The American Spectator

Reader Mail

No Way to Live

9.15.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 3)

NEVER MIND
Re: Ralph R. Reiland's Barack's Failed Euronomics:

The article by Mr. Reiland reminded me of the 1992 campaign. There was a small recession then that lasted 6 months -- from the last quarter of 1990 through the first quarter of 1991. After that the economy perked up and continued so for several years. The Clinton campaign said "it is the economy, stupid," and with the help of the MSM and not inconsiderable assistance of that nincompoop Perot, and won the election with the 44% vote. For 18 long months after that small recession was over, the NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN would start their evening news with pictures from unemployment offices in various states, while their "experts" were deploring the Administration economic policies. The day after the election of that disbarred felon Clinton, all such pictures of long lines in unemployment offices disappeared like by miracle. Today our MSM keep talking about the recession while there has been no fall whatsoever in our GDP. In spite of a small rise in unemployment the total number of the employed today is some 11 million larger than in 2001. I expect the MSM will soon start again their evening news by showing the lines in the unemployment offices which, by the way, are always long because the government employee union has imposed liberal working rules relative to frequent breaks and long lunches.
-- Marc Jeric
Las Vegas, Nevada

SHADES OF GREY
Re: Mark Hyman's If Only Sam Kinison Met Barack Obama:

I mentioned in an earlier letter that I am married to a Filipina, so I have some personal experience with the issues raised by Mark Hyman on help to extended family members overseas (commenting on Obama's failure to do so for his half brother in Kenya). My wife has been well educated on the resentments that can occur when too much help is forthcoming to extended family members (which also include some half-siblings), thus undermining their independence. We have found that the best way to assist family members is to limit our assistance to funding education and funding medical treatment that could otherwise not be afforded (we do provide a modest amount of monthly income to her elderly mother). I think what amazes both of us about the Obama situation is that for this self-proclaimed humanitarian to take no interest at all in his extended family would seem to be coldly inhumane. Maybe there is more behind the scenes that has not been shared. But our view is that the Obamamessiah is another typical leftist who loves humanity and ignores or dislikes persons. There are ways to help extended family that do not involve taking over their lives or engaging in tribal "extended family sharing".
-- Stephen Zierak
Kansas City, Missouri

WHAT'S THE USE?
Re: Michael Tobias's letter (under "Conservative Magnet") in Reader Mail's Credit Where It's Due:

Utopian. And this is not meant sarcastically. One-upmanship is never practiced with a B.A. in anything, at least not how I got it. All I know I learned from George Will, William F. Buckley and Teddy White when he was writing his Making of the President books. When I think how I frittered away units on Byzantine History -- even one on Crime and Punishment, it is almost embarrassing to recall.

You are right that Sarah Palin would make a good president. You are right up there with my pal, Bill Buckley, who said he would trust the first 500 people listed in the Boston phone directory more than...whatever the rest of that quote is...to run government...

My first vote at 21 was for Harry Truman. I grew up thinking FDR was king and I would never have to make a choice. Tom Dewey reminded me not of the man on the wedding cake but of the little cartoon dude in Esquire magazine -- that is what a deep thinker I was. But I was glued to the ticker tape in the AP room of the newspaper I worked for, cheering Harry along.

My point -- if I have one, is that all nomination process is fixed. We can make our modest donations, we can pound yard signs into our pristine lawns, we can lick envelopes -- I've done it. All the stuff that makes us think we are part of the process. If we are completely deluded, we can become delegates and go to the convention. And none of it matters.

The only time I ever personally profited from a Republican nominee was when Goldwater ran. His convention was at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. We were in our first home looking out on a huge unlandscaped backyard. Poor as church mice, new baby, not even a clothes dryer! Then fortune smiled. My husband and a friend, both scroungers, went over to the post-convention Cow Palace and offered to dismantle all of the structures for the wood. The friend was a horticulturist at SF State. My husband was an IA teacher. I got a beautiful lanai from the Republicans and a million seedling begonias from the hot houses of SF State. A veritable paradise

Tell us how we can get ourselves a real People's Choice and if we get to tar and feather him if things don't work out? That would be my choice. You've got to put your plan in action before the next election. Because I will be 85 by then and loonier than I am now.

George Will has a delightful way of summing up in baseball terms, now and again. He quoted Dizzy Dean announcing at the start of the 1934 World Series between the Cardinals and the Tigers, "This Series is already won, but I don't know by which team." The same could be said about this election. My money's on McCain-Palin. Particularly as Obama probably has a contract out on Biden about now -- a kind of mercy killing to end his suffering of foot-in-mouth disease.
-- Diane Smith
P.S. Mr. Tobias points out that the Dole/Kemp ticket was so drab less than half the electorate bothered to vote.

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
Re: Jeff Beckham's letter (under "Bush Vs. the Terrorists") in Reader Mail's Credit Where It's Due and Quin Hillyer's The Terrorists Are Losing:

With all due respect to Jeff Beckham (who lives a stone's throw from me), I must say that the idea of trying to blame Bush for "dropping the ball" as it were and allowing the tragedies of 9/11 to occur is patently ridiculous.

