Happy Days Are Here Again - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Happy Days Are Here Again
by

IN SUM
Re: Shawn Macomber’s Bad Kerry Day:

Of course, John Kerry couldn’t show any positive response to the elections today in Iraq. That would break his continuous record of disagreeing with anything that could be attributed to President Bush. That would also indicate that Kerry actually grasped part of the reason he lost: He’s a pathological naysayer, whose cup is not just half empty, but fully empty and cracked.

Doesn’t this man understand that people remember him for his non-record and that he’s become simply Not Bush — and for that, he’s dismissed by most people?

He remains a pathetic impostor of an impostor, though he may be the exemplar naysayer, a genuinely dreary man.
C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton, West Virginia

You stated “Kerry peppered his appearance with several un-waffle words such as ‘unequivocally.'”

Kerry doesn’t use the word “unequivocally.” He pronounces it “unequivoCABly”
Tom Johnson

Shawn Macomer asks: “So with all this genius, how did Kerry lose?” I can tell ya. We never found out what the PLAN was!
P. Aaron Jones
Huntington Woods, Michigan

WHAT A DAY THIS HAS BEEN
Re: Jed Babbin’s Iraq’s Election Day:

What an eventful weekend! First, we have the rare opportunity to be witness to a truly historic event — the sight of courageous Iraqis defying a set of rump Ba’athists and murderous jihadi thugs whose intellectual and cultural development stopped at the 7th Century — to vote themselves an interim government by democratic means. Next, we have an excellent column by Jed Babbin in which he, as is his wont, treats the reader to a singular revelation. That is, of course, the amazing fact that Rep. Lynn Woolsey (or, for that matter, any liberal these days) can process a thought!

Hats off to the brave Iraqi people, and to the American men and women in uniform who have, at significant cost in blood, helped them get this far. I’m thinking of re-directing my IRA investments toward dunce cap manufacturing companies. Today’s Democrat party representatives and their thinking are making it a growth investment!
Frank Stevenson
Williamsburg, Virginia

I can make two predictions from the Iraqi elections:

1. There was no fraud at the ballot box. Any shenanigans will be after the fact.

2. The tool that made this possible would be resisted by most Democrats.

The tool of course is the “purple finger” that prevents double voting. Such a simple system will be resisted here because it might be considered degrading or “inappropriate,” but it sure would solve Washington state’s problem, wouldn’t it?
John McGinnis
Arlington, Texas

On Saturday night I was doing my usual run around the Internet, reading the columns that I find information and found the conservatives positive, and anxious to hear what the Iraqi people would do as it takes a brave voter to make his/her choice with the threat of violence always there.

I started to think about President Bush, who I admire and respect a great deal. Then it really began to sink in about the election. It was such a huge undertaking, sometimes too big to really realize. Look what has been done, more than most of us even thought about, much less could give words to, but he could and did.

The Iraqi people were going to let us know just how much they will give to be free. To be allowed to work at what they like, to be free to speak their opinion, to start a new business, and many other of the wonderful freedoms we take for granted.

Then I remembered all of the disgust shown by the liberals in respect to the president. I remembered the four years of nothing but criticism and even name calling done by so many in America and other countries of the world. I remembered how he never responded, never returned the anger and hate, never allowed his administration to lower themselves to the level the liberals allowed their party to sink.

He never wavered, while many countries of the world called him stupid, a cowboy, Hitler. While people in Hollywood said disgraceful and indecent things about him. When the LMS (left mediastream) held back good news from Iraq and tried in every way they could to make him disliked and seen as a failure by Americans and the world. Again, he did not sink to their level, he just kept working for Iraq, the troops and for the safety of the American people. Keeping Americans safe was his first thought of each day.

A failure? No matter how the media spun their story, the Americans saw through their bias and nastiness and re-elected him with him winning the most votes ever in the popular vote. The American people are not stupid, they are wiser than the liberals ever give them credit for, and are the most giving of any country in the world. Thank you, the American people who stood steady for Iraq, so the day could come when we would see them voting for their own country.

Where the courage and perseverance came from for him to remain so steady, so positive, so real for all those years is not something I know, but I can guess the Lord got many questions and despair from him at times, and provided the necessary wisdom. His love for his forces is strong and their love for him must have given him strength on hard days. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are troops to be so proud of, they are a template for the future, showing how a country can win a war, and then stay there until the country is stable and functioning well. Who would have believed this three years ago? I guess the president and his troops did, because the day came when the Iraqi people showed the world they trusted America and themselves to create a free country. Amazing!

A good man is hard to find, but America did, and stuck with this man with a vision, a vision that people laughed at sometimes, but he never wavered. Thank God.

