DREAMS ON THE GREEN
Re: Amy K. Mitchell’s These Guys Really Are Good:

What an inspiring article. Really wish I had watched the tournament.
— Doug McGarity

The question I have regarding Tiger’s amazing support of the troops at his tournament (with more stories than even Ms. Mitchell knows) is why did it take Tiger to do it with this class and to this degree?

A quick look at the PGA Tour schedule shows stops in Hawaii, San Diego, New Orleans, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Memphis, Atlanta and San Antonio — all of which have substantial active-duty population including many, many wounded warriors. I’m fairly sure that these tour stops provide some bennies to the troops but why can’t the sponsors pull it together as well as Tiger? And, by the way, he did it in only 188 days.

Memo to the other pro sports: Here’s the template; here’s the standard. You can do it, too because “These Guys Are Great.”
— Rick Osial
Montclair, Virginia

UNCONCERNED CONSERVATIVES
Re: Washington Prowler’s Disturbing Concern:

The Prowler needs to endorse Fred Thompson. It’s a fairly consistent drum-beat from that column propping up Thompson and tearing down Romney. It essentially creates the impression that the Romney campaign engineered the LA Times article on Thompson’s span at Arent. You damn well know that floats through the public driving up negatives of other campaigns.

I don’t understand why you want to tear down our guys. When respondents are asked if the candidate is conservative, moderate, liberal, they show no statistically significant difference between Thompson or Romney. And both have past moderate actions.

Thompson has campaign finance reform, which impacts free speech, gun rights and even abortion. And the guy spent more time and energy fighting for that legislation than preventing a tax-grab of 20% of GDP in 1998, 1999, and 2000. And subsequent years the Congress jacked up spending to 20% of more than 10 trillion dollars.

I think it is important that outlets like American Spectator not become a platform to trash Republican campaigns. We need to attract talented people like Romney. They are valuable assets. He is extremely bright (HBS Baker Scholar and HLS cum laude) and he has created an exceptional organization. He has a strong ethical framework with sound conservative positions. And he’s articulate.

The risk that Romney gives us Harriet Miers or Immigration is no different than Thompson Romney to become President or I want him to continue to run in the future.
— Mike

I am a daily reader and loved your great article today on Tiger but your incessant nastiness toward Mitt Romney has brought me to the point that I can no longer log on to your site. I come here for updates on all the candidates and issues and will miss that, but there are plenty of other sites without the over the top bias.
— unsigned

NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS
Re: Marlo Lewis’s Economic Climate Changes:

Marlo Lewis could add two more fractions to the equation: That unwarranted environmentalist fear of nuclear power has led to the deployment of hundreds of American coal-burning power plants, the most egregious emitters of CO2. And that our economy has become twice as efficient over the last 50 years not at the urging of ecologists, but because Western man is naturally innovative.
— Nikitas
Pittsfield, Massachusetts

SURGING GENERALS
Re: Philip Klein’s Standing Firm on the Surge:

I cannot think of a single military family, who if called, would be for a war. Imagine that….what idiotic nonsense taking a poll about a war and figuring the results mean something. For even Washington politics at its best, this is really something. Now, I suggest, as a mother of a serving pilot, with several trips over and back, we propose a poll that goes like this…

How badly do you want the world’s best military defeated again by Congress and surrendering? Or, how about a poll that says, “Are you ready for another 9/11 by Islamic Extremists?” Or how would a poll question that read….” Are you ready for the US to fall and be occupied by a foreign force who will install Sharia Law?” None of those ring your bell?

I have another poll question:”Why do you send my son to fight and leave the borders open for terrorists to invade us?” Why, if you ask the military to defend this country, can this government, the greatest one ever to have existed, not seal its borders? Why does the government claim this task is impossible?

It all has to do with will. As I told the many senators and congressmen I called over the stupid immigration debacle… I expect you to do better than this. But then, having lived in the D.C. area once, due to military assignment, I know better. That Beltway mentality and money flowing like tap water has bought out most of Congress.

