The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Why Not Goldwater?

2.20.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 6 of 6)

Thanks for bringing up Ron Paul as the one candidate who understands that it's not the President's job to run the economy. That opened the dialogue for other positive comments and the next caller, who was in the military, to state his support for Ron Paul as the most qualified Republican Candidate.

If Ron Paul is not the nominee, I will probably write him in as a protest vote. As the military caller said, I too, would not be comfortable with a Commander in Chief who makes jokes about bombing Iran, or saying we may need to stay in Iraq for 100 years. We can't afford it! We have no more recruits to support it. Our military has been sent back time and time again. We don't even provide adequate protection for them. Suicides have risen 20% in the Army. No one talks about that. Being a POW is not a lifetime pass for having bad positions -- i.e.: immigration -- as a candidate. By the way, as far as morals, no one seems to want to acknowledge that he was an adulterer in his first marriage. He cheated on the faithful wife who waited for him to come home from the war, and from being a POW. He then got divorced and married a woman who abused pain killers and was part of the Bud. Beer money. The Budweiser family funded his political ambitions. Ron Paul has been married to the same wife for 51 years and is also a military Vet, which no one really talks about. And last but not least, let's not forget McCain's scandal where he was investigated by Congress as part of the infamous Keating 5 /S&L crisis, that he was implicated in very deeply. Keating was a friend of his, and supporter in Arizona, and was part of the worst financial scandals of the day.

Let's see you bring that up in your magazine! I challenge you, let's see some real fair and balanced reporting.
-- Debbie Langdon

A CSPAN viewer/caller called in to complain about fellow Republicans using "dirty tricks" in the American Spectator. I understood that your magazine published a story or some images of toilets with Democratic names over them. The caller wanted Peter to know that it makes Republicans look back to put such stuff out there and it doesn't help. Peter's general response was that it was just a joke.

I couldn't find the toilet reference on your web site, but Peter confirmed that it existed, by saying it was only a joke, smiling largely. Here's my view of this. It is wrong, as the caller noted. Peter is young and it seems that young men often engage in toilet humor. That may be his excuse, but it's still inappropriate. If it is a joke, jokes are not often funny, but demeaning. Their intent is to demean a person or group of people. That's what this is. Comedians do this all the time in the name of humor. But when a Republican circulates such stuff, there isn't anything funny about it, even if it seems so at first glance. I've seen alot of emails which demean candidates. It's actually very childish method of trying to win. It's what a bully does and no one thinks well of bullies. Republicans should be able to make more intelligent arguments as to why Republicans should win. Even if it's not a joke and it's a strategy, it's wrong. This style of fighting and winning extends into our private lives and it's what makes parents bad parents when they are mean and ugly towards their children in order to get them to do something. It's also what people do to each other, whether it's husbands vs. wives or anyone. They also demean themselves whether they realize it or not. American society has become disrespectful everywhere because it seems so prevalent in the past 20 or so years.

The American Spectator demeans their reputation when engaging in this type of humor or reporting.
-- Karen Krueger

J. Peter Freire replies:
This is where you and I will have to disagree. And it wasn't a website thing -- the honorarily-titled bathrooms were located in the Indiana founding place of our great Institution. If anything, you should look at it as an honor for the liberal Democrats whose names were so appended.

Letter to the Editor

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