Thanks
Carole

SO HAPPY TOGETHER
Re: Happy Feder’s The Buzzing of the Bees:

We “lazy fare” conservatives do not fire off 600 emails in response to an article because we a busy working and paying taxes.

I took my 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son to the Bush rally here in Taylor, Michigan. They loved it. It was the most polite crowd (15,000+) that I have ever been in. Even in the mass exodus to our cars at the end, my children rode safely in their wagon (with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on the back) through the crowd.
Jack Summers
Detroit, Michigan

Thank you for posting Happy Feder’s excellent “Buzzing Bees” article! I discovered it on the PBS message board, where one of my conservative compatriots posted it for all the “progressive” (liberal/socialist/humanist) folks to discover. We enjoy trampling through the PBS china shop and regularly stirring up the buzzing bees there with political discussions they are not used to encountering. Much of our valuable ammunition comes from The American Spectator!

Thank you very much for all you do.

God Bless America and The American Spectator!
Robert R. Larimer Jr.
Vancouver, Washington

Hats off to Happy Feder and little Texel. While Happy’s article was amusing, comparing and contrasting results of written articles, I want to commend the fact that, recognizing a presidential visit is an historic occasion, they brought their daughter out to meet the president. The meeting obviously had a profound impact on their daughter, which inspired her to action.

When I was a kid of about Texel’s age, then President Nixon visited San Jose, California, accompanied by the Governor Ronald Reagan. My mother recognized that this was an historic opportunity and brought us out to the airport to see Air Force One, and the President and Governor. Arriving 4 hours early (and in the days when people got off airplanes on the tarmac), we had a front row place at the fence. As it turned out, we were positioned exactly where the stairs were run up to Air Force One, and the two great men came down to greet the crowd exactly where we were. I met and shook hands with the president and governor, receiving a pre-signed autograph card from President Nixon, which I asked Governor Reagan to sign the back. The experience inspired me to get to know what these men stood for and helped lead me to advocate the conservative agenda today.

It is important for us all to recognize our values and communicate them to our children through as many opportunities and experiences as we can. Meeting great men and women who symbolize those beliefs can go so much further to inculcate those values than simply sermonizing on them at home. I am sure that Texel will long remember her adventure.
Dwayne Baptist
Fredericksburg, Virginia

Great article by Happy Feder. I live in Madison, Wisconsin, and am surrounded by liberals who deeply moan the loss by Kerry. Teachers in the schools wore black and lamented the loss after election day; I guess the “tolerant” did not worry about the negative impact that such laments might have on children who might be of a conservative persuasion.

If Happy Feder won’t respond to 600 emails, maybe I can get him to send me a Ginsu knife set instead?
Gary Stoika
Madison, Wisconsin

As they say, LOL.
Stuart Reed
Gross Pointe Woods, Michigan

I enjoyed your article and also could relate to it. My son, 4th grade, is a big Bush fan thanks to his Dad’s guiding light. But living in a town, Butte, MT, that would vote for Satan himself if he ran as a Democrat or worse yet George W Bush if he ran as a Democrat, supporting the president isn’t popular. Imagine that! When I went to school everybody supported the president regardless of party, especially in grade school. Now, they openly criticize and influence based on partisan lines. It is a shame really bringing up young impressionable kids to be against their country, which is what they are doing by teaching extreme negativity towards the president. Like you said, I am always surprised to hear what the kids in his class say to him, which comes directly form the lib parents, speaking about a sitting president. Thank God for George W Bush.
John Sholey

Happy Feder laments the dearth of personal email responses to his articles. He might get more if his email address were provided.

And I think it was P. J. O’Rourke who some years ago answered the question about why liberals are so buzzy. Riding along with a fellow conservative, they passed a big noisy demonstration. The conversation went something like:

FC: How come our side never has big demonstrations?
PJ: We have jobs.
Carl Clawson
Hillsboro, Oregon

I simply wanted to ensure that author Feder got at least one response to the article “The Buzzing of the Bees.” Count it favorable. The substance and the humor were most entertaining.
Keith Varni

Enjoyed your article, your kid sounds pretty smart. Libs make noise because it’s their nature to be unhappy — and proud of it.

Hope this response helps your count.
Debbie Cameron

Enjoyed your article on your daughter and forwarded it to mine — Lexi, living in VT who is a proud Daughter of the American Revolution and descendant of the Rhode Island Hales, as in Nathan — who had but the single regret that he had only one life to give for his country.

Sadly, however, the bunny you mentioned is of the Energizer family, not that blue state Duracell crowd.

