Now, having said that, let's use that truism to describe John F. Kerry (incidentally, did you know he served in Vietnam?). In purely mathematical terms, I have developed the following formula to describe what I think of John F. Kerry: On a good day, John F. Kerry is less than or
equal to zero! Enough said.
-- Jim L.
East Sandwich, Massachusetts

Geez, I thought that the date when Kerry said that he was in Cambodia was Christmas of 1968. I still don't see how he could blame Richard Nixon for putting him there at that time. Nixon did not take office until January 20, 1969. By that time, Kerry was home sitting in his first wife's palatial mansion. I see that Kerry still lives in the world of make believe. Why else would he blame the Swift Boat vets for his loss 18 months ago?
-- Stan Brewer
Riverton, West Virginia

Yet, it is still safer for anyone to be downrange of an armed Senator Kerry than to drive with the other Senator from the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts.
-- James Pawlak

KINSLEY TO THE RESCUE
Re: David Hogberg's What Gives With the New Republic?:

I not only used to write for them, I had a cover piece with them. More recently, I contributed to TNROnline. That was until they libeled me, calling me a "pay for play" columnist because my employer accepted a book grant from a company in 1999 and used it for my salary and didn't disclose this in columns that so much as mentioned the company that ran in 2004, 2005, and 2006. I pointed out the lunacy of this in a letter which they thereupon refused to publish. Somebody needs to find a nice beerhall, stage a putsch, and bring back Mike Kinsley!
-- Michael Fumento
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

My theory is that Democrats must do more to get elected than Republicans. Thus if a new interest group popped up that believed its adherents should smear themselves with feces to protest in favor of organic farming, more Democrats than Republicans would start wearing turds as lapel pins.
-- Howard Lohmuller
Seabrook, Texas

NO COMMIE GROCER
Re: Ralph R. Reiland's Freedom's Whole Foods:

Thank you for the information on Whole Foods Market and its freedom-loving CEO, John Mackey. Prior to reading that article I assumed the store was some sanctimonious hypocritical hippie hideaway, a la Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. Now that I know that its CEO is a champion of economic freedom I will make a point to shop there, other things being equal. As for various other union-controlled grocers, well, let's just say I try to stay safely away.
-- R. Trotter

PEDDLING FACTO-LIES
Re: Patrick Hynes's "It's Just a Movie":

It seems to me that when one of the radical socialists like Mr. Gore or Michael Moore come to the conclusion that the audience for their rhetoric is asleep or brain dead from being hammered by with mendacity and tripe, they make a movie. This apparently has the effect of removing what they say from the realm of pure hogwash to the shadowy reaches of what I call "facto-lies." Facto-lies can be described as leftwing dogma. For example, one of last year's facto-lies was a culture of corruption in Republican congressional circles. This reached a crescendo with the indictment of Mr. Abramoff. Then it involved Mr. Reid and then came Mr. Jefferson's $90,000 in the freezer and the facto-lie was revealed for the falsehood it always was.

Thus Mr. Gore's movie. Fact: there is little doubt that the world seems to be warming. Fact: this trend is well within "normal" limits based on past climatic change. Lie: Mr. Gore knows what is causing warming. Lie: Mr. Gore knows how to stop it. But if he puts this claptrap in a movie and designates it as a documentary, that makes everything true. If you doubt me just read the mainstream media. The Palm Beach Pravda recently extolled Mr. Gore's courage and dogged constancy in his environmentalism.

We can only hope Mr. Gore becomes what he loves more than life itself: a tree.
-- Jay W. Molyneaux
Wellington, Florida

SHIP HIM OUT
Re: Quin Hillyer's Hastert La Vista, Baby! :

OK, you're right, but, we had better think this one through, and choose carefully. Given the rancor among House Republicans toward the White House, John Conyers may not even need a Democratic majority to begin impeachment proceedings. Whoever replaces Hastert may become president!

Hey, it could happen.
-- Mike Showalter
Austin, Texas

I've got boxes and packing peanuts if somebody's got a truck and a dolly....
-- Mark Stewart
Jacksonville, Florida

How quickly the wheels have come off since the beheading of the Republican leadership in the House: Majority Whip Tom DeLay. Republicans tried to do the "right thing" when re-writing House rules to abolish the "king-making" power that committee chairmanship had guaranteed in the past. The sad effect of these "motives" was to allow Democrats via the "local-prosecutor at large" to indict for any reason any Conservative that gets results in Congress.

So here we jolly well are. Imagine the outcry that would result if Republicans decided to change the rules now. Since most Conservatives and Republicans are bound by an ethical standard, they are stuck with the lunch they have made, and since it isn't very tasty, the only thing left for them to do is to lead ruthlessly or fold up the tent.

As an automaker once said: "Lead, follow or get out of the way."
-- P. Aaron Jones
Huntington Woods, Michigan

A VOICE IN THE LEFT PEW
Re: Mark Tooley's Fellow Methodist Demands Bush Impeachment:

As a fellow Methodist myself I protest the condescending comments within the piece by Mark Tooley. I may be only one of eight million, but Winkler certainly spoke for me. And thank goodness our church has leaders like him, brave and willing to speak out over the timid, sniping status quo who would like to jeer him into silence.
-- Janet White
Austin, Texas

COOLING NEXT
Re: James Bowman's review of An Inconvenient Truth:

James Bowman has done a wonderful job of exposing the flaws in the global warming debate. Once we slap the global warming tar baby, we will also inherit the "moral imperative" to prevent global cooling. So, does that mean we are going to set fire to the rain forest to combat global cooling?

Al Gore, being from Tennessee, should know better than most: If you don't like the weather, just wait a while.
-- Danny L. Newton
Cookeville, Tennessee

TO THE MOVIES
Re: Jim Bono's letter ("A Tonal Note") in Reader Mail's Menaced Dennis:

Re: A Tonal Note -- Jim Bono's magniloquent, er, apology was it, for seeming to call me flippant? It was I who called myself flippant.

However, the jig is up. I confess to having outlived my loveliness and even though my limited talent (writing) earned me a modest living for a couple of decades -- I will defer to no one in my mastery of flippancy, which has had me in much hotter water than this for most of my long life. I will be seventy-nine in August. Perhaps that will take some of the sting out of the seeming rebuke about "spot on." Just a dotty, nit-picking old lady. Oh, and I have been Mrs. Smith for sixty-plus years, but that's no one's fault but my own. Oops, another flippant remark.

I, too enjoy Readers' Comments, and read all articles (except the movie review) before reading Comments. Haven't seen a movie since African Queen. And don't feel deprived. I have such acute hearing I am sure the multiplex concept would allow me to enjoy all three movies for the price of one. A cacophony rivaling that of the "spot on" dust-up!
-- Diane Smith
South San Francisco, California

SELECTIVE EXPERTISE
Re: Paul Dorell's letter ("Many Chefs in the Kitchen") in Reader Mail's Menaced Dennis:

Paul Dorell has got it wrong. The embarrassing accent to have is that Chicago area accent. It has always grated on me and gives the impression of ignorance even when used by intelligent people (obviously a very small minority in northern Illinois). His backdoor implication that he knows much concerning world history (valuable), cultural anthropology (a field fraught with fraud) and sociology (a field mostly at odds with a careful study of world history) is truly impressive and probably explains his desire to return to the wonderful pre-9/11 world of trying to track down suicide bombers and arrest them instead of making war on those that support them. His study of the 1930s has probably led him to the idea that doing nothing in the face of murder and aggression is just what is called for.

Being a resident of Northern Illinois does make him an expert on political corruption but unfortunately since he is a Democrat he won't share that knowledge in a public forum.
-- Clifton Briner

COOGLER REVIEWS
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s Carter Wins Second Coogler:

I just had to go back and reread your piece about Second Coogler. Still can't understand what all the fuss is about. Your letter is rather hard hitting, but full of facts. Society nowadays needs hard hitting. I remember long gas lines. I remember dead men and equipment in the desert. I remember hostages. And I remember Reagan. I saved the best for last.

Attacking a sitting President at a funeral is not exactly Christlike now is it brother? Now the preaching is on the other foot. Ain't it amazing how many of these religious folks soon forget that we are supposed to be Christlike.
-- Martin N. Tirrell
Lisbon, New Hampshire

... Just wanted to drop you a note to let you know how you disgust me. This correspondence was initiated by your thoughts on Jimmy Carter a true and great American which I would not count you nor your kind as one of.
-- Gary D. Williamson

topics:
John McCain, Environment, Global Warming, Movies, Law, Military, NATO, Africa