All that remains is the fall. My family is preparing. You had better as well. When a government fails there is nothing less than surrender waiting, sooner or later.
— Beverly Gunn
East Texas Rancher
Mother of serving pilot

It’s really time to face facts. Let me preface this by saying I was a conservative and a career soldier when that was defined as skunk at the garden party. But there is nothing to win in Iraq. And the only thing we are going to lose are the lives of American troops and the military readiness and capability to defend the security interests of the USA. I don’t include Iraq in there. Even with the surge it boils down to this. Approximately one soldier to 200 Iraqis and one square mile of territory. Without sleeping! Civil war? It’s already happening. And the sooner we get out of the way and let them get on with the business of slaughtering each other, the happier they will be. Unless we are really there to keep the profits safe for Halliburton. I have enough friends working for KBR over there who think that is what it is for.
— Chris Buckley

George Orwell wrote, “the quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory.” This seems to be a correct description of post World War II America and our “war fatigued” (gag) nation of couch potatoes.

Sorry, France, for the jokes.
— Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

PROOF TEXTING PRAISE
Re: Lawrence Henry’s Praise Music Flunks:

I would encourage Lawrence Henry to read some more Scripture (such as the ones below) prior to publishing critiques of songs. Numerous other praise songs could apply to his analysis, but he “flunked” in demonstrating that “All in All” is unbiblical.

1 Corinthians 15:28
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Matthew 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 13:44
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field…

Psalm 63:1
… earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Job 22:23, 25
If you return to the Almighty you will be built up; if you remove injustice far from your tents, … then the Almighty will be your gold and your precious silver.

Matthew 7:26
And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
— Dave Moorman

HITCHENS NOT GREAT
Re: Robert VerBruggen’s Standing Firm on the Surge:

Isn’t Christopher Hitchins’s “Christian” name so deliciously ironic? It’s probably un-Christian to enjoy that.

His thoughts on religion (on anything, really) do not have the value of a patch of dog’s vomit on the sidewalk. Step around it; ignore him. It’s sad that neither it nor he will go away when we do.
— A.C. Santore
Pennsylvania

Put “God” in the title somewhere and you’ll make more money. That’s the advice publishers give authors — God sells and the public is hungry to read about and discuss the Divine Mystery and matters of religion. As atheists, Hitchens and his zoologist counterpart Richard Dawkins are obsessed with talking about God; partly because it brings fortune and fame, partly in a desperate attempt to convince themselves they’re right and the majority of the public is wrong.

Dawkins perverts science in novel ways to sell his books and obtain invitations to every talk show that will have him. The “God” gene of Dawkins’ invention is scientific nonsense, unproven and utter nonsense. Where is this mythical gene on the chromosome, what’s its number, how does it affect embryological development — it’s amazing this “genetics for dummies” con job doesn’t thoroughly embarrass every professional scientist? And, it’s comical to watch a supposedly educated public act like primitives sitting around a campfire while Hitchens and Dawkins spin their fairy tales composed of equal parts junk science and historical distortions.

Let Hitchens and Dawkins work out their psychological problems with religion in private. But, paying them handsomely while they vainly seek some perverted form of redemption is asking too much.
— Patrick Skurka
San Ramon, California

ANGER MANAGEMENT
RE: Keith Pulver’s letter (under “Scooter Amazes”) in Reader Mail’s Thinking Man’s Metal:

I was just minding my own business and sipping my coffee when I was hit by a bolt of outrage at Keith Pulver’s letter. Rev. Pulver dispensed this precious falsehood: “It seems that every Democrat has a sexual itch and every Republican has a totalitarian itch.”

I have never been so insulted in my life. We Republicans have more than our share of lustful, raging libido’ed, heavy metal sexual superstars. In a display of raw primordial power, a Democrat is a firecracker compared to a Republican thermonuclear device. And by what twisted logic is it said Republican reluctance to use the coercive power of government to take another’s property constitutes totalitarianism?

