EASY FIT
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s If the Hsu Fits:

Of course this won’t have any negative impact on Hillary’s campaign. Did you somehow forget that she’s a Democrat? Charges, no matter how serious, will be dismissed as more smear from the VRWC. Republicans are expected to obey laws. Democrats aren’t.
— Dennis Bergendorf

The press will continue to be manipulated, and happily. Access is a powerful enticement, and ratings are an even more powerful aphrodisiac to the press. After the first election of President Bush, the press howled for months about how secretive this new administration was. Access denied. No longer was the press invited to classified briefings, cabinet meetings etc. Now that they have the scent of access again, they will do anything to regain access to the White House.
— Greg Mercurio
Vacaville, California

Considering the number of illegal Chinese donors involved in his own illegal campaign contributions, I am surprised that Bill Clinton is “shocked” — shocked! — at this latest revelation. I should think it would give him a feeling of nostalgia and everybody else that sinking feeling of déjà vu.
— John Krogstad

How do we know if Hillary or Bill ever return illegal campaign funds? What happened to all that illegal money in the ’90s? Who follows up on that? Who would they return it to? Chinese Generals? A windfall for the perhaps unsuspecting Paw family? Isn’t the IRS interested in all this? Her brothers got caught some years back for promising to return ill-gotten gains, and then didn’t.

Inquiring minds want to know.
— Tom Smith
Austin, Texas

R. Emmett Tyrrell ended his recent catalogue of the Clintons’ questionable ethics and legality with the (I assume) rhetorical question, “The press cannot be manipulated forever, can it?”

The most applicable definition of “manipulate,” found in several sources at dictionary.com, is “to influence or control shrewdly or deviously; ‘He manipulated public opinion in his favor.'”

Perhaps the problem with Mr. Tyrrell’s question is this: the media, by and large, does not require “manipulation” by the Clintons. Shrewdness, nor deceit, is required to effect behavior in others that they are already disposed to exhibit. The long and deep Clintonian history of scandalous behavior without the ensuing media frenzy that one might expect is the result of the simple reality that most members of the media have very little interest in embarrassing the Clintons, nor in providing the rhetorical rail for riding them out of the public sphere that they so (Marc) Richly deserve.

The Clintons get a pass not because they are devilishly clever about how they “manipulate” the media. They get it because, when it comes to recognizing Clintonian perfidy, most members of that class are deliberately obtuse.

And deliberate obtuseness, alas, can go on forever. In fact, it usually does.
— Robert E. Heiler
Alexandria, Virginia

“The Democrats could save themselves a lot of disappointments by finding a cleaner presidential nominee than Hillary. The press cannot be manipulated forever, can it?”

I am afraid I can answer that question for you. YES the mainstream media can be manipulated FOREVER as long as it is a Clinton doing it. When Clinton ran for President the second time I thought there was no way that many stupid people lived in America, but boy was I wrong.

What really surprises me is the fact that Hsu is still alive; wonder what made him sick? Would love to know if it was something he “ate.”
— Elaine Kyle

Two comments on Mr. Tyrrell’s article.

First I do not believe the press is being manipulated. The Clintons and the press are manipulating us. I truly believe that the mainstream media believes in socialist principles. One of the most basic principles of socialism is that whatever one has to do to insure the ultimate triumph of the socialist autocracy is right and necessary. As the Democrats have demonstrated time and again they transcend the law, moral codes, and religious beliefs. Their media does the same thing. It is not manipulated, it is manipulating.

Second there is a bit of ironic levity in Mr. Hsu’s name. His name is a descriptive acronym for all Clinton donors: He’s Sure Unethical.
— Jay Molyneaux
Quit, Cut & Run, USA

Answer: Osama Bin Laden

Question: Who did Hillary Clinton find under Bill’s desk when she was searching for the chubbiest intern in the White House and is now rumored to be on her list of Asian campaign contributors?
— Joseph Haverty
Clearwater, Florida

If the media is intimidated into the use of equivocation and obfuscation when mentioning the Clintons’ “misbehavior,” is it still manipulation?

Unbiased chroniclers of the Clintons are mindful of some monstrous rumors of their rise to power.

