Oxymoronic Clinton Conservatives - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Oxymoronic Clinton Conservatives
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NOT FRIENDS OF HILL
Re: W. James Antle III’s Republicans for Clinton?:

Suggesting that conservatives vote for Hillary Clinton is the same league as those you justify Mussolini because he made the trains run on time and Hitler because he built those nice autobahns. It’s the absolute absence of morality and morality should be the quality above all others that defines the conservative viewpoint — without morality and moral courage and conviction, conservatives are nothing, there is no point to going to all the trouble of deciding between what is right and what is wrong. Liberalism is far easier to practice than conservatism because it does not require real morality, all that matters is getting along and feeling comfortable. That is easy to do but it also means that liberalism is often empty and without any real meaning. The absence of morality certainly defines the Clintons — not even their friends ever pretended that they were honest and selfless.

If conservatives think that a colossal, self serving fake like Hillary Clinton deserves their vote then they really should be changing their calling and taking up a less demanding one — one that doesn’t involve convictions and self pride and self respect. Being able to look at yourself in the mirror and not feel like a gutless, flip flopping wimp should be much more important to a conservative than voting for a Hillary who was all in favor of invading Iraq when it was easy to do that and has now changed her mind and her story for exactly the same reason.
Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

So, let me get this straight, Mr. Bartlett would have me support Hillary or Barack because they can win and abandon Rudy or Fred or Mitt because they can’t win. Abandon my core beliefs in order to what? Get along with the “new” Democrat majority. Has the estimable Mr. Bartlett inhaled what Bubba chose not to?

By abandoning the Republican candidates he abandons the party and instead of demonstrating some integrity, some backbone, some cojones he would have us roll over like a puppies and bare our underbelly to be eviscerated. Can there be any doubt that following the lead of summer soldiers like Mr. Bartlett will only ensure the election of a Democrat president and legislature with the subsequent results. Hillary unchecked, what a great idea! Repressive taxes, socialized medicine, surrender, criminalization of dissent (they’ve started already it’s called the “fairness doctrine”), terrorists being read their rights after they’ve killed in the name of Allah…Gee sounds great Bruce!!

I ain’t no ways tired…count me still in the fight!
Stuart Reed
Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan

By championing Hillary for the politically-sophisticated conservatives, Bruce Bartlett is displaying a darkened mind not far from the one Pat Buchanan displayed when he said on television that Hillary sounded the most Reaganesque in her response to Brian William’s question during the South Carolina debate:

Brian Williams: Okay, look, God forbid a million times we’re sitting here tonight and we learn during the course of this press conference that two American cities have been obliterated, and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s Al-Qaeda.

Hillary: I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate. If we are attacked and we can determine who was behind that attack, and if there were nations that supported or gave material aid to those who attacked us, I believe we should quickly respond. Now, that doesn’t mean we go looking for other fights. You know, I supported President Bush when he went after Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then when he decided to divert attention to Iraq, it was not a decision that I would have made had I been president because we still haven’t found bin Laden.

The problem with Pat Buchanan’s assessment of Hillary’s answer is that she did not answer the question that was asked. Reagan would have answered the question that was asked and, since it was post- 9/11 given a much different answer than Hillary.

Last November 10 Buchanan wrote:

With the rout of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s initiatives, Democratic victories in New Jersey and Virginia, and President Bush’s free fall in national polls on job performance, credibility and character, the Republican Party is in imminent peril of losing the country.

Indeed, since 9/11, the party has indulged in a willful self-delusion that it has become America’s Party. The Bush triumph in 2004, talking heads brayed, settled the matter: Red State America has triumphed over Blue State America. The future belongs to us.

This was always hyperbole. Where Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan rolled up 49-state landslides in re-election runs, Bush won 31 states, losing every state north of the Potomac and east of Ohio, two of the three great industrial states of the Midwest, Michigan and Illinois, and he was skunked on the Pacific rim. Had Kerry hammered him on trade and lost jobs in Ohio, Bush would be a one-term president…

Pat Buchanan is full of hyperbole. I advise him to read the letters column of TAS today under “Motor Trends.” There, in letters from “the people” he loves and champions more than any other talking head Republican, he will learn the reasons why the Big Three really died (hint: it’s no fault of any of the Bush’s — even Barney) and revise and, extend his remarks. Oh, and Michigan ceased to be a great industrial state about 20 years ago.

