The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Silly Sally

9.10.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 6 of 6)

Perhaps you are right. In an earlier letter you wrote, "Thirty percent illegitimacy is not a healthy thing for society or the individuals involved and as certain subset within our culture indicate, thing can get much worse." Illegitimacy is not a healthy thing for our society. Barack Obama doesn't think illegitimacy is good for society either. When he spoke about this issue and the need for responsible parenthood, he was castigated by the Reverend Jesse Jackson and others. But, I ask you Mr. Briner, What message is being sent to the teens of America when the GOP's vice presidential candidate parades her pregnant, unmarried teenage daughter in front of the nation during a national convention
while protesting that this is a private matter? I have always thought that reproductive issues belong in the privacy of the family and have often lamented the fact that the right made these political wedge issues. But now, the people who made the private public are insisting on privacy. My crazy mind thinks all of this sends a powerful message to teens. Illegitimacy is okay and so is hypocrisy.

On another subject, I think about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, about the conditions exposed a few months ago at Walter Reed Hospital, about the burden our troops and their families face because of multiple tours of duty, about the fact that the current administration never called upon the rest of us to sacrifice for our security and about the
fact that Senator McCain and other members of the GOP voted against veterans' benefits. All of this has been successfully sold by the right as supporting our troops. That I am amazed by this must be indicative of the fact that I am crazy.

We now refer so often to our "rust belt" that the phrase has become a cliche. Unemployment is the highest it's been in years. Middle class incomes have stagnated while the cost of health care, food, gas and college have steadily risen. The government has to bail out Freddie and Fannie to prevent a financial crisis not only here but
around the world. McCain's primacy economic advisor, Phil Gramm, tells us that this is all a "mental recession" and that we are a "nation of whiners" because we wonder how we got to this place. Still the party on whose watch much of this occurred will likely remain in power and we are urged to believe that, if elected, John McCain will make all of this go away.

Time to go listen to an old Paul Simon favorite: Still Crazy (After All These Years).
-- Mike Roush

HE COULD HAVE MADE ADMIRAL
Re: M. Merritt's letter (under "McCain, Chessmaster") in Reader Mail's Signed, Nobody:

In an otherwise fine letter by Mr. Merritt, he repeats a version of a phrase that has come up in several places and sources in the last week. He writes, "John McCain would, indeed, have made a fine general."

I really am not trying to nit pick, but why is it assumed that any good warrior or warfare strategist must be a general? Sen. McCain's father and grandfather were admirals. Why is it not PC to say that McCain would have made a fine admiral? Now Sen. McCain's father and grandfather were not thought of to have reached the level of expertise of Admiral Nimitz, still they were fine warriors that fought their fleets well. One could certainly make the case that they were on a par with Admiral Halsey.

Sen. McCain graduated from Annapolis. He chose to serve in the Navy, and make it a career. He flew in combat in Vietnam. He was appointed to take over an under performing Navy squadron, which he subsequently brought up to standard. He left the Navy as a Navy captain, one step below admiral

In recent times Admiral Fallon was appointed to head Centcom, which is the command in charge over the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters in the current war. I believe that the admiral in command of the Navy SEALS, and a SEAL himself, would certainly be considered an outstanding warrior.

Now I served with the USMC, but even I think that the Navy should get their fair share of the kudos. Can we in the future say that Sen. McCain would make a fine admiral in command of combat operations, instead of insinuating that he would have to be an Army or Marine general to recognized for his strategic skill in war fighting?
-- Ken Shreve

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Trade, Health Care, John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Mainstream Media, Islam, Environment, Books, Law, Military, Iraq, NATO, Alaska, Oil