Hillary Clinton will be elected President unless the truth is broadcast accurately, boldly, loudly and frequently.
— Cameron Edwards

DOING 55
Re: David Hogberg’s Balanced Budget Conservatism:

David, you understand that all those 55 and older, like me, and who pay the bulk of the taxes on an age basis and having to work another 11 years or so before retirement, think your suggestion of giving back the surplus to one segment of the population vs. another (us) stinks. You understand that? In effect, you are robbing the richer Americans who are trying to invest enough to retire on, in order to pay those that will have to pay my SSI and alike with the disproportionate money I’m already paying in income taxes to those that will benefit from it. Karl Marx would smile at your suggestion at the very least.
— Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia

NEVER AGAIN
Re: Patrick O’Hannigan’s Why the Shoah Still Matters:

Patrick O’Hannigan writes “Let me say up front that I do not think Hitler was uniquely monstrous. To ascribe unique evil to Hitler would make him more of a laboratory specimen than a person, and the history of human cruelty has no shortage of examples.”

Thus O’Hannigan solves half the puzzle. The biggest problem with making Hitler, and with him National Socialism, uniquely monstrous is that it tends to also make Jews unique victims. In either case, it makes both parties irrelevant to human comprehension.

With the exception of the saints, and the only two I ever met have left this mortal life, ordinary people tend to react selfishly. First, middle and last question is: “how does this affect me?” Neither unique monsters nor unique victims affect me, ergo I don’t care.

The Left long ago figured this out. Ordinary America would not countenance billions of federal taxpayer dollars spent on HIV/AIDS if the disease was uniquely behavioral as in male homosexual or IV drug user, thus the invention of heterosexual AIDS. Ditto the demonization of tobacco, in the face of almost countless worse behavioral urges, thus the invention of cancer via “second hand smoke.”

So even if Hitler was uniquely monstrous, and even if Jews have been unique victims through the millennia, both must be rendered “just like the rest of us” to have any substantive relevance.
— Frank Natoli
Newton, New Jersey

WORDS OF SUPPORT
Re: Lisa Fabrizio’s Press, Lies and Videotape:

A few observations about this sentence in Lisa Fabrizio’s article:

“Like a Democratic congressman trying to reconcile his ‘support’ for our troops while regaling his listeners with tales of their barbarity and failures, bin Laden’s latest is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Really?

Whatever else it is, the videotape is also a stark reminder that the leader of the organization that has successfully attacked us at home and abroad is still alive and well in spite of President Bush’s promise to bring him back “dead or alive.”

The videotape is also a reminder of the lives we have lost and the money we have spent (off the books) in Iraq, the value of which in the war against Islamic terrorists is very debatable. All of the problems that Dick Cheney forecast in arguing against invading Baghdad and removing Saddam Hussein during the first gulf war have come to fruition in this one. George Bush cautioned against “nation building” while campaigning for office only to ignore his own advice in the rush to invade Iraq.

If memory serves, Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress when Americans learned about the inadequate material support given to our troops in Iraq and the poor treatment the wounded received upon their return to the U.S. Parenthetically, the generous contracts given to Blackwater enabled them to purchase the best armored personnel carriers available ahead of the U.S. military. General Petraeus has acknowledged that years of war in Iraq have stretched the army and the Marines to the limit. Republicans have a hell of a way to demonstrate support for our troops.

As for tales of “barbarity,” well, they happened. Fortunately, we live in a society that values law and due process, so those guilty of committing crimes have been held accountable. When it comes to these core democratic values, John Ashcroft and Jack Goldman are right. Alberto Gonzalez and David Addington are wrong.
— Mike Roush
North Carolina

CONEY PRISON
Re: Greg Gutfeld’s The Cretin Hop:

I left New York City (Brooklyn and Staten Island) at the age of 18 after graduating high school to see the REAL world and be able to associate with the relevant portions of humanity. To read this article was both painful and reassuring. Painful — in bringing back the gut wrenching hopelessness that pervaded all who surrounded me — and the joy of reconfirming the fact that my uneasiness with the social surroundings that made me uncomfortable — was never my problem…

After reading this — I feel the need to take a long hot shower…
— Mike Horn, LTC (ret), AUS
Tracy, California