ARNOLD AND DANGEROUS
Re: The Prowler’s GOP Heavyweight Heaven:

So the Kennedy in-law (better than an outlaw) is threatening to run in 2006. Are he and his backers writing off Bill Simon, who is apparently still a very viable candidate according to the polls? Simon could well running for his second term in 2006. No wonder the Republican Party is called the Stupid Party! Arnold, go back to Transylvania or wherever you came from.
— unsigned

SPLIT DECISION
Re: Reid Collins’s Split Screen Bias:

I agree 100% with Reid Collins’ comments today. I watched President Bush’s talk in Birmingham with the split screen. I personally thought the President gave a great speech and I agreed with him wholeheartedly. BUT, the split screen certainly insinuated that the stock market downturn was attributed to the President!!!

I especially think this is the case with people who only browse the news and really don’t listen or care to understand what is happening with the liberal press that we have had in this country for the last 40-50 years.

When I was a senior in high school over 40 years ago, I loved politics. Back then my Governmental Affairs teacher told us about the liberal bias in the major three networks. It has only gotten worse. No wonder the cable networks have taken hold of the people who really want to know what is going on. and I don’t mean CNN.

Thanks for reading my email.
— Connie Klecker
Arizona and Minnesota resident
P.S. I do not like Senator McCain RINO!!!!!!!!

IN THOSE TIMES
Re: Editor’s note, Mystery Man:

The extremist New York Times‘ decision to keep mum on patriotism in an account of Pat Tillman’s decision to enlist signifies a animus against mention of patriotism unless it can be put into a context meant to vitiate or even villainize an appearance of patriotism in an event reported. They’re looking for a “real motive” for Tillman’s decision. It’s poisonous, what epiphanies the increasingly red New York Times‘ aims to belittle. Maybe Tillman has a reason more specific than just plain patriotism, maybe not, but the Times is looking for one — as if, for instance, reinvigoration by the terrorist attacks of childhood dreams of joining the military might help “explain away” the patriotism; or as if, for another instance, terrorists’ murder of a friend were not a legitimate motive for increased patriotism! I remember in NYC, people some of whom had probably never saluted the flag in their lives were weeping at the sight of it. It isn’t “just a flag,” after all. It’s terrible, what great wonders some of us come to take for granted.
— Benjamin Udell

LONELY AND VALIANT
Re: Lawrence Henry’s The Middle East War Nobody Knows:

Thanks to you and to Lawrence Henry for pointing out the lonely and valiant struggle being fought by some Arabs living under the thumb of the Palestinian Authority to try to free their people — and help Israel fight — what has been and still is a regime of terrorists and thugs. No matter how naive the West has been in this regard, the picture is becoming clearer and clearer — in rewarding the Nobel Prize to Yasser Arafat and setting him up along with his henchmen to run the disputed territories in the West Bank and Gaza, all that was accomplished was the imposition of a ruthless gang of murdering extortionists who have no regard for human life whatsoever — not for the lives of their own people, not for the lives of the Israelis. Arafat, his Fatah group, and the various other terrorist outfits that he has cultivated as lord and master of the Palestinian Authority (Hamas, PLP, etc.) are directly responsible for the deaths and injuries of at this point thousands of civilians, many of them, sadly, children. Those among the Palestinians who see this horror for what it is are, indeed, unsung heroes and operating at great personal risk. I hope someday that their efforts will be properly recognized and honored by the world.
— Rena Cohen
Rockville, MD

Interesting piece on “collaborators,” but I have for some time believed that those labeled as collaborators were in fact those the current PLO folks have deemed pacifists, malcontents, those not happy with Arafat and his stealing and corrupt government etc. Nice way to get rid of those you believe enemies: call them collaborators and kill them.
— unsigned

GUILTY AS CHARGED
Re: Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder’s A Bad Year for Jewish Wives:

Jackie Mason hit the nail right on the head. The Catholic Church has inherited the “mantle.”

The old joke about the Catholic church in a Jewish neighborhood –“Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt” — has a new and unfunny meaning.
— Mike Horn
Tracy, CA
(I left Brooklyn 35 years ago and don’t want to talk about it)