The American Spectator

Reader Mail

The Gospel of Politics

7.8.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 3)

Yellow with age, undated, it is from the New York Times, headed "BRADLEY AND HELMS," it reads:

Sens. Bill Bradley and Jesse Helms are not exactly soul mates -- one is a liberal Democrat from New Jersey and the other a conservative Republican from North Carolina -- but the two men came together once on the basketball court.

"He'd asked me to show his granddaughter a few moves," Mr. Bradley told New York Times sports columnist Robert Lipsyte. "She plays in high school, and she and I spent an hour together.

"I showed her how to set a pick, the back-door play, you know, it was all out of what I learned at Easy Ed Macauley's summer camps when I was a kid, and she just absorbed everything, a terrific girl. But what caught my eye was Jesse Helms and his wife, doting grandparents, sitting across the schoolyard the whole time, just watching. That tempered my criticism of him. I saw his humanity."

It takes a man with humanity to see it in another man. That must be why I kept the clipping. A rare Democrat. I may have an example of the only kind word ever printed in the N.Y. Times about Helms

Jesse Helms was a kind man, a courtly man who could not be forgiven his principles in an unprincipled venue.
-- Diane Smith

UNBUCKLED
Re: Christopher Orlet's The Big Bang:

I agree. I just received a $91.00 ticket today from a Pinellas Park, Florida police officer. In fact I never usually wear a seat belt but today I put one on and my son was driving. He was pulled over and I unbuckled mine so I could get the information out of the glove box and sure enough the police officer accused me of not having the seat belt on. When I tried to explain he didn't care. More revenue for the useless.
-- Deborah K. Harlow

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Earmarks, Sports, Religion, NATO, Conservatism, Oil