The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Medal Performance

7.9.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 6)

Whilst pondering the bleatings of John Kerry and his minions on a blog recently, it occurred to me that they had every reason to protest the "swiftboating" of the prep school blowhard, Winter Soldier Senator...What they fail to appreciate is that, notwithstanding their long-term efforts, the true definition of "to swiftboat" is "to tell the truth about." That understood, one can appreciate their squealing....
-- Reid Bogie
Waterbury, Connecticut

It is also interesting to note that Kerry did not receive his honorable discharge until 1978 when Jimmah Carter pardoned all the draft dodgers from the Vietnam War. The cowards! He was still in the active reserves when he met with the North Vietnamese in Paris. Really, he should have been tried for treason and being a traitor.
-- Mike Barbour
Naperville, Illinois

Will there ever be a definitive answer on whether Kerry is (was) lying or the Swiftboaters are (were) lying? In the alternative, can we just make this all go away?
-- Ty Knoy
Ann Arbor, Michigan

HONOR IS FOR LOSERS
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Dewey, McCain, and the Politics of Personal Honor:

Jeffrey Lord ignores the most obvious pitfall John McCain faces whenever he dares to criticize Barack Obama: an in-the-tank media and Obama's campaign surrogates defining such criticism as "racist." John McCain thinks he's been invited to a tea dance. By the time he figures out it's a mud-wrestling match, it may be too late.

As for honor, there's nothing honorable about "gracefully" handing the election to an unabashed socialist.
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

Mr. Lord has his mind on the nub of Senator McCain's present and future problems as a candidate. McCain calls too much attention to his own virtue and not enough to his plan for the country. It comes off like that person we all know who sits in the first pew at church or an aging athlete who can't let go of his past career. He would do better if he accepted a plan put together by his advisors and experts and sold the plan as its capable leader. The "Pristine" comment about ANWR, not wanting to drill there, epitomizes his problem and will be his albatross if he does not drop it. The same is true of global warming and his carbon credit-trading scheme. It is incompatible with new drilling that he correctly proposed to deal with a pressing and immediate problem. The country wants results not piety. Mitt Romney could help McCain immeasurably in a conversion from "pious virtue" to "taking care of business."

Bill Clinton almost made the same mistake when he started the "Man From Hope" myth before he proved he could lead. He was smart enough to drop it like a hot potato when he realized it would be up to historians to write such an epitaph. Senator McCain should take Mr. Lord's advice.
-- Howard Lohmuller
Seabrook, Texas

I appreciated Jeffrey Lord's comparison of Thomas Dewey and John McCain. Hopefully, the latter will not suffer the fate of the former. McCain may want to borrow a page from the successful Nixon campaign and call on the silent majority of decent Americans to reject the anti-American radicalism of Democrat Obama.

That said I must admit I'm more intrigued in how Barack Obama is an amalgam of George McGovern, Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Al Gore, John Kerry, Bill Clinton and most disturbingly America's worst President, Jimmy Carter. He seems to embody the worst characteristics of each of these men. He's egocentric, arrogant, paranoid, inept, inexperienced, hypocritical and cowardly, but what makes him even more insufferable and dangerous is he's pathologically devious and dishonest. Obama makes Bill Clinton look like a man of integrity and that's saying a lot.
-- Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

LIGHT HEARTED
Re: G. Tracy Mehan, III's This Bud's Not for You:

How many Americans remember years back in 1969 when AMF bought Harley Davidson Motorcycle Corporation? This resulted in a labor strike and a lower quality of bikes. The bikes were expensive and inferior in performance, handling, and quality to Japanese motorcycles. Sales declined, quality plummeted, and the company almost went bankrupt.

What binds Harley Davidson and Anheuser-Busch together is that they both are unique American institutions that are recognizable all over the world and this uniqueness and recognition is the driving force of the companies' success.

The InBev Anheuser-Busch deal has similarities to AMF and Harley Davidson. InBev doesn't look at Anheuser-Busch as an American institution but just a boardroom statistic that has the propensity for large profits that will be achieved by massive and draconian cost-cutting measures that will be implemented by faceless corporate automatons, who could care less if Anheuser-Busch is American, Chinese, or any other national beer. Anheuser-Busch is just another profitable acquisition and everything else is irrelevant.

It is a given if this deal is approved either by a friendly, or hostile takeover, the quality of Anheuser-Busch that has been its hallmark will surely decline as did Harley Davidson after the AMF buyout. Anheuser-Busch will lose its Americana, it will lose its only one of a kind quality, and it will cease to be American corporate icon.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Economics, Business, Religion, Global Warming, Constitution, Law, Military, Russia, European Union, NATO, Africa, Unions