After the 2000 election recount controversy and the bitter Democrats' reluctance to even allow George Bush to begin moving into the White House it was well into February before he could get on with picking his cabinet members and making the transition to office.

The planning and preparation for that attack took place well before Bush ever took office. I recall another attack under another administration in 1993 which was an attempt to fell one tower building into the other. It was treated as a street crime to be dealt with by law enforcement. Until the end of that "other" administration's term (seven more years) the terrorists -- unhindered -- were able to infiltrate our society, lived and moved around among us, and using our resources (flight training schools) managed to put all the pieces in place to bring their plan to fruition. "Let give credit where credit is due" shall we?
-- John Nelson
Hebron, Connecticut

Oh, we're back to that blame game. Are we? Well, I'll tell you what. Maybe all this would have been academic if Mr. Bill used his cojones for taking out a few terror masters when they were in his sights instead of diddling with the help.
-- Mike Dooley

In response to Mr. Hillyer's article praising President Bush for 7 years of absence of any terrorist attacks on our country, Mr. Beckham states that the 9/11/01 terrorist attack should be ascribed to President Bush. Well, that attack was planned and put in execution during the presidency of that disbarred felon Clinton. He is the one who threatened criminal prosecution against any FBI and CIA agents passing terrorist information to one another. He is the one who did not approve the hit against bin Laden. It is Clinton's Immigration office which gave a visa prolongation to a 9/11 terrorist 6 months after the attack and his "martyr" death. I would not wish such a blindness that affects Mr. Beckham to anybody. He will surely give money to Abu Hussein and of course vote for him and that bloviating gasbag Biden, the past master of "borking" and "high-tech lynching."
-- Marc Jeric
Las Vegas, Nevada

It is incredibly hard for us to follow your logic when you insist on talking with a crack pipe in your mouth. To say that President Bush deserves no credit for the lack of terror attacks on American soil because he "dropped the ball" on 9/11 is like saying that FDR deserves no credit for defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan because he "dropped the ball" on Pearl Harbor. How far do you want to follow this logic? Should we say that Bush senior deserves no credit for Desert Storm because he "dropped the ball" on Kuwait? Shall we assume JFK deserves no credit for the Cuban Missile crisis because he "dropped the ball" during the Bay of Pigs? What about Woodrow Wilson: did he "drop the ball" with the Lusitania, and thereby forfeit his victory over the Kaiser? Does Abe Lincoln's preservation of the American Union not count because he didn't prevent Fort Sumter?

You, sir, need to inhale something other than narcotics. Oxygen might do for a start.,
-- Paul LaRue

RATIONALIZING
Re: Craig Sarver's letter (under "More Like a Lower Bound") in Reader Mail's Credit Where It's Due:

Craig Sarver noted that blanking the Presidential line on the ballot is the equivalent of voting for the Obamamessiah. This is not precisely true, in that refraining from involvement in a lesser of two evils situation is not the same as endorsing by positive action one of those evils. However, he is certainly correct that if conservatives and libertarians do not vote for John McCain, then John McCain will not be elected. So blanking in his opinion "is not worth the risk." While I understand Mr. Sarver's point, I don't think he understands mine. Unlike the idiots on the left, I believe conservatives and libertarians do consider long-term effects of actions they take. My point was that I believe for all the reasons I stated John McCain would have a very unsuccessful Presidency, and that this would yield bad policy (unopposed by his party), further damage the Republican brand, and undermine the future of a rising star in the party. I balance that against an Obama Presidency that would have to maneuver in an environment of Republican opposition and the unmasking of what he is really about.

There could actually be less bad policy in such a context (two years of the more moderate Clinton ushered in a Republican Congress), and in any event I doubt he would survive the next election. If you believe that it is not likely that John McCain will fail in his administration, then, yes, by all means, pull the lever for him. However, since I think it is very unlikely that McCain will succeed, then the long run damage he will do far outweighs the negative consequences of what the empty suit will be able to actually accomplish. America has survived bad Presidents before, and will do so in the future. But can the Republican Party survive someone who could be the next Herbert Hoover?
-- Stephen Zierak
Kansas City, Missouri

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE
Re: Diane Smith's letter (under "Sally's Cronies") in Reader Mail's Credit Where It's Due:

May I add, for the enjoyment of Ms. Diane Smith, one more Dorothy Parker quotation that I have used on occasion?

Ms. Parker was at a large soiree where a young Sally Quinn type female held a door open for her, tee-heeing, "Age before beauty."

Replied Ms. Parker, sweeping through the doorway, "Pearls before Swine." (With or without, one would assume, lipstick.)
-- Kate Shaw
Toronto, Canada

ONE FINAL THOUGHT
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Who is Sally Quinn?:

Whenever the name of Ben Bradlee comes up I am reminded of his glee at the downfall of Richard Nixon, his pride in effecting it, and his joyous statement -- something like, "I've never had so much fun in my life!"

And always then I am reminded of a song of David about such men: "Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? ...He whose walk is blameless...and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man,...( Ps. 15: 1 - 3, NIV)
-- Hannah Robb
Lowell, Michigan

Letter to the Editor

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