The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Strike Two

12.31.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 4)

Please remember that Gregoire raised tax after tax immediately after taking power. I hope Washington voters have not forgotten.
-- Merlin Perkins

ROTTEN ROYALTY
Re: George H. Wittman's Death of a Queen:

I'm a little at a loss over media coverage of this admittedly tragic incident. Somehow I didn't have the impression that Benazir Bhutto was an ally of the USA, at least in the way Musharraf came across as an ally. Am I missing something?
-- Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida

Benazir: all perfumed on the outside, exuding the stench of corruption from within.

This Bhutto woman stood accused, by her very own niece, of murdering her youngest brother. This smiling educated woman cheered on suicide bombings in Israel, hobnobbed with Yasser Arafat and professed a strong belief in democracy while running a corrupt political machine. Her father was corrupt, her husband known as Mr. Ten-Percent for demanding graft, and Benazir herself faced corruption charges and fled Pakistan ahead of the mob.

Why did she go back? Perhaps she wanted to become the Indira Ghandi of Pakistan. Perhaps she believed the US State Department that Benazir would be the voice of moderation and modernism in an Islamic hinterland. Perhaps the radicalization of Pakistan, so very different today than when she ruled as Prime Minister, radicalized her, too, as a Shahid martyr.

She knew full well that the Mullahs would no longer permit a woman to rule over men. It sets a bad example at home in the mud hut. She understood her death would lead to anarchy and possible takeover by radical Islamist elements in Pakistan. Perhaps she viewed her shahid death as a way of preserving and protecting her family's fortune and standing in Sindh province. What better way to cleanse oneself of the stench of corruption than by dying for democracy. Though everyone not connected with the US State Department and Diplomatic Corps knows that developing a democracy in any Islamic backwater has a much smaller chance of success than communism among Russian peasants.
-- Wolf Terner
Fair Lawn, New Jersey

I think it is time to write in Powell for the Republican nominee. He got to the top of the military pyramid by being a diplomat as well as a soldier. With Pakistan et al going to hell in a hand basket it is time to get someone whose has the ability to see both sides and then make a rational decision. Hillary has too much ego. This has nothing to do with her sex and everything to do with her. I will write in Powell when I go to the polls.
-- a grateful reader

PERFECTLY SENSIBLE GRAHAM
Re: Eric Edwards' letter (under "Preacher Don't Politick") in Reader Mail's Preach It:

I often wonder why perfectly sensible folks seem to ignore perfectly sensible reasons for other people's behavior in certain situations. I believe that I perceive two perfectly sensible reasons why Mr. Graham took the road that he did with regards to our politicians.

First, it is so very much easier to convince someone to come around to your view, if you have not first made him/her angry. Mr. Graham, I would submit, was interested in the souls of the various politicians, not necessarily their policy on a particular issue. One can argue that, if you can get their soul right, the preferred policies will follow as a consequence. If you can convince a man of the rightness, as well as the holiness, of Jesus, if you can get the person to admit to the teachings of the Christ, then that person will just naturally be inclined to the pro-life cause. This works so much better than getting in their face and screaming that they are a murderer. The same can be said about other issues besides the pro-life cause.

It is my understanding that Mr. Graham urged each and every politician that he counseled to hew to the moral path, and to make decisions that reflected the teachings of our Lord and Saviour, as to kindness, generosity, humanity, etc. It is my understanding that Mr. Graham did not much get into minutia of geo-political world politics with them. His focus was not on this world, but the next one.

Secondly, Mr. Graham took his evangelism to the four corners of the globe, to billions of people in hundreds of lands. That is not a small undertaking. It often helps to have important people in your corner to lend a hand through the bureaucratic red tape, the inherent hostility of dictators and tyrants, etc. Think back to when Mr. Graham took his preaching to the Soviet Union several decades ago, during the height of the Cold War. Just try to imagine the snags and barriers he had to surmount to get the group in the country, to secure a venue, to get the translators, to get the permissions for a public gathering of a large crowd, and on and on. All this against a backdrop of an at least covertly hostile government, in a closed society, with a dedicated dictator. Now try to envision the amount of help that a friendly American president might be able to give, a friendly or at least neutral Secretary General of the UN, the help of friendly leader of a foreign country that has good relations with the USSR. You could insert the name of many countries in the scenario, countries in Africa, countries in Asia, India, the Middle East, etc.

I would propose that Mr. Graham having a "friend" in the White House provided assistance to his ministry in ways much too numerous to count and too diverse to be easily imagined. When one has a good, moral, Godly purpose to fulfill in ones life, confrontation is not always the best way to achieve that purpose, especially bare knuckles confrontation that questions the very core principles of someone else's life. Yes, confrontation is sometimes necessary, but not always. I believe that Mr. Graham truly knew when confrontation was required and when a more gentle and agreeable approach was required. His success for well over 50 years of Christian ministry bespeaks a man that was in tune with what God wished him to do.
-- Ken Shreve

LESS PERFECT UNIONS
Re: Robert Stacy McCain's Paul Krugman's Fairy Tale:

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Economics, Business, Islam, Law, Military, Iraq, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, NATO, Africa, Communism, Unions