DOLING IT OUT
Re: Jed Babbin’s Lemony Snicket Republicans:

As a conservative woman, I have never been a big fan of Elizabeth Dole. Aside from the light in the back window of my car, please tell me what this woman has done? Over the years she has shone herself to be a dithering, fussy woman who gets the vapors whenever the going gets a little tough — all the while pretending to be the iron fist inside the velvet glove… not!

When she took the job of chairman of the Senate Campaign Committee, I wondered how long it would take her to get sidetracked onto an issue of little or no importance. Let’s see if she can get back on track. I certainly hope so.

Just remember she backed Lincoln Chafee. Need I say more?
— Judy Beumler
Louisville, Kentucky

Living in North Carolina and voting for Elizabeth Dole has been one of my greatest disappointments. Don’t get me wrong. Living in North Carolina is a wonderful experience and the people are terrific. It just that Mrs. Dole as a Senator has been an abysmal failure to say the least.

Not that she has taken a wrong stance on a controversial issue or voting against the position taken by her constituents, Mrs. Dole is so far under the radar that she goes so unnoticed that North Carolinians are beginning to wonder if she is still a sitting senator.

I have heard of Congressional Senators taking the safe route, but Mrs. Dole has carried this to extremes. I suppose we North Carolinians were spoiled by Jesse Helms, who made no secret of his political views, or even Mrs. Dole’s husband Bob, who at least made minor waves from time to time. But does Mrs. Dole even venture out of her office and if she does it is in incognito?

I have corresponded with Mrs. Dole’s office by email about her stance on illegal immigration, and they respond by sending me a generic flyer on petroleum. These flyers are nothing more than generic middle of the road statements by Mrs. Dole, but I’m getting the strange feeling that some of the information that Mrs. Dole includes, she still thinks she is in charge of the Red Cross. Her statements in her flyer are so wishy-washy that when opened the print jumps up in fear and runs to the back page.

North Carolinians had such high hopes for Mrs. Dole to make political fireworks in Washington, D.C., but unfortunately she has been a damp match unable to light a fire under any issue. North Carolina’s only hope is that the Republican Party can field a more of a self-starter type candidate, which by all indications of the off year election will be compared to building the Hoover Dam with a teaspoon.
— Melvin L. Leppla
Jacksonville, North Carolina

I’ll keep this short. Mr. Babbin asks some interesting questions and makes some interesting points. I have always wondered why Congressional Republicans try to run as Democrats. But, for some reason, that seems to be what they do.

Elections in this country have been decided upon national issues since 2001 and they will be this year. For the foreseeable future, local issues will be national security issues. And the Dems know this. Their problem is that they cannot win primaries by campaigning as being more aggressive on national defense then their Republican adversaries. And, to win general elections, they have to be just that. The Republicans cannot seem to understand this and so run as Democrats, thereby giving voters no discernible choice at the polls.

Once again, as in 2004, a dangerous world loon has begun campaigning for the Republicans. Kim Jong-Il has taken it upon himself to give the Republican candidates a shot in the arm. Though they have dropped the ball on border protection, tax relief, and fiscal responsibility, they have a golden opportunity to make up all that lost ground by reminding the voters that there are very bad people in the world that have vowed to destroy America and have the means to do it. Whether they seize this opportunity remains to be seen. The Democrats, thanks to all the time and effort that they have spent cultivating the moonbat left to be their base, cannot modify their stance on national defense very much. This fact, when coupled with a spirited campaign for national defense by the Republican candidates, will sink most Democratic candidates at the polls. Look to Sen. Joe Lieberman as an example; shot down in the primary, but likely to win the general.

But lest this strategy be, ultimately, in vain, the Republicans will have to remember what got them elected. Security. And they will have to deliver, because the dangerous loons of the world are not some Election Day boogieman, they actually exist and they actually have to be defeated.

There are “games” and then there are Games. And the National Security Game is the most important one being played, at the moment. And politicians of every stripe have to remember that easily half the players are outside the United States and play that game accordingly. Winning a Congressional seat is useless if your constituents glow in the dark.
— Michael Tobias
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Keep it up, guys!!

Jed Babbin lists as his key issues to turn this election around to the Republicants:

FLAG BURNING

MISSILE DEFENSE

I love it. . I hope his party listens to him. They’ll lose 40 seats in the House.