As for Bruce Bartlett, in November of 2004, he wrote:

“If George W. Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.”

These remarks and columns by Bartlett and Buchanan are just evidence of that civil war.

Don’t be fooled into thinking anything else.

Warmest Regards,
Mrs. Jackson

I’ve got a better idea. I can no longer stand to live in a country even partially governed by the likes of greedy Pelosi and Reid (check the financial shenanigans of each and their family members). I declare my modest flat in Royal Oak Michigan to be an independent and sovereign nation and plan to do two things immediately. One declare war on the U.S., sue for peace and demand a million dollars (I’m not greedy like some) in reparations for our citizens, me. Two I am going to issues warrants for the arrest of international energy criminals Al Gore and his ilk for disgraceful use and waste of scarce (they tell us) hydrocarbons. I will consider my nation’s writ to run throughout the known world as does the World Court in some weird place called the Hague considers its jurisdiction to extend. At least to Tennessee where when I visit my sister I expect the county Sheriff to assist me in placing Al the nut case under arrest. Once he is in custody I promise this public nuisance a fair and speedy trial before his public flogging. I will also publicly hang the fat pig if I can figure out a way to do so without killing him although he continues to call for the death of millions of unborn children. I realize in my more sane moments this is all a dream, but what the heck, it helps keeps me going most days.
Jack Wheatley
Royal Oak, Michigan

Sorry, any conservative claiming to speak for “disenchanted conservatives,” by advocating voting for a radical leftist like Hillary, in no way speaks to or for me. Mr. Bartlett, like Pat Buchanan, who advocates for the impeachment of President Bush, is just another vain media huckster desperate for attention, hence, advocating the absurd in order to stake out a position sure to distance themselves from the pack and get noticed. It appears to be working. May I suggest that TAS devote its precious space to more serious commentators and leave Bartlett and Buchanan to the N.Y. Times and the Nation.
A. DiPentima

Why on earth do certain circles of conservatives think that we must pay penance to evil in order for viable and elect-able conservatives’ candidates to bubble to the surface?

Why do some small ‘r’ Republicans think that “we’ll learn our lesson” only when we’re subjected to more liberalism?

Why even grant the premise? Why give any liberalism a chance, on any front?

If you are true to conservative principles as the preservative of the union, why not fight liberalism with the fury that you denigrate those “not conservative enough”? Instead, we end up with these grumpy “stay at home” factions and splinter groups that end up electing liberals every time.

Liberalism is the enemy here, not Republicans who need our help (sometimes therapeutically rather than financially).

What would you small ‘r’ types prefer to complain about: your almost totally conservative representative, or a liberal majority?
P. Aaron Jones
Huntington Woods, Michigan

Conservative Republicans supporting, e.g, Hillary RODHAM Clinton is the political calculation of a Neville Chamberlain, and would lead to analogous outcomes. If the GOP nominates a closet liberal a/k/a “moderate,” then the course of action for us is to … relax. Sit out the 2008 Presidential race and stand by for 2012 or 2016. As the “mainstream” GOP leadership continues to lose elections, their grasp of the Republican Party reins becomes ever looser. Let’s not forget that were not for Jimmy Carter, there may not have been a President Reagan — so we can take comfort that a Clinton / Obama Presidency will reacquaint the American people just how “whacko left” the post-McGovern Democrat Party has become.

Additionally, there is something to be said for having the Democrats in charge when Social Security goes cash-flow negative, which is sure to occur sooner than projected. It’ll be hard for them to demagogue their way out of that one — just imagine a Republican TV ad with a piggy bank labeled “Social Security Trust Fund,” with a set of hands turning it upside down, shaking it looking for money, as the voice-over says: “On ____, 20__ the Trustees of the Social Security announced that it has gone ‘cash flow’ negative, and that in order to keep providing Social Security benefits they’d have to start drawing on the Trust Fund. But when they went to the ‘piggy bank’ they found it was empty. Somebody raided the Social Security Trust Fund, and there’s no cash there. Who took our Social Security money? The Democrat Congress and President ___.”
Thomas C. Wigand, Esq.

