The American Spectator

Reader Mail

BEWARE OF MITT
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s Listening to Newt:

Happy to read your endorsement of Steve Forbes. I voted for him in the 1996 Pennsylvania primary, even though by that time he had folded his campaign. His name remained on the PA ballot -- my vote was my small conservative protest.

I think conservatives should beware of Mitt Romney. Romney signed into law the disaster that is now the health insurance/care system of Massachusetts, which, as I understand it, resembles Obamacare. Wouldn't liberals love to throw that back in our faces during a Romney candidacy?
-- Melinda Bowman

"Beyond Obama's oratorical skills.... a sinking feeling is arising."

To answer RET's parenthetical question, [can a sinking feeling arise?]: Yes. Such are the oratorical skills of President Obama.
-- Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Thank you for the nod to Steve Forbes and Dick Armey. If not presidential candidates, they certainly demonstrate the depth we have for cabinet posts, west wingers, and Senators.

I hope Dick will run to fill Kay Bailey Hutchinson's senate seat that she is willing to toss aside in a run against Gov. Rick Perry of Texas.
-- Barbara Ann Leary

COLLEGE-EDUCATED IDIOTS
Re: Alec Mouhibian's The BS Degree:

Higher education in the feminized West thanks to the Ivy League and its European equivalents is about inculcating ignorance and destroying Western civilization. If vaginal Harvard graduate Barack "Insane" Obama and his radical cronies in academia, the media and politics get their way, Harvard law school will one day be dedicated to the study of Sharia law and the sciences of determining who is unworthy of life and the economics of how to shatter economic prosperity while increasing the power of the oligarchy over the sheep. All the while those who are recalcitrant will be harangued to death by Obama's death panels.

Mommas please don't let your children grow up to be college-educated idiots: Democrats.
-- Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

STANDING AGAINST THE MIGHTY
Re: Robert Stacy McCain's Secret Protocols of Beck's Legions:

I am not a fan of Glenn Beck or his style. I find his delivery grating, but his information well researched and his sources are better vetted than many of the Democratic Disciples of The New Messiah. If our dear departed President Reagan were here to speak in defense of Mr. Beck, he would probably start off with, "Well, there you go again..."

Once again the Left and the Mainstream Moronic Message Media Machine forget that along with First Amendment rights come First Amendment responsibilities. (But with people like Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, Van Jones and George Soros gnawing at the Constitution, maybe they won't have to worry about the pesky First Amendment for too long.) The press has for too long neglected its responsibly for researching information, not just repeating what is stated; impartiality and ethics require getting past the spin no matter how much it hews to popular doctrine. Too many news departments have eschewed their responsibility of distinguishing between the difference of reporting and editorializing. Once upon a time, America trusted that the news that was reported was fair and balanced.

Once again the Left, with swift and powerful assistance from the news departments around the country, uses ad homonym attacks instead of arguing the issues. Attacking the man is easy; what man among men is without imperfections? Men are born and soon they die, but truth in eternal. The coward attacks the weak, but a warrior only stands against the mighty. (William F. Buckley, a voice in the wilderness, tilted at true giants, starting with his clarion call to sanity with the publication God and Man at Yale. He did not attack the hypocritical professors by name; he denounced their poisonously flawed philosophies and responded to their personal attacks with humor, grace and sagacity.) If Beck (or El Rushbo) is misstating or misrepresenting facts and truth, staking straw men or espousing fallacy filled philosophies, debunk his words, assail his facts or make counterarguments that rip apart his logic. To do so demands research, conceptualizing and cognition. In a word, it is work. Hard work. Attacking the man is easy. Gnats do it daily.

Once again, for the Left, the problem is not the messenger, though being telegenic and personable has been major assets since JFK out performed RMN on television but not radio, but one of truth and passion. The problem is not Beck, but that President Obama bet big on health care reform, and as he loses skirmish after skirmish, the press is well aware that The One may lose all momentum for transforming our great country into a backwater, socialist third world nation. The American people know the truth and are passionately beating back the encroachment of this administration's overreaching, but if the liberal media can distract the public with side shows, then maybe the Democrats can snatch away democracy from the republic. Clearly, since the Left, including The Titan of the Teleprompter, cannot argue their way past Beck, they will seek to destroy him.
-- I.M. Kessel

PROVE IT
Re: Andrew Cline's Criticism Is Racism:

Andrew Cline's response to Jimmy Carter's charge of racism is "Really? Prove it." Reminds me of "Shane" when Shane tells Wilson, "I've heard of you." Wilson: "What have you heard Shane?" "That you're a low-down Yankee liar." Wilson: "Prove it." That leads to a deadly gun battle.

Maybe Joe Wilson should have just quoted Shane and called Obama a "low-down Yankee liar."
-- C. Baker
Fort Worth, Texas

ESCAPING BEATINGS
Re: Russ Ferguson's The Check on Healthcare is in the Mail:

To add a point to Mr. Ferguson's piece, government employees are irrevocably insulated from their failures to perform and from the consequences of their actions, which means they may, and likely will, inflict misery upon or kill the rest of us either via benign neglect or to meet whatever passing political fancy (or objective) grabs them at any given time. Until government employees have "skin in the game" (i.e. they and their families are at risk of their decisions the same as the rest of us) the disconnect Mr. Ferguson notes will always exist. We see this today in the fact that in the great de-leveraging of the last year, while the rest of us took a fairly monumental financial beating, the government not only has escaped the belt tightening via "stimulus," but plans to take to itself more (healthcare system) and more (cap n' tax).
-- Reid Bogie
Waterbury, Connecticut

SCARY TIMES
Re: Ben Stein's We've Figured Him Out:

Mr. Obama in his health care speech left an impression on me that has never been left before after viewing an address. I felt like I was being scolded for not understanding "what was good for me or my country." Well, I do agree with your astute observation that he is realizing that he is on a time line for pushing through his agenda and there seemed to me to be a bit of panic in his tone. When will the democratic party and some republicans remember to study and vote for the good of the country instead of behaving like a bunch of lemmings and blindly following a scary, charismatic orator who is poised to send this country in a direction that might take years or decades to turn around once the damage is done and our elected officials wake up? These are indeed scary times and thank you for your perspective.
-- Eugene Meyer