The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Right-Wing Cotton Candy

8.20.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 4 of 6)

I'm no movie critic, just an American who wants to know, and appreciates the fact that there is someone out there who will be defending the good against the evil, however you define it. That's why the movie is as popular as it is because Americans (and I'm sure many throughout the world) recognize in the movie, even if subliminally, the ongoing fight of good and evil in the world that is being shown daily on our television screens.
-- Deborah Durkee
Marietta, Georgia

BIG PLANS
Re: Christopher Orlet's Excuse Me, Your Diversity Is Showing:

As a white male in his late 40s, I look forward to my senior years as a member of the "oppressed" minority class.

I look forward to joining the NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People), my legislators being members of the CWC (Congressional White Caucus), and perhaps becoming a member of the newly formed race grievance group La Raza Blanca.

I might then joyously utilize Affirmative Action policies and related racial preference programs to get jobs that perhaps more qualified and deserving Black and Hispanic candidates should have gotten. I will join in and organize parades to protest the celebration of Cinco de Mayo by the oppressive Hispanic majority. In my spare time, I might push for Congress to pass a law recognizing July as White History Month...forever.

In order to keep my Social Security checks coming, I will fight for open borders along Canada so that these folks might "come out of the shadows" to do the jobs that the American majority "just won't do."

And if ANYONE challenges me on any of these dreams/ideas, I'll play the race card...and that will shut them all up.
-- Dave Schallert
Parker, Colorado

THE UNFORGIVEN
Re: Ben Stein's Whacked Priorities and Reader Mail's Ben and John:

The morality of John Edwards is not per se a particularly important matter. Few if any of the men who aspire, let alone rise to the top ranks of political power, have been plaster saints. We should not vote for or against them on the basis of their personal probity or piety, for history is full of good men who have been terrible leaders. In the old days, when such men got to the top by inheriting a crown, the people could only grin and bear it, pray for the monarch's early demise, and then declare him a saint (e.g., St. Edward the Confessor, Henry VI, etc.). Today we pick such men at our peril.

Why, then, is the John Edwards affair a newsworthy matter, despite the fulminations of Ben Stein (increasingly self-righteous in recent years)? Because it reflects on the man's character and judgment, and (as I have written elsewhere), character and judgment are the two critical traits needed in a national leader, as the Founding Fathers repeatedly stressed. Not intellect, not piety, not the right opinions, but character and judgment.

Taking up with a woman of Hunter's background is prima facie evidence of appalling judgment in many different areas. First, on the personal level, he must have realized that he would do serious harm to his wife and his family, but this did not deter him. He must also have known that, in an age of constant media surveillance, he could not keep his secret. Third, he must have realized, given Hunter's background and character, that he was leaving himself wide open to blackmail. If this was the case for John Edwards, private Citizen, how much more for John Edwards, Vice President of the United States, one heartbeat away from the Presidency. How foreign intelligence services could use this information does not need to be elaborated.

On the character side, Edwards revealed that he is a man driven mainly by his carnal desires. To keep his mistress around, he engaged in financial malfeasance (giving Hunter a sinecure contract and paying her out of PAC funds); he also suborned his associates to facilitate the affair and the deceptions surrounding it. Finally, having been caught, Edwards demonstrated his moral cowardice: rather than manfully owning up to the affair, he stonewalled until exposure was imminent, then made a half-assed apology that still seemed to excuse his behavior.

It's good we found out all of this now, so that Edwards has removed himself from consideration for any serious public office. It would be very bad indeed to find out what kind of man John Edwards is, in the midst of a crisis that demands both judgment and character, the two personality traits he desperately seems to lack.

Thus, contra Ben Stein, the press did indeed have its priorities straight (though not the mainstream media, which seems to have Ben's sensibilities), and the story was indeed legitimate.
-- Stuart Koehl
Falls Church, Virginia

FRIENDS AND FELLOWS
Re: Mark Tarnowski's letter (under "Saddled Up at Saddleback") in Reader Mail's Primetime McCain:

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Trade, John McCain, Bill Clinton, Mainstream Media, Television, Economics, Business, Social Security, Islam, Movies, Constitution, Law, Founding Fathers, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Israel, NATO, Energy, Oil