Spaced Out - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Spaced Out
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HAIRSPRAY
Re: Reid Collins’ Settling the Argument: A Beginning:

In his otherwise informative article about satellite surveillance of the atmosphere, Mr. Collins refers to chlorofluorocarbons as “the stuff that spritzes your hairspray out of the can.” It has been more than twenty years since CFC’s were employed in such mundane tasks; indeed, there are almost no consumer applications currently using CFC’s, as propellants or otherwise. What few there are (such as pre-1990 automobile air conditioners) are grandfathered until the units wear out, but are ruinously expensive to maintain, because no more of the substance may be manufactured legally in the U.S.
Richard Skeean

Reid Collins replies: I know. I know. I used the example simply as that, an example. In addition, I have a very old can of hairspray. Pre-1987.

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
Re: Shawn Macomber’s Walk This Way:

Is the editor of American Spectator wondering, as I am, if Shawn Macomber is a journalist of the Jayson Blair mold? If not, he should be.

Mr. Macomber’s column (“Walk This Way,” June 24, 2004) clearly was not written by anyone who interviewed or even met Doris Haddock.

As a columnist, he failed to enunciate a single issue and quotes Ms. Haddock in one sentence from the AP. Is this all “journalists” have to do to get a byline?

It has been proven, by Mr. Macomber and other critics of progressive ideas, that they are unable to refute any ideas or positions. They have been capable of personal attack only — “….swath of lipstick,” or former candidate Burt Cohen’s sadness over his dog. Both of these people have ideas, but to analyze them requires Mr. Macomber’s intellectual input.

Maybe Mr. Macomber is beautiful and gorgeously groomed. Who cares, if his head is filled with sludge?
Ethel Silverberg
Albany, New York

ALL CLASSES ARE LOCAL
Re: W. James Antle III’s The Young and the Right-Wing:

I share your concern regarding college conservatives borderline appropriation of “victim” status, but I do not share your concern over what the intellectual heirs of the modern conservative movement focus their time and energy. While developing their rhetorical and conceptual skills, it is most appropriate that most 18-22 year old students be focused on what is in front of them. Hound at the liberal faculty with good cheer!

Although he was a player for the opposing team, Tip O’Neill’s axiom that “all politics is local” comes to mind. Once the student enters the world and secures an income, then attention to the perils of taxation or whatever other “real” world phenomena ought to come into focus. But, I have always understood that one of the principles of the conservative disposition is to be more concerned with what one is involved in and less concerned with other issues. College students should first and foremost worry about their college. The rest will come in time.
Matthew C. Tritle

MINDING GEORGIA
Re: John Tabin’s Herman Cain’s Moment:

I appreciated your article on Herman Cain, our rising political star in Georgia; he and Mac Collins truly are pro-life.

But I vehemently disagree with one point you have made: that Johnny Isakson is also pro-life with three exceptions. That’s the lie that Isakson keeps getting away with. He pretends he’s a 3-exception Saxby Chambliss-type. But Chambliss (and every other Republican in Georgia, and a few Democrats as well) voted AGAINST Sanchez and Davis, because he truly IS 3-exception. In his own words, Isakson “trusts the women of Georgia to make the right choice with regard to abortion.” Many of us had hoped he was coming our way on this issue, but his “I stand on my record with regard to abortion” statements (he’s voted for abortion 14 times), as well as his most recent Davis Amendment vote, prove otherwise.

Yes, Isakson currently (and deceitfully) represents his position as you have, but his record is pro-choice with 3 or 4 exceptions: He’s against public funding, for parental consent, against crossing state lines for an abortion, and against partial birth abortion. But no matter what method is used for the abortion, who pays for it, where it happens, or who consents to it, the baby is dead. And Johnny Isakson apparently deems that life an acceptable price to pay in order to secure, in these cases (with NO reference to life of the mother, rape or incest whatsoever), his hallowed “women’s right to choose.”

His campaign likes to say, with regard to Sanchez, “But it’s the law of the land.” Yes, unfortunately the pro-choice stand is the law of the land and will remain so as long as representatives like Isakson are more concerned with extending that law where it does not now apply rather than changing that law. If he truly believes (as pro-life people do) that women do NOT have a constitutional or moral right to an abortion (and that Roe v. Wade was both unconstitutional and immoral), then why is he more concerned about a woman at an overseas military base having her unconstitutional and immoral right to choose than he is about the baby’s constitutional and moral right to life? The “It’s the law of the land” excuse is a lame one for a pro-life congressman. Let Ashcroft be concerned about enforcing “the law of the land,” as that is Ashcroft’s job (distasteful as it is to him in this particular case); it is up to our congressmen and senators to have the guts to MAKE the laws… consistent with their PROFESSED stands as well as with the Constitution’s basic guaranteed right to life.
Kathy Hildebrand
Snellville, Georgia

Abortion is only one issue that separates the Republican Georgia Senatorial candidates. Mac Collins makes a decent conservative congressman. Johnny Isakson is a political hack with eyes on his next personal career step. Isakson called his conservative opponents in the 1996 Republican Senatorial primary “extremists.” He makes a big thing about teaching Sunday School. Too big in fact, trying too hard to impress us stupid Christians.

Herman Cain is a man on a mission. Herman Cain wants to fix the serious problems facing our country. Herman Cain makes this listener feel in the heart that someone has taken up the mantle that Ronald Reagan left when he ascended to Heaven in a chariot of fire.
David Shoup
Augusta, Georgia

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