KEEP IT UP Jed , baby!!!
— Kive Weinstein
Reno, Nevada

The only commercial the Republicans need to run. And run over and over and over.

1) First a clip of Kim Jung-Il reviewing a parade of missiles.
2) Then a clip of Ahmadinejad reviewing a parade of missiles.
3) Then a clip of a missile launch.
4) Lastly a map of the northern hemisphere showing distances from North Korea to various cities in the U.S.

With the map on the screen, an announcer says:

For many years Democrats have opposed and delayed the development and deployment of an anti-missile missile system to protect the United States and its allies. Democrats believe that an anti-missile system would be quote destabilizing unquote. Over the years — when Democrats controlled one or both Houses of Congress or the White House — Democrats have blocked and slowed down the development of an anti-missile defensive shield.

Sadly, Democrats don’t understand that the world is a very dangerous place. Republicans know better.

There is a very important difference between the two political parties. When you vote please remember that.

When the Democrats and media scream “politics” the Republicans must be ready to unabashedly shout right back: “Damn straight! We’re having an election. What do Democrats think this election should be about if not national security? Democrats and Republicans are asking Americans to decide who has the better ideas on how to protect the United States. ‘Politics’ is exactly what the commercial is for!”
— Cliff Thier

As a lifelong straight ticket Republican conservative Christian voter I say we need to fire Dole and Reynolds now and ask some fighting Republicans like John Cornyn and Jeff Sessions to save the Senate for us and Joe Barton and Mike Pence to do the same in the House. The time has come to take the gloves off and give the pedophile loving Nancy Pelosi and her Ruth Bader Ginsburg (the Supreme Court Justice who wants to legalize raping 12-year-old girls) the whupp’n they deserve. Quite frankly I could do a better job.

Hey, Republicans, you want to win in November, then give me a call and I’ll give you a national campaign that will bury the Democrats and their media henchmen….
— Rhonda Tomlinson
Crownsville, Maryland

I don’t think the Foley matter hurts the Republicans. Liberals have been preaching sexual diversity for years and years, with only limited success. Democrats are known for being very tolerant if not actually favoring of unusual sexual activity, and theirs is not a majority view. So, if there is one subject the Democrats should want out of the voters’ minds on Election Day, it is probably homosexuality. Cheer up!
— L. B. Hughes
Calhoun County, Michigan

Mr. Babbin’s criticism of the mess that is the Republican re-election poobahs is surely legitimate. The only comment needing adding is this: the ENTIRE leadership (and for my money, a disproportionate percentage of the whole entourage) has no guts! Were it not for the conservatives in talk radio and print media, there would be no martial spirit in this outfit at all. It is a true pity that the repeated majorities that conservative voters sent to Washington have melted into such viscous gobs of ineptitude and callow timidity. The issues facing this fair land are every bit as monumental as any that politicians have ever faced: nuclear roguery, fiscal crises’, international cowardice, institutional corruption, national self defense…and in each case the conservative position is the one correct for America. Who among our political tribunes is fighting for them? Who, for heaven’s sake is even talking about them? Instead we get ditherers wrapped around the axel of a two-bit pervert. A warrior comes to fight…there ain’t no one fighting, the inference is plain. Nuts!!!
— J. C. Eaton
Chetek, Wisconsin

Mr. Babbin, please read the letters (Depends on the Meaning of “IC,” October 9, 2006) about using the term “democratic” when talking about the Democrat party.
Just stop and think about it, there is NOTHING democratic about the Democrat Party.
— Elaine Kyle
Cut & Shoot, Texas

TWISTING IN THE WIND
Re: Hal G.P. Colebatch’s Twisted Tory:

From across the pond I watched the Conservative Party select Mr. Cameron. That twinge of concern I then felt does “progressively” harden into a steady anxiety. Politicians will tell voters what they think the voters want to hear, true, and once elected many will do something radically different (think, oh, Franklin Roosevelt). But while I can think of many men who have promised “right” and delivered Left, for some reason men promising “left” while behaving at least somewhat right rarely if ever appear. (Maybe Tony Blair and Bill Clinton count, in certain respects.)