NEW COLOR BARRIERS
Re: Lisa Fabrizio’s Bigotry and Sports:

Lisa Fabrizio wisely points out a new phenomenon rearing its head in the world of sports — manufactured racism. I have played, coached and watched all manner of sports for the past fifty years and have seen American society evolve from times when minority players were 1.) plainly denied access to professional sports opportunities, then 2.) suspect with regard to heart and intelligence- to the present day where talent and performance are the major determinants of an individual’s place in sports. I would guess that children (and most adults) today make absolutely no distinctions about skin color in choosing their sports heroes, favorites and role models.

The LACK of racism in professional and amateur sports cannot be tolerated by those with an interest in perpetuating victimhood and portraying white America as a heartbeat away from lynchings, Jim Crow and slavery. Thus, crude and dishonest studies and surveys must be concocted to support destructive hypotheses. If racism is not found in sufficient quantity or virulence, then it must be manufactured and the New York Times reflexively fans the dying embers.

When it comes to sports — and the U.S. military for that matter — the cream is encouraged to rise honestly and we should celebrate those institutions as trailblazers in the realization of Dr. King’s pronouncements about talent and character, which is precisely why the boorish Barry Bonds’ “accomplishments” will never resonate with most Americans. Bonds’s skin color is of no consequence. His character is.
Deane Fish
Altamont, New York

I tend right on racial issues, so I read “Bigotry and Sports” with interest. However, Ms. Fabrizio misses two crucial points regarding the social science of racism.

First, regarding the NBA study (it showed black and white refs call fouls differently against black and white players), she remarks that it’s “junk science.” Presumably, she’s referring to the allegation that the researchers used box score data, which doesn’t tell them which ref made which call. However, using statistical methods it’s possible to determine whether a given ref (or a ref of a given race) being present correlates to a higher or lower number of penalties.

Here’s the data the authors came up with (pdf): Per 48 minutes played, black players got 4.330 fouls when the majority of refs were white and 4.329 fouls when the majority of refs were black. White players got 4.954 from white refs and 5.023 from black refs. White players get more penalties, no matter the race of the ref, largely because they’re “taller, heavier, and more likely to play center.”

What the media hasn’t played up, of course, is that black players are treated the same by white and black refs. But white players get fewer penalties when the refs are white (for every 502 penalties a black ref team calls on black players, a white ref team will only call about 495, or 98.6 percent). This means either (A) white refs go easy on white players relative to black refs (or if you prefer, black refs go hard on white players relative to white refs) or (B) white players play more aggressively in front of black refs. Regardless, it shows that a ref’s race makes a difference on the B-ball court.

Two, Ms. Fabrizio dismisses evidence that whites harbor unconscious biases against blacks. Yet implicit attitude tests have shown that quite reliably. As I once wrote in the Northwestern Chronicle, a conservative college paper, summarizing my own results on one such test:

In a freshman-year psychology course, I took a computerized test — a headshot or a word was flashed on the screen, and I pushed a button if the person was white or if the word was positive [i.e. “happiness”]. I pushed a different button in response to black faces or negative words.

But then the program switched up on me. Now I had to push one button for white faces or negative words, and another for black faces and positive words.

Like 87.9 percent of white American participants, I performed faster and with greater accuracy when asked to pair “white” with “good” and “black” with “bad.”

One can certainly put these results in perspective — it takes a professionally devised test to unearth this, and white racism probably ranks well behind gangs in hurting the black community. But it’s wrong to pretend the results don’t exist, or that they mean nothing.
Robert VerBruggen
(www.therationale.com)

Lisa Fabrizio’s column is a must-read, for more than the following paragraphs, but they do crystallize what is wrong with sports reporting:

Because, although not too many years ago, sports-writing was considered the “toy department” of journalism, the boys and girls in the press box have been eager to catch up to their counterparts in the “real” world. And so, they are also no longer content with merely reporting the scores, trades and what have you; they must now generate the news. And, similar to the mainstream media, they need divisive issues in order to push the agenda of all J-school graduates: to change the world.

Class envy, which is the one of the main devices used by liberals and their media wing to influence the masses, is not available in the sports journalists’ playbook for obvious reasons. But racism; there’s the true straw that stirs the drink of controversy, even when that cup may be empty.

