Sailing Along - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Sailing Along
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DEAD IN THE WATER
Re: The Washington Prowler’s Listless Kerry:

OK, so the mainline media outlets and the Democrats consider “W” to be a braindead boob. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I admit I’ve never windsurfed. I have, however, done a fairly significant amount of sailing in both the ocean and various lakes.

Based on my sailing experience, I know that if I am considering a day (or morning) of sailing, I will first check the wind. I would think that lake sailing is more appropriate to compare to windsurfing because you can see the surface and the wind conditions of the particular area in which you will be sailing/surfing.

Mr. Kerry stands on the shore, wades in the surf and finds no wind. Sounds like the perfect metaphor for his campaign.
Michael Becker
Phoenix, Arizona

How in the name of all that is good and holy has this guy gotten so close to being elected to the most powerful office on the planet?
Rick Moran
Algonquin, Illinois

When Kerry addresses the American Legion tomorrow, wouldn’t it be great if the cameras showed the hall to be ABSOLUTELY EMPTY?
Gretchen L. Chellson
Alexandria, Virginia

WINNING THE SILVER
Re: The Washington Prowler’s Citation Enhancement and Reader Mail’s Medal Mettle:

Letter writer Michael McLaughlin writes, “I doubt, in any event, that the final approval authority for (Kerry’s) Silver Stars had to go to SECNAV for approval.” Mr. McLaughlin’s comment is probably not true because the current Navy Awards manual (section 113, Para 3) requires that Silver Stars be awarded by the Secretary of the Navy in the name of the President. If that was the case with the 1969-era Navy Awards Manual (and I believe it would have been as a result of the backlash to the bogus Silver Star awarded by General MacArthur to Lt. Commander/Congressman Lyndon Johnson during WWII) then neither Admiral Zumwalt nor Admiral Hyland had authority to issue a Silver Star to Lt (J.G) Kerry. In that case, the validity of the Silver Star having been correctly awarded in the first place is brought into doubt.
Charles Ryan
Seattle, Washington

Vietnam era Swift Boats had a crew of 6. Swift boats typically went on missions in teams of 2 to 6 boats. That means on any specific mission there were 12 to 36 people involved. On three separate occasions — one man and only one man earned a purple heart for being wounded in battle. How unlucky can one man get? One out of ….pick a number between 12 and 36…. three times. Amazing. However, the one man that was wounded by enemy fire three times — never once went to the hospital…never once lost a day of duty… How lucky can one man get? Getting hit by enemy fire three times and never getting sent to a hospital. Whatta’ guy.

Two and a half million people served in Vietnam. Many received purple hearts. A few received 3 — and one and only one received 3 without spending a day in the hospital. One out of 2.5 million.

No doubt about it… he’s the luckiest unlucky man in world
M. Tagliaferro
Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE DEEP END
Re: Brandon Crocker’s Mentally Unfit for Command:

The Mental/Emotional disease that Kerry suffers from is called Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressivism. A LIRP cannot bear to be thwarted, crossed, contradicted, or challenged. LIRPs are especially irked by being held to previous assertions. To the Kerrys of this world, the proper place for non-LIRPs is worshipping at LIRP feet, not “nit picking.”

I fully expect Kerry to lose it publicly, sometime soon. Probably during the debates, when he will actually have to let somebody he holds in contempt (Bush) directly challenge his utterances.

With any luck, the Liberals will be occupied from December on with explaining to the American public how the Democrats’ nomination of an under-medicated hysteric who wanted to run on his dodgy war record because he had to avoid his even worse political record, and who underwent a complete personality meltdown on live TV, is the fault of some obscure Republican plot.
C. S. P. Schofield

It does seem Mr. Kerry has a history of either lying or certainly embellishing his personal history. But it also seems he’s been recklessly self-destructive, to the point of inviting not only scrutiny but also punishment.

What else explains his staking his presidential candidacy on his Vietnam experience, with its inconsistencies, and then his anti-Vietnam experience, with its inconsistencies?

How else can you explain the current flap-within-a-flap about his medals? For instance, his DD-214 says he has a Silver Star with a “V” device for valor. But the Navy just said it never awarded such a device. Surely the senator checked his records?

Or how can his apparent lying about his whereabouts on or about Christmastime 1968 be reconciled? Didn’t he know, certainly from observing the past three or four presidential-election cycles, his record would be microscopically reviewed and then reviewed in even more detail?

Is there some underlying self-esteem issue driving him to want
everyone’s approval which leads him to inflate who he is or even
fabricate things?

