The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Us and Them

9.17.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 4 of 5)

In his talk with that Goracle believer Mr. Hannaford failed to mention that this globaloney warming scam has been debunked by over 31,000 scientists and professionals (9,000 of them with PhD degrees). See the Internet for "Oregon Petition" and "Manhattan Declaration." Al Gore is engaged in a criminal scam: he pays his carbon offsets, which are tax-free and thus minimize his income taxes, to a company of which he is the chairman and principal co-owner and which invests in "environmentally friendly companies" for profits which are often also tax-free. That company is based in Great Britain and pays no taxes to the U.S. government. Talk about a scam on the scam! Where are all those trial lawyers when we need them -- but then those trial lawyers recognize the scam artist when they see him and are getting ready to sue the oil companies, power plant companies, automobile manufacturers as well as all the living beings breathing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.
-- Marc Jeric
Las Vegas, Nevada

THANKS BUT NO THANKS
Re: Larry Kluth's letter (under "The Sky is Falling") in Reader Mail's Boys Will Be Boys:

With respect to Tuesday's offering from LTC Kluth [ret]: First Sir: thank you for your service. Second Sir, please sit down. Your description of the "pampered Navy retiree" was jaw-dropping in its condescension. I am no McCainophile, the object of your derision, but Good God man! He had the daylights beaten out of him for years and years by sadists who knew how to do it and you blithely call him pampered?" Meanwhile, the little nipper who left you so utterly awestruck got where he is through the financial assistance of a bomb throwing terrorist. Mr. Ayers put your hero on the road to political success by placing millions of grant money in his tender hands for distribution to those who could reciprocate with vast numbers of votes. I suppose if I indulge your strange corruption of the concept "worked for everything to get where he got [sic] today" you might be right about your lightweight champ "earning" his present condition. But no one in his/her right mind will buy it. Regarding your treatment of the notion of faith and truth being incompatible...let's just allow that to fade into pleasant obscurity. Finally sir, if at some point you flew Air Force aircraft, for the love of all that's holy, don't get near a cockpit.
-- J.C. Eaton, Col. U.S. Army (ret)

Just a response to Larry Kluth. You managed in your review of Obama and McCain to leave out big parts of their lives. If you think only the first 22 years of a person's life are all that make them what they are, then does that mean you stopped growing and changing and are the same person at 81, sir?

Senator McCain did a lot of living between the years 22 and 72. He's the first to admit he made mistakes. He's the first to admit that he was cocky and arrogant (name me any guy in his teens and 20's who isn't). If you ask me Obama is still a cocky, arrogant 20 year old.

As for the Obamas being together and McCain being on his second marriage, well I don't know, but I can guess that the five years the older senator spent in a POW camp might have made the transition to life back in the United States a bit difficult and made him change. She might have changed too. Today they have a friendly relationship, and she supports him for president. What does that tell you?

There's a whole book out about those who finished last in their class but went on to do great things. You might want to pick it up. "Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett and the Goats of West Point," by James S. Robbins. Part of one review on Amazon.com: "The author makes a strong case throughout the book, especially in the final chapter, that heroism, capability, and duty, are not simply confined to the top students; in fact, those 'goats' who graduated last seemed to think outside the box better and be as well, if not more, well-rounded than those who graduated toward the top of their class."

Your arguments are weak at best.
-- Deborah Durkee
Marietta, Georgia

TIME NOT TO CHOOSE
Re: Mike Dooley's and Craig Sarver's letters (under "Can't Win for Losing") in Reader Mail's Boys Will Be Boys:

Look, I know that both of you have the Republic's best interests at heart and in mind. However, there are times that conservatives, libertarians, and the country do win by losing. Let me suggest some examples.

While I voted for Nixon in 1968, it was clear to me by 1972 that his was a hopeless Presidency, one that totally departed from good public policies. So I blanked that year. We didn't get McGovern. What we got was Watergate, wage and price controls, economic chaos, detente, and as a direct result of Nixon's political incompetence, the eventual loss in Vietnam that we would also have had with McGovern, but with far fewer American casualties. (Remember "win or get out".) This discredited Presidency set up Democrat ascendancy until Reagan in 1980.

I also blanked the Presidential line in 1976 when Reagan lost to Ford. That year, not surprisingly, we got Carter. After four years of his nonsense came the Reagan Revolution. Does anyone believe Reagan could have been successful if the well-meaning but incompetent Ford had managed to pull out his reelection? I would say this was a really good case of winning by losing.

After voting for Bush I in 1988, I likewise determined that he needed to lose in 1992 and blanked that year as well. Yes, we got Clinton and in 1994 the first Republican Congress in decades. Clinton survived to win a second term by moderating his liberalism. We got real welfare reform (how many of us thought that would be possible, and with a Democrat President!), and spending control (contrast with Bush II). Again it is unlikely there would have been a Republican ascendancy (squandered though it was) had the insipid Poppy Bush been reelected. As for inattention during the Clinton years to the Islamofascist threat, I doubt things would have been much different with a rerun of Bush I (remember Bush II, pre-9/11, calling for a more modest American foreign policy and resisting nation-building).

I did not want the Republicans to lose Congress in 2006, although I believed it to be inevitable given Bush II's inability to make what should have been an easy case for his policy in Iraq, and given the economic and social corruption among Republican national politicians. As they used to say about the Hawaiian missionaries: They came to do good, and ended up doing really well.

Now we have a well-meaning John McCain running in 2008. Economically, he's a nincompoop, incapable of dealing with the challenges of the financial meltdown in our economy. Who knows what stupid interventions his honor politics will inspire? He could easily become our generation's Herbert Hoover, who believed the Government could fix any economic problem by simply pulling on the right levers -- and we know where that led. It doesn't take a visit to the witch of Endor to see where this could go, and the resulting damage to the Republican Party (which, even as the stupid party, is the best hope for the Republic).

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Foreign Policy, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, Social Security, Islam, Abortion, Environment, Constitution, Law, Military, Iraq, NATO, Socialism, Fascism, Alaska, Oil