This is why we have such inanity as ESPN’s “Sports Reporters,” where the overinflated egos of the sports press compete to see who can get the biggest advance on his/her next book by uttering something scandalous and “controversial.”

I picked on the “Sports Reporters” only because it’s among the oldest of its genre, and there are so many other similar shows whose names run together in my head.

As for the central figure of Ms, Fabrizio’s column, Barry Bonds, all I can say about him is that I honor and respect Bonds for traveling his own road and putting in all the hard work necessary to eclipse the home run record.

I believe it is true that nothing he may have put in his body was against the rules of baseball when (and if) he did it, and so it is my considered opinion that Barry Bonds deserves all the credit because he refused to demean himself and submit to the media. He preferred to keep his dignity. Good for him.
Jack Lavelle
Phoenix, Arizona

The game of baseball taught me to steal and pick people off. It taught me integrity. It taught me that even the best players usually fail, but they accept it stoically and try all the harder the next time. It taught me life.

What Barry Bonds teaches is that only saps play by the rules, baseball be damned. Is it any wonder Barry Bonds deserves no respect, however many times he circles the bases?
David Govett
Davis, California

Hate to be picky here, but Street Sense is a three year old, he won the Breeders’ Cup as a two year old. He is the first colt in 23 years to win both the Cup and Derby.
Elaine Kyle

Lisa Fabrizio replies:
Due possibly to the effects following my reaction to my horse’s tenth place finish in the Derby, I erred grievously in stating that Street Sense was “the first two-year old in nearly thirty years to capture the roses.” This, of course is incorrect. What I meant to write was that he was the first two-year old champion (Breeder’s Cup Juvenile) to win in nearly thirty years.

BORDER FENCING
Re: Quin Hillyer’s Border Control Poll:

Forgive the amateur psychologizing here (borrowing Mr. Hiller’s phrase), but a primary reason a majority of Americans DO want a border fence stems from our frustration: we are sick-and-tired of elected politicians in Washington talking about controlling the tide of illegal aliens coming across our southern border, yet those same politicians seem to accomplish nothing that achieves that goal. Generations of politicians. The problem of controlling our border with Mexico has been an ongoing issue in Washington for more than the half century I’ve been alive.

A fence may be ugly. Yes, it’s almost an affront to America’s ideal of a free society; a society that depends on an ordered liberty in which most citizens voluntarily abide by our laws. An estimated 30 million illegal aliens in this country (yes, thirty, not the ultraconservative estimate of twelve..) choose not to.

So, although a fence may be ugly, Americans know that a fence, a physical wall on the Mexican border, will work where decades of political posturing have failed. Just look at Israel. Six years ago we were seeing Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli citizens in the news almost as frequently as we hear of terrorist suicide bombings in Iraq today. Then Israel built the wall, and since then can anyone remember the last time a Palestinian suicide bomber murdered innocent Israelis in a crowded bus or restaurant? I can’t.

Americans know that a wall of concrete and steel won’t go wobbly and cave under a constant barrage of negative push-poll numbers from the liberal MSM.
Bruce
Texas

Hillyer’s article is so on-the-money. Of course one of our major problems is the pro-business and well-meaning Republican types in the media (think Larry Kudlow, Fred Barnes). They maintain that we simply need these people to do the jobs that Americans won’t do and that it would be cruel (not to mention impractical) to attempt to send them home. They have carte-blanche to demonize (and to point out how hopelessly naive we are) those of us who see no ethical impediment to giving it a shot.

I would like to see a pro-American George Soros type put up billboards across the land and buy TV time to tell the public exactly what Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton & others used to say about illegal immigrants and their employers.

Lastly, I thought it was a requirement of citizenship to speak English. Now, of course, I am naive, but I thought there was a requirement of citizenship to vote and I can’t understand why we need ballots in Spanish.
James Sherlock
New Jersey

By any and all means, stop the flow of illegal aliens into the country, but about the ones already here, a little common sense is needed. Some are here and their only crime has been to cross the border illegally. Others come here and cause all kinds of problems. We need to be able to distinguish between the two. Fortunately, local sheriffs and police know who the troublemakers, drug dealers, drunks etc. are and would be happy to have them deported. Why cannot local law officers, when someone comes to their attention as a problem, determine if he is illegal and if he is, one appearance before a judge, DNA, photos and fingerprints are taken, and he is deported to country of origin with the warning that if he is ever found in the U.S. again, he is facing an automatic twenty years in a jail in Guatemala.

