The American Spectator

All these years, we were lead to believe that “jobs” were being hoarded by Dr. Evil: Dick Cheney and his sock-puppet Bush.

Who’s printing the money? I am sure they’re hiring.
— P. Aaron Jones
Michigan

A SQUANDERED INHERITANCE
Re: Lawrence A. Hunter’s Banks on Welfare :

President Obama is correct in claiming that he inherited a recession (though, since he openly and actively sought to become president, his bemoaning his position has the same ironic whine as an adolescent who been given a second hand car marked “As is, No Warranty”). So, to be fair, let’s remember the Misery Index of January 2009 (7.63%) came from the Bush II administration. (The highest, 21.98% belonged to Democratic Congress and President Jimmy Carter.) The Dow Jones Index was a battered 9,000 plus, a major drop from 13,000+ under Bush the Younger, but still not the abysmal sub 7,000 that has occurred under Obama. Now The One wants to reform the banking system. Come November 2010 and 2012 the loyal opposition would be wise in reminding the voters of these numbers, because we might well be looking back on these numbers and thinking, “Those were the good ol’ days.”
— Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

COUNT TO TEN
Re: Roger Scruton’s The New Humanism:

As I do with my children when they misbehave, I counted to ten, and then for good measure waited a day or two, before responding to you. I did this for the same reason millions of parents do this everyday in the “civilized world:” to regain full control of my passions before delivering a well earned rebuke. Those passions though, are not without benefit, as they give evidence to the reality that I am alive, I have soul and I have a maker. Hence, your article did more good for my soul with the emotions it evoked than anything it could have hoped to do for my mind because your idea of “noble humanism” is a fraud. There can be nothing noble in it because at its core it denies the truth of who we are, and thereby makes itself into a lie. The new humanism, which you find so vulgar, is the obvious evolution of the old. Why then is it surprising to you that the child is a hedonistic scoundrel when its parent was a liar?

I am familiar with these very British concepts because I too was raised to be an Englishman who loves duty, honor, respect, hard work, protocol, freedom and secularism. He also loves Mr. Churchill, but it is not the love of Churchill that England needs now; it is the love of God and more to the point the love of Christ, and unless England soon wake to this truth, England will be no more. I suspect you too know this, and so I remind you to put away childish niceties. Niceties will kill England; Christ will save it. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Dear Mr. Scruton: grow up!
— W.B. Dunn
Chandler, Arizona

CHURCH POLITICS
Re: Lisa Fabrizio’s Power, Politics, and the Freedom of Religion:

Ms. Fabrizio writes: ‘Rep. Michael Lawlor released a statement saying that the bill was “proposed and written by a group of faithful Catholic parishioners from Fairfield County who asked the Judiciary Committee to consider giving the subject a public hearing.” Here, they refer to some of the unfortunate parishioners of St. John’s Church in Darien’

It’s important to note that Bishop Lori denied in a March 12 blog entry that the Catholics involved are even parishioners at St. John’s Church.

He wrote: “The four disgruntled people who pushed this bill don’t even belong to Saint John’s which, by the way, is flourishing. In fact, the lay leadership of Saint John’s made it a point to tell me how pleased they are with their Pastor, Msgr. Frank McGrath, and with the financial management system the diocese put in place.”
— Kevin J. Jones

THE KING LIVES, THE TERRORIST DOESN’T
Re: Angelo Codevilla’s Osama bin Elvis:

I am truly delighted at the essay on the above captined subject, it is the first of its kind on the disbelief that he is alive as so eloquently voiced in its documentation as to why.

I have for years now been writing to various website sources and individual reporters regarding my belief that this guy has been dead for quite some time and what we see displayed for political advantage are old photos with dubbed-in voices. The response that I have received especially from Lucianne.com is if we don’t have the proof, we cannot print it.

I have been so frustrated and disappointed that these people won’t risk their reputations to ferret out the truth, and your article has uplifted my heart. I am not the only one who believes that Osama Bin Laden is dead, and has been for years. Because it was highly unlikely that with his ongoing kidney malfunction and being on dialysis he could survive eternally in the mountains.