BARRY FUNNY
Re: The Washington Prowler’s Bondsing With Clinton:
Lesson learned for the Giants: When you meet with the Devil it is bound to get hot.
— RL
Colorado
MAYORALTY RULE
Re: Paul Beston’s A Light in the Darkness:
THANK YOU, Paul Beston, for helping set the record straight. Rudy Giuliani turned New York City around by policies which he built into the system to outlast his tenure. Rudy kept outstandingly well the Periclean pledge which he made and renewed, to leave the City better than he found it. I had read David Greenberg’s disgusting “Where Have All the Looters Gone?” headlined by Slate as a “history lesson,” with its “irreference” to Rudy, and its attempt to implicitly credit Bill Clinton for the absence of looting — 1990s general prosperity” (what about 1980s general prosperity?) — but all the same, it was under Rudy that the crime rate began its steady plunge, Rudy’s new police policies including sending cops where the crime was were the difference plain for all to see. I had not read the Martin Gottlieb N.Y. Times account with the incredible and dignity-shredding claim (their own dignity and that of the poor) that the poor felt so hopelessly under-subsidized that they became too lazy to steal. Have Martin Gottlieb and the N.Y. Times no shame?
It has become a city where people know the government will act effectively against looting and crime, where the people know that quality-of-life issues count and that the government when it can will grab the criminal when he or she just dips a toe in, where the people know that the government is prepared with resources and by organization and drilling for emergencies. I for one am hoping for two more turns as mayor by Rudy Giuliani.
— ForNow
Queens, NY
What struck me was that the present mayor learned something about how to behave during a crisis.
— John Schuh
SELF-RECOGNITION
Re: Francis X. Rocca’s Porn-Again Conservatives:
Very amusing piece — and one that I can identify with.
— Sam Whitaker
EVERYMAN HIMSELF
Re: The Washington Prowler’s Richardson Blacks Out:
Among the things I don’t understand is the mostly favorable prominence of the sometimes blimpish — he seems to exhale and/or inhale, expanding his girth, as his Vice-Presidential prospects wax and wane — Hispanic Richardson. (Actually, I have always been unclear concerning his minority status. He may not be Hispanic at all, but rather American Indian, Inca , an Arab, a Turk, an Asian, a eunuch or, perhaps, a fool. As MGM, Paramount and Warner Brothers once beckoned Abraham Sofaer, Dan Seymour and Michael Pate to stand in for these groups in epics such as Elephant Walk, The Naked Jungle and Secret of the Incas, Richardson seems to be the Democrats’ everyman.)
As a Congressional Representative, he was noted for his facile elbowing of others out of the way of Crossfire‘s CNN cameras. Later at the UN, He stepped into the breach, when Clinton needed to bribe Monica with a well-paid sinecure. Then, instead of nailing his ample hide to the barn wall, a Repulican Senate awarded him the equivalent of the Senatorial academy award for his mendacity in office, when he was affirmed as Energy Secretary. After typically incompetent and devious service as Secretary — he dealt courageously with the leaks at the atomic lab by firing the whistle blower — he skulked back to New Mexico and was elected governor.
Does Richardson possess hidden charm not apparent to those of us outside the Beltway and New Mexico?
— J.R. Wheatley
Harper Woods, MI
SELF-SERVICE
Re: The Washington Prowler’s Bowles Over:
The campaign staff worries that Sen. John Edwards, “…will pull out of the primary race to focus instead on his re-election to the Senate. “We don’t see how he can do both for much longer,” says a volunteer in North Carolina.”
No mention of focusing on his actual charge — to serve the people of NC that elected him in the first place?
— Mark Hessey
Belmar, NJ
MODERN MAN
Re: John R. Dunlap’s Identity Crisis:
John R. Dunlap is a danger to every adherent of the American Catholic Church. His resort to the so-called fundamentals of ill-instructed self-constituted “theologians” of the first few fumbling centuries of Christianity is enough, by itself, to invalidate whatever claim he makes to adding to the net stock of modern knowledge of human growth. Of course no one at Santa Clara University — or anywhere else of note — has read Maritain, Chesterton, or Knox in the last thirty years. If they, or their like, had anything to say to the modern American, it would not be much and not much needed. Passé happens for a reason. The market decides precisely and finally.
— Joseph Keru
GETTING ARNOLD
Re: George Neumayr’s Arnoldian Standards:
It seems to me that if California doesn’t get Arnold, it will get an even more liberal Democrat.
As a “dyed in the wool” conservative, I dislike his liberal talk and promises, but I think he has his uses. Just as Bush has promoted the Democrat agenda, we have to realize that our side has to get an entry. Arnold should quit talking about welfare enhancement and tout his support for prop 187 and prop 13, also about that English immersion prop. and the phonics prop. Those are very popular, much more so with taxpayers and parents than turning over the keys to illegal immigrants, and other welfare recipients.
— G.B. Hall
Montgomery, AL
Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t a real conservative. Nevertheless, he’s my preferred candidate in the California race.
He’s the best we can get, most likely. The people of California are eaten up and sold out to left-wing demagogy. They’ll never vote for anything smacking of sound government, fiscal responsibility or a government of limited aims and powers. They’ve bought the pernicious lies and self-congratulatory sanctimony of Leftism, hook line and sinker. The only way to partly redeem the situation is to go with circuses, special candidates, flukes: Arnold. ANYBODY who can limit the damage of Democrats, who can at least avoid their most insane and destructive policies, is welcome. Better a Millard Fillmore than a Bill Clinton. Better a Sonny Bono than a Larry Flynt.
People just want a candidate they can admire and respect. They’re so tired of the money-grubbing, fame-grubbing, power-grubbing, sex-grubbing usual run of candidates who will say anything and do anything to get elected. Anybody who offers ANY kind of admirable qualities is a breath of fresh air — even if the voters can’t always distinguish between Arnold’s screen persona and his real character. He has accomplished a lot, for an immigrant who started with nothing; there’s plenty about his real life to admire.
To Hell with high-falutin’ cutesy arguments of people like George Will: “Truly conservative Californians — you few know who you are — will vote against the recall to protest its plebiscitary cynicism.” The yokels aren’t going to be snowed by supposedly brainy phrases like “plebiscitary cynicism,” nor allow Will to determine who’s a conservative, “rightly considered.” One of Mark Twain’s characters defined honesty as meaning basically: If you tell a lie you have to stick to it. According to George Will, democracy means: If you elect a jackass you have to stick with him. That’s OK for bow-tie-wearing, blue-blooded patricians, who naturally would side with Gray Davis. But Mr. Will must excuse the people if they choose to avail them of the legal, proper recourse provided by law, and throw out an elected official who has revealed himself to be a worthless bum. They want to get rid of the whining, blame-shifting [pol], even if it doesn’t fit in with George Will’s ideas of what’s proper and truly conservative.
— Larry Eubank
Bloomington, IN
BIRDSEED
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Good Fences Makes Good Neighbors:
Mr. Tyrrell, travel may not have narrowed your mind but it certainly has muddled it. An expert rifleman would be hard pressed to pick off a bird on a branch at 1200 feet, much less 1200 yards. If you truly believe this fairy tale then you should make an appointment at the Screw Factory for a re-thread. Do you catch 100 lb. 3 foot long trout when fishing? Your tale of your hunting buddies is in the same category.
— J. W. Kennelly