He does seem to be obsessed with Vietnam. Perhaps he was wounded psychologically before he got there or, worse, suffered some mental or soul wound there that no one can see? Who but he knows? I’ve begun to genuinely pity him. Something just doesn’t seem right. I wonder what will happen to him when he loses?

I don’t know. But I know his behavior can’t be explained by simply saying he’s just keeping up the tradition established by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, neither of whom is a friend of the truth and both of whom always were blown wherever the political winds and each day’s poll results would carry them.

If only it were that easy.
C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton, West Virginia

POST-VICTORIAN
Re: James Bowman’s Francine’s Anti-Victorian Prose:

Right on the mark. First rate column by Jim Bowman analyzing today’s attitudes. Speaking of which, how on earth would Victorians view the likes of Paris Hilton who has become a major celebrity largely it would seem for being seen fornicating on the Internet, and now has an autobiography out being featured in U.S., one of those celebrity-oriented weeklies? How can parents hope to instill any sort of values in their young when our society makes light of such matters? Pretty discouraging state of affairs. What to do?
C. Grenier

THE DOCTOR IS IN
Re: Shawn Macomber’s Vice, Meet Virtue:

I am glad you made it on time for your appointment. Lie down on the couch and let the good Doctor explain a few things. Hopefully you will feel better after our session.

First neither political extreme in this country will ever make it. A 200 year track record indicates this to be a fact. The conservative Republican base is small and the Democratic liberals are even smaller. Take solace in that fact. One need only look to the California Republican party of the last 30 years to understand this. They stood on their principles while the Democrats ran the show out there. They forgot the fact that in order to effect change one must have the means to be the change agent. Otherwise one forever walks the dark streets like Diogenes forever seeking Truth at the worst, or at the best like Winston Churchill “his one shining moment” after 50 years before and since in backwater service to the Crown.

Gingrich is right in one respect — a moderate position to expand the party base is crucial. Why? The Democrats show the way. They held power from the mid ’30s till about 1990. In that 60-year period they quietly and methodically effected their changes. They moved in inches to gain miles over the long haul. If the goal of the Republicans is to roll back much of what the Democrats did, then it will take as nearly as long to do so. That means politically the Republicans must amass a super majority in both houses such that the loss of a few seats in any election cycle does not place the reversal in peril. And to that end Gingrich points the Republicans to include even more moderates not less for that is where the swing voters reside.

In order for the reversal to begin, the Republicans will have to understand that change is generally feared. Like a good father they need to point to the goal all the while convincing the electorate that it is their idea and actually good for them in the long run. Bush, has some inkling of this with his medical and savings accounts concepts of empowering individuals to their own good. But it takes time Shawn, at least a generation. But take heart, the boos that the Kerry daughters received at the MTV awards were the opening murmurs, to paraphrase Churchill — “The beginning of the End,” for the Democratic liberalist minority.

I see our time is up, same time next week I presume?
John McGinnis
Arlington, Texas

MR. MAYOR
Re: John Tabin’s Rudy Awakenings:

I’m actually quite tired of only Republicans being expected to be “bi-partisan.” President Bush came to office with the promise to be a “uniter, not a divider.” He extended his hand to the Democrats — even “acted” like a Democrat with all the spending bills, most of which were “pet” Democrat issues — and look where we are. The Democrats have never ceased in their attacks on George W. Bush. They hate him, plain and simple — and manage, with the help of the media, to get away with criticizing him for the very things they signed on to, offering nuanced explanations for how they now despise what they once supported.

Major KUDOS to Rudy Giuliani for not shying away from creating the appropriate contrast between the president and Senator John Kerry. If telling the truth is being “partisan” — so be it.
Cathy Thorpe
Columbus, Georgia

The RNC should be brought before the World Court for having unleashed Rudy Guiliani’s words of mass destruction upon the hapless Democratic Party and G.I. John. Their effectiveness rivaled anything Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay could have ever dreamed up. I fully expect to see liberal historians begin proposing that Guiliani’s speech was inhumane overkill on a scale equal to Dresden.
Doc Watson
Beaumont, Texas

As a site for a resettlement camp for liberals you should consider Boulder, Colorado. They stand a chance of being eaten by mountain lions and getting close to nature.
John Ortmann
Fort Collins, Colorado

SUGGESTED READING
Re: Lawrence Henry’s Travis McGree Says a Long Goodbye:

Well done, Mr. Henry! Well done!

And now, perhaps, you have another one in you about another McDonald (Ross) and his moody California Private Eye, Lew Archer?

What say?
Bob Keiser
Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania

Readers of the Travis McGee stories should try the Doc Ford novels of Randy Wayne White. Sort of an up to date Travis.
Thomas Culligan

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