“Hot and breathless sex over taxing excess!” we always say. The Democrats need to spend more time spreading their seed far and wide than spending their time pouring over the tax code trying to figure out how to tax human flatulence. Of course, the one glitch with the “human docking procedure” is the more you have the more you want and after a number of successive couplings the Democrat crosses the threshold and becomes…a Republican.

Perhaps inadequate sexual performance explains the Democrats’ resort to hyperbole. Even if we stipulate Mr. Libby fibbed to the FBI, it is hard to see how one untruth undermines our great Constitution. What we have is a relatively minor “process” crime. I believe our founding document is a bit tougher than Mr. Pulver lets on.

As for President Clinton, Republican disgust first stemmed from the predisposition of this self-described great humanitarian to step on little people (see “White House Travel Office”). When it came to the Monica case, Clinton had three strikes against him: 1.) he dittled with the help 2.) he dittled with a girl much younger than himself and 3.) he ruined a perfectly good cigar. But, when it came to actual legal trouble for which Clinton faced impeachment and eventually lost in attorney’s license, it wasn’t the sex. Clinton perjured himself and (most crucially) he directed others to lie for him. Even then, no Republican claimed Clinton was shredding the Constitution.

One of the great unexpected blessings I discovered when I became a conservative was that I wasn’t constantly angry all the time anymore. So to the Mr. Pulvers of our great country I say: “Come on it. The water’s fine.”
— Michael Wm. Dooley
Indianapolis, Indiana

Keith Pulver is a typical liberal. He turns sexual harassment into a sexual itch when it is convenient. Paula Jones, a lowly secretary, got her day in court in a sexual harassment suit. She could demonstrate that she was escorted up to her boss’s hotel room by a State Policeman (who would use a policeman as a pimp?) and that the good old Governor had a habit of hitting on low level employees. What happened inside the room was his word against hers. This is the context of his denial of “sex with that woman.” Monica was used by Jones to demonstrate that Bill hits on low level employees as a pattern of behavior. Hillary knows what kind of husband she married and his lies in court were not about keeping her good opinion. That is why Clinton was disbarred. He told a material lie in a court case. Some of my lawyer friends tell me this was not sexual harassment, and that may be legally true (somehow I don’t think your average Joe would get away with this). Liberals have also been the big proponents of creating a very unbalanced playing field in the work place with respect to sexual harassment. They have again demonstrated that they see laws like this only in a political context. They want them applied to their political enemies only. This doesn’t look like they are much interested in the little people. What a surprise!

With regard to Scooter Libby, he should not have lied to the FBI. Trying to hide a political dirty trick has cost him a lot of money and the rest of his career. Valerie Plame deserved some exposure from our media that she didn’t get because she and her husband are “good” Democrats. She used her job to hire her worthless husband to do a dirty trick to the Bush administration and more importantly our country. If Sadsam was over in Africa trying to get nuclear materials then the CIA should give an honest assessment of this and not politically useful (for the Democratic Party) misinformation. Joe Wilson demonstrated himself to be a liar and incompetent. He made a good move for his political party at the expense of his country.

With regard to totalitarian instincts Mr. Pulver is again off base. It is his left that creates speech codes on campuses across the country. It is his left that are now making Hugo Chavez noises about shutting down talk radio. It is his left that have tried using laws to disallow abortion protests. It is his left that were totally silent as Clinton cronies used raw FBI files to silence opponents. It is his left that shout down speakers they don’t like. I know that they are very concerned about the rights of terrorists, but I think that it is a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” thinking and not any concern for anybody’s civil rights.

Finally Mr. Pulver’s “some of us…” remark is very amusing. Some of us think just about everything. If he served honorably at some time he has my appreciation but not my allegiance to his disgusting political party. It is amazing that the left tries to use military service as a way of validating and protecting from criticism their ridiculous ideas.
— Clifton Briner

SMALL BALL
Re: Jennifer Rubin’s Little Things Mean A Lot:

I’m reminded of the presidential debates in 1992. When Bush 41 looked at his watch onstage, I turned to my wife and said, “That tears it. Hello, President Clinton”.
— Richard Meade
Bayside, New York