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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