Cheers,
Ken McAdams

I know that it’s a free country and all. But, if I were king (of course, if I were king then it wouldn’t be a free country, would it?), I’d sure make it difficult for people with names like Happy Feder who name their little girls Texel (“pronounced Teshel”). When Ms. Feder’s article mentioned the Duracell Bunny, I momentarily thought that she was introducing another family member.

When even the conservatives are sporting “moonbat” names, we’re in for serious trouble. And don’t even get me started on the whole Disabled Parking farce.
Joe Schild (that’s “Mr. Schild” to you)
Portland, Oregon

Happy Feder replies:
Mr. Schild’s is precisely the mindset that drives the keyboards of the 600 letter writing liberals I mentioned: Obsession with extraneous, irrelevant detail (family names!!) and failure to pay any attention to blatant details. I’m not a she, as he erroneously states. True, I could be an alpha lesbian conservative even though in the article I referred to myself as a “Daddy” and to my “wife,” but I’m just a beta heterosexual conservative. Texel was named after the wonderfully charming Frisian Island in the Netherlands, and I offer the pronunciation for reader’s erudition and to avoid confusion with the international corporation of the same name, different pronunciation. My own name was given to me at birth by a man branded by the L.A. Times as an “ultra-conservative,” and though it’s been a nuisance at times, it’s mostly provided healthy, harmless amusement.

My thanks to Mr. McAdams — all this time I thought I was buying the bunny’s battery! So much for the effectiveness of Energizer’s multi-decade, hundred million dollar advertising campaign on this common consumer.

But honestly, why should any conservative care whose batteries are used to power George I across the Potomac to assist George 43 in the battle for freedom?

Texel thanks everyone for their good words, and looks forward to attending school wearing a TAS t-shirt, thereby confirming her affiliation with the activist core of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

CARBON COMPLAINTS
Re: David Holman’s You’re Gestational:

Normally, I avoid people who make it clear they don’t know what they are talking about but I had to make a special exception for you. In your article, “You’re Gestational, you stated, “Deliberately depriving a child of a biological mother and father is a serious injustice.” Maybe you don’t know the difference between traditional or gestational surrogacy. Based on the title of your article and the contradictory statements you made I would have to venture to say that is true. In GESTATIONAL surrogacy, surrogates are not related to the baby. The BIOLOGICAL mother is typically the egg donor and the one to care for the child after they are born. In Traditional as well as Gestational Surrogacy, the BIOLOGICAL father is almost always used in the creation of the embryo and again will be the one to raise the child. Your utter ignorance on the subject should have prohibited you from writing the article until you knew exactly what happens in surrogacy but you decided to pass judgment on things you don’t really know about and bash something that is often turned to as a last resort in family building, one that is truly a beautiful thing. I have no doubt that you, your wife or anyone in your immediate family has ever experienced infertility and kudos to you for that. You should try walking in someone’s shoes before you judge them.
Tammy Gifford

Editor’s note: Stacy Ziegler, director of Parenthood Options, separately sent a letter identical to Ms. Gifford’s. To paraphrase Mr. Holman’s argument, who knows who the original author is?

Upon reading your letter, I got very frustrated. I thought instantly about the implication that children raised without their biological parents is abuse. In most cases, the child or children are related to one parent. I was wondering what you thought about orphans being adopted. They indeed are not being raised with their biological parents, and what about the foster care system that holds MANY child here in America because there moms were drug addicts and couldn’t care for their children and the father was in prison. Those children in foster care are abused in foster care? They were abused before they went in foster care that’s for sure. May I ask your definition on abuse?

My parents were divorced when I was younger and my father remarried. Was this an abusive relationship even though my mother wasn’t in the picture?

When writing a story are you not supposed to write about facts? Where is the abuse EXACTLY in surrogacy?

Thank you for your time. Just because a child grew in the intended mother’s heart and not her uterus does NOT mean they are abused!
Carla Furseth

Your article really touched a nerve. I believe that you should have done some more research before writing your article about gestational surrogacy. You said, “Deliberately depriving a child of a biological mother and father is a serious injustice.” But what you don’t get is that gestational surrogacy actually does none of the sort. In most cases the child is carried by the surrogate because the intended mother of that child also in most cases the biological mother of the child is unable to carry because of some medical problems. The child that is born of the surrogate is the biological child of the parents who will raise it. The father of the child is often the husband of the intended mother and the biological parent. They are the ones that raise that child. So therefore the child does know who its biological parents are right from birth.

In adoption, the child is not being raised by its biological parents, they sometimes never meet them either, but not once in your article do you say adoption is wrong. I think you need to get your stories straight.