When a large segment of the voting population in a free nation does not receive from the “established” parties the options it prefers…well, odd events occur. Anyone here in the U.S. recall a fellow named H. Ross Perot? Or for Canadians, the national election that reduced the then — “Progressive Conservative” party to all of two seat in the national parliament?

What options do our British brothers have? Given three center-left “establishment” parties, and no current “respectable” national advocate for I’d look for a “Perot-est” vote. If the Ulster Union and/or the British National Party entertain true aspirations for power, then they ought to work to recruit credible, bright conservative candidates for Parliament. They’d break deep into double digits, against the unholy trinity…
— David James Hanson
Fayette, Iowa

The Conservatives have been voting with their feet. Most people who leave Britain now are Thatcher Tories who seek better lives abroad. This both diminishes and dilutes the Conservative party. (Similar to the Roe effect with Democrats.) It’s sad the best they can come up with is a Lincoln Chafee Republican.
— Donald Parnell

In “Twisted Tory” by Hal G.P. Colebatch, we see an accurate summary of the current and longer-term political climate in these once great British Islands. I often lament the absence of a homegrown leader rising to take on and fight against the shared misery that is born from socialism. I could pull out many nuggets from this article. For example, in presenting one of David Cameron’s fiscal ideologies that tax cuts will not be a priority (i.e. not before economic stability — as we are often told), Mr. Colebatch eloquently reminds me of a tenet of socialism, which is that socialists define the gap between rich and poor as how high is the highest salary and then reduce it. Conservatives otherwise once defined the gap as how well the poor enter the middle class. For the “new” Tories to refer to “no tax cuts without economic stability” is deeply worrying. It is as if they believe the former is an evil and mutually exclusive from economic stability. What does economic stability mean anyway in these days of global competition? Quite frankly, any kind of sound economic foresight that sidelines nihilistic dogma would be welcome after so many years of profligate Mr. Brown.

Socialism hides under a veneer of utopian idealism and Mr. Cameron would appear to be doing the same. In socialism we continually witness an insidious invasion against promise, opportunity, hope, exploration and freedom. Looking in from the outside as this article does illustrates the influence that is the EU. Describing the distinct possibility that Britain’s future is as an impoverished, broken-backed socialist state can take its cue from old Europe. Take a look!

My only disagreement with Mr. Colebatch lies in his optimistic statement, namely: “The best hope for Britain is that Cameron is untruthful” — somehow reverting to Conservative values and ethic once in power. I will not hold my breath but continue to look for a leader who has had a life outside of politics, who is grounded in reality, truly wants to help people and who steps up to the mark because he believes the country needs saving, again, and to hell with popularity.
— Graham Constable
Oxford, England

THE KURDISH OPTION
Re: Shawn Macomber’s Kurdistan Beckons:

Thank you so much for the special report about the Kurds. Here again, I am scratching my head and just cannot fathom what our elected leaders in D.C. are doing! I forgot about the book Hell Is Over by Mike Tucker. I’ll go out today and get a copy for my “war-room library.”

Maybe we should sent truckloads of copies to Congress.
— Regina Jaegermann
Richmond, Virginia

Surprise, surprise; we are at war. But will anyone listen to the Michael Tuckers of the world or are we all from Missouri? “Show me the smoking ruins of Western Civilization, then I might believe there is really a war going on.” Time will tell.
— Michael Tobias
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

The difference between the Kurds and us is that they are at war and we aren’t. They understand who the enemy is and we are afraid to confront it out of fear that we may offend someone. If it comes down to someone winning this, we are going to have to back one of the three possible sides. All three can’t win and occupy the same real estate. In all of these tribal Mideast affairs we end up supporting the wrong side or not allowing one side to win, at which point we would only have to deal with the one left standing. Like the Balkans, everyone has blood on his hands in this area of the world. We want Peace, they want victory in Biblical terms. Our enemies don’t fear us because we aren’t the meanest dog on the block. We’ve been neutered so to speak. Call it political correctness as Mike Tucker did, or perhaps something worse is at work here. Either way, in a shooting war the only way to win it is to kill the other guy faster than he can replace his losses. We haven’t done that since our last War, WWII. Some times you just have to kill a lot of people in a short period of time to get the attention of those running the show. We did that once and it seemed to work. I’m under no illusion that we are going to bring war to the people that need to bear the cost. As Tucker said, “We will not win with only one percent of military age males carrying the load for the entire nation.” This is not serious warfare, given the size and scope of the enemy. Personally I not believe there is such an entity as moderate Muslin. I believe “moderates” just sit on the sidelines and wait to see who they will have to answer to. They do not drive events, events drive them.
— Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia

Mr. Tucker is 100% right. He makes so much common sense, which is why Bush and the politicians on both sides of the aisle can’t understand him. How many more of our best warriors must be killed and maimed before someone has the cojones to step up and tell the truth to the American people at large. This is precisely what I meant when I have written that Bush made a huge mistake in telling the American public to simply go back to their lives that he would handle everything. This is precisely what I meant when I have written the Bush is waging a PC war that is costing us American lives unnecessarily. This is precisely what I meant when I have written that Bush is making a huge mistake in failing to correctly name our enemy.

People, it is long past time to win the darn war or come the heck home. For someone whose principle reaction is to always trust the military more than the politicians, this has now gone beyond consternation. Jed Babbin and some of the other writers have had the right leanings. It is time to take off the gloves and the rose-colored sunglasses, see the reality of the situation, and take the common sense step necessary to bring this sorry episode to a successful conclusion. Or are the Dems and Repubs only interested in kicking the can down the road to their grandchildren and beyond?
— Ken Shreve

I hope you will make Mr. Tucker’s speech available online for those of us who can’t attend.

Mr. Tucker said “The best thing the U.S. Army can do, at this point, is leave.” Some of us realized this after the first failure in Fallujah. We’re actually protecting the radical imams from the people who would kill them, namely the Shia. We’re more afraid of the Shia militias than of the radical imams who kill our troops! Yes, cutting and running would be admitting defeat, but it would also be facing the obvious: we have lost and have no intentions of winning because we absolutely refuse to follow Mr. Tucker’s wise advice. Cutting and running would save American lives and possibly allow the Shia and Kurds to kill the Baathists and other terrorists who have tormented them for decades.

I’m not as optimistic as Mr. Tucker, though. I think we’ll have to suffer thousands more American deaths before the American people are ready to jettison PC and multicultural nonsense and be willing to kill our enemies.
— Roger D. McKinney
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

UN REST
Re: James Poulos’s Useless Unanimity:

The odds are the UN will do nothing about North Korea and their A-Bomb. Liberals here already blame you for labeling North Korea, Iran and Iraq as an Axis of Evil; Naughty, naughty!

These are the same wimps that gave the North Koreans nuclear reactors in the first place. (What was his name again? Clinton, you say?)

Now liberals might authorize the UN to arrest those involved in North Korea — if approved by the members. Can you imagine? “I’m from the UN here to arrest your dictator?”

When posturing runs out, blockade and bomb North Korea — as needed with the help of a “coalition of willing.” (The Chicoms can handle a few million more refugees.)

Standby then for the ranting and raving of those still unwilling to save the blacks at Darfor, the wimps, the gutless, the liberal that comprise most of the thugs representing 191 countries at the UN. Timing means nothing liberal are always having a bad day.

Protecting our sorry rears, sir, is after all what you get paid to do. Bombing and blockade of North Korea also sends a message to Iran, a favorite of many liberals — Jimmy Carter especially.
— Jack Meyer
Havelock, North Carolina

BEN LAST WEEK
Re: Ben Stein’s Foley in Perspective and Hypocrisy, Democrat Style, and Jeffrey Rigdon’s letter in Reader Mail’s The Foley Follies:

I have incredible admiration and respect for Ben Stein and consider him an exceptionally good man but in light of the nonsense that is now thrown at him in response to his candid and honest article about the Foley imbroglio, it is very clear that he is also a prophet. The fact that Homosexuals for some reason can’t figure out the reason for sex and it use is such a point of intellectual dissonance and an evolutionary cul-de-sac that I discount their opinion completely in trying to define what homosexuality is. Narcissism is the root of so many maladies. I love them as a Christian but I will never understand them and their shameless rage at honesty is proof of their lifestyle’s invalidity.
— Andrew E. Malone
New Milford, Connecticut

Mr. Stein’s “Foley in Perspective” is a reasonably acceptable mea culpa for his pathetic and sickening first attempt at dismissing the Foley scandal — “Hypocrisy Democrat Style.” But I wish he