Whatever civil rights and entitlement to equal protection an illegal alien may have, the right to be here is not one of them.
Merlin Perkins
Bridgeport, Washington

CONSTITUTIONAL COP-OUTS
Re: Doug Bandow’s Selling Out the Constitution:

Thank you for the sober affirmation that the Constitution cannot be thrown out like an old rag anytime its provisions offend some transient notion of what is “fair.” Not only would the “fairness” argument require that DC be given two senators as well as a Representative, it would also require that all other US territories get the same thing: American Samoa, Guam, the American Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, too!

If in fact the District of Columbia is hell bent on having the power of a state, why not simply ask for statehood? Except for the original 13 states, and Texas and West Virginia, all of the current states started out as U.S. territories which were occupied by US citizens who had no power to elect members of the House or the Senate! The solution offered to them was to make them states once they reached a minimum level of population and were able to persuade Congress to accept their draft constitutions (as is the duty of Congress under the Constitution, to ensure that each state has a “republican” government). Utah territory had many thousands of American citizens, but was not granted statehood until 1896 because Congress was prejudiced against the Mormons.

The reason the District doesn’t want statehood, or to join Maryland, is that it lacks enough revenue sources to pay for a state government, and does not want to let go of the Federal subsidies that Congress provides. Other U.S. Territories are in the same boat. Guam receives every dollar of Federal income tax paid by anyone on the island, including tens of thousands of Air Force and Navy personnel! To become a State would deprive Guam of most of its revenue stream. That is the dirty little secret of this whole affair: The District and these other territories want the power of a state without paying their own way like a state.

The unfairness argument did not persuade the Supreme Court when it was argued on behalf of the tens of thousands of Utahns who were living outside the State at the time of the 2000 Census, many because they were serving as volunteers around the world for the LDS Church. Even though they could send in absentee ballots, they could not be counted as part of Utah’s population and thus get the level of representation they deserve in the House. Even when Utah gets a 4th seat in the normal way after the 2010 Census, Utah will still be proportionately underrepresented in the House because of these many expatriates whom the Census Bureau refuses to count. If Congress is so concerned about full representation, why doesn’t it change the law so that the Census Bureau does its job completely? After all, the State Department knows where all of those Americans are! Every nation with Americans living in them temporarily has an exact record of them, and could supply the data to the State Department at the time of the decennial Census in America. Every State who sends out absentee ballots overseas can send a Census questionnaire to the same address! There are clearly over a million Americans who are not being counted for purposes of allocating seats in the House, but Congress hypocritically cares nothing for them. It could do so without violating the Constitution, too.
Raymond Takashi Swenson
Idaho Falls, Idaho

PREDICTABLE PROBLEMS
Re: Eric Peters’s Why Toyota’s Number One:

Eric Peters makes the lame excuse that no one could have predicted the demise of the American auto industry. Sorry kid, but I’ve been an auto mechanic all my life and I disagree. I started out in 1970 as a factory-trained Honda motorcycle mechanic, moved on to fleet cars and eventually fleet trucks and construction equipment.

I told my older co-workers in 1975 that the Japanese, particularly Honda, would one day dominate the Auto industry. They based most of their objections on patriotic slogans that Spiro Agnew would have been proud of. I worked on those cars America was most fond of, the Fords, Chevys and Chrysler mid-size tanks.

Cars that were designed to drive mechanics crazy and dealers ecstatic and owners bitter. The mechanics were driven crazy by designs that made it hard, if not impossible to properly maintain a car cheaply. An hour to change a head light bulb? Yup, and even worse horror stories can be told.

In the end the American people bought cars that were easy to own, easy to repair and easy to sell when their time was up. The Japanese cars were the ones that fit the bill.

Today, you can go to any American car dealer and see the results of American companies ignoring the American consumer. Just take a look where the employees park their personal vehicles. The managers and sales people drive the freebies that are meticulously maintained by the mechanics, who in turn drive beat up Japanese cars and trucks.

Have you figured it out yet?

Note: I also predicted three years ago that once Toyota got serious about NASCAR racing, they would soon dominate. Stay tuned.
Robert (Bob) Mawn
Holley, New York

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