The only case where the child born through surrogacy is being raised by one biological parent or none at all or in the case if the intended parents use both an egg or sperm donor or in traditional surrogacy. In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is the biological parent and often the child has the chance to meet or know the surrogate in the future. Therefore the child still knows the background on which they were born. In the case of traditional, often it is the father that will be raising the child that is the biological parent.

In the case of egg donors, surrogacy should not be brought into. Let’s say for instance, I suffered from some form of cancer at a young age, and had to have my ovaries removed, which by way I have not, I am only using myself as an example. If I still had a fully functioning uterus, and I wanted to have a child, found an egg donor and achieved pregnancy through in-vitro fertilization, and gave birth. I would not be the biological mother of the child, nor a surrogate, because I would be the one to be raising the child, would you still consider that abuse. In your definition, probably. I am not sure if you have children Mr. Holman, but I hope that you never have to experience the type of pain infertility could cause.

I hope you understand what I am saying. And I hope that in the future after doing much research you can publish a better article, seeing your mistakes and apologize for the distaste in your last article, and write a better and more informative article on surrogacy. I am not saying you have to agree with it, but you should at least tell the facts and not uninformed information in an article.

Also your little quote on marriage, “This ethical and legal culture needs to be challenged by pro-family organizations and lawmakers. State law should better relate the creation of human life to marriage.” Not everyone needs to be married to raise a child in a loving environment. A ring and a vow does not make you a better parent. Some cultures do not even believe in marriage or marry. Does marriage make someone better? Not always. I know quite a few people who have been together for 20-50 years but never married and they have had children, and it doesn’t make them horrid parents, In fact they are just as good parents as anyone I know that have married.

Mr. Holman I hope this letter makes you open your eyes to the realities of the world. And that you see things in a new light.
Rose Dore

It really is a pity that you chose to write about surrogacy from such a narrow-minded and superficial perspective. As a journalist and a senior one at that, I would have expected that you would do some research and not just spout off a few platitudes and generalizations based on a few media reports.

True and responsible journalism is in a sorry state, if your article on surrogacy is considered worthy of any purpose other than to wrap soiled, disposable nappies.

You have not the slightest inkling of what surrogacy entails. Do you understand the pain of infertile couples who have struggled for years with their infertility? No, not at all! These people really want to build healthy strong families and to share their lives with children and continue in living really constructive lives.

You also have no idea of the motives or the sacrifices necessary which are made by the surrogate mothers who help them achieve their goal of creating families with a safe and secure environment for the children. Both parties, the parents and the surrogate mothers, who continue building future healthy generations are far better people and citizens of the world than you will ever be, Mr. Holman.

By the way, who do you share your life with?? Maybe a few cockroaches and other varieties of insect life that don’t mind your views and judgmental attitudes!! Thank God there are some people with compassion and feeling in the world and your type are in the minority.
Ilana Ilaide

I just want to say I don’t think you should be writing such garbage. You can’t possibly know what it is like for the couples whose only chance to have a child is through the help of a surrogate. I am totally appalled at your obvious lack of research on the subject of surrogacy. And most, if not all, of the surrogates I know commend Ms. Bimber for what she did for those boys! Their father obviously did not care for them or love them the way he should have.
A Really Ticked Off Gestational Surrogate in Tennessee

David Holman replies:
My heart and prayers go out to all those struggling with infertility. I have close family friends who have yet to be blessed with children, and I cannot come close to understanding their deep pain. Still, ends do not justify means. I realize there are varieties of surrogacy, but for rhetorical purposes I treated the whole phenomenon as one. Whether traditional or gestational, homosexual or heterosexual, the unethical lengths to which such couples will go to conceive their “own” child is most troubling. All types of surrogacy necessarily separate sexuality and the creation of life, reducing the latter to manufacturing in a laboratory. All types involve in-vitro fertilization, which necessarily destroys human life so that another may live. Just as the pain of infertility is saddening, we ought to weep for the millions of orphans who go unadopted so that couples can have “a child of their own.” Such efforts beyond the ethical fringe are unjustified, especially in light of these children without parents. So why create more of them?

TURNABOUT
Re: Dave Linehan’s letter (under “Miss Peggy”) in Reader Mail’s Massachusetts Dreamin’:

Reader Dave Linehan is correct; Peggy’s immediate verbal reaction on Brit Hume’s Fox show was a complete 180 from her subsequent column in “Opinion Journal.” Very puzzling indeed. One can only assume that she somehow had second thoughts, perhaps buying into the “quagmire” pontifications concerning the upcoming (at the time) Iraqi elections and wanted to appear prescient — whoops.
Mark Hessey
Belmar, New Jersey

Sign up to receive our latest updates! Register


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Be a Free Market Loving Patriot. Subscribe Today!