The American Spectator

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Dog Day Mix

8.15.07 @ 12:01AM

CYNICAL BARACK
Re: Philip Klein's Obama Rising:

There are two big problems with Sen. Obama: (1) He's a politician and (2) He's a typical politician. A typical politician is a hypocrite. While Obama says he wants to bring people together, his real feelings on unity are clearly enunciated in his seminal address on the national stage at the 2004 Democrat Convention.

In that speech he accused the Republicans of voter fraud, "rounding-up" Arab American families and placing spies in our libraries. That's demagoguery. This guy's a phony to his core.
-- Robert Bulk

So Philip Klein joins the legions of 8th graders, high schoolers, and guilty white folk gushing over the ingenue Obama. I think I'll wait until Obama's creator Tony Rezko goes on trial in Chicago later this year. I know some of the testimony that will be given at the Rezko trial and it will be devastating for Obama -- I think the Clintons are digging up as much dirt as the U.S. Attorney.
-- Jack Hughes
Chicago, Illinois

SUBPRIMING THE PUMP
Re: Lew Uhler's Subprime Rescue Politics:

Great article, but omitted one salient point, i.e. most of the sub-prime borrowers have nothing invested in their homes. Nothing down, and many of them have never made a mortgage payment.

This is another costly hare-brained scheme to elicit sympathy for the fabled "poor" people and not incidentally bail out the mortgage bankers and speculators.
-- Robert W. Roth
Langhorne, Pennsylvania

The old saw goes: "when you can't pay your mortgage to the bank you're in trouble. When you own multi-millions and you can't pay it, the bank is in trouble." What is not said is that when the bank is in trouble (in this case, a lot of banks) a lot of innocent folk will get hurt in the cascade of economic failure. I agree in principle that the government is ill-advised to bail out the banks; but it seems the average taxpayer will get burned one way or the other.

Sort of reminds me of an experience in my own life. I told my son not to buy a particular car. He did anyway. Said car "suddenly" needed major repairs a few months later. He did not have the money. I told him he would just have to save up from his paycheck until he could afford to get his car fixed. I had the money myself but thought he needed to learn to make better decisions. Guess who ended up taking him to work so he could keep his job. You know, the job he needed to get the paycheck(s) to save up for the repairs as well as keep up with insurance and car payments.

Sure, I could go the complete "tough love" route and let him lose the car and his job; but that would have had him my house an additional year or more before he spread his wings and left the nest. So teaching my son a lesson ended up taking a bite out of my hide in lost of time and inconvenience. In this case of the banks and sub-prime loans, in teaching them a lesson, don't think they alone will bear the costs.
-- Mike Dooley

It seems to me that every word of Mr. Uhler's column is true, correct, and right, and I have exactly zero confidence that any significant number of politicians on the local, state, or national level will heed his call for common sense.
-- Ken Shreve
New Hampshire

SCRAPS AND LITTLE MORE
Re: Peter Hannaford's The GOP's Table-Scraps Strategy:

Mr. Hannaford's column completely misses the point.

According to Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, the idea of using a ballot initiative is totally unconstitutional. The clause states that "Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the …"

The purpose of a ballot initiative, especially in the case of California (just ask Arnold), is to accomplish an end-run around the state legislature. Therefore, it is totally unacceptable (and illegal) to change the way California's Electoral College representatives are appointed for a Presidential election by using a process that leaves out the state legislature's participation.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Abortion, Constitution, Pakistan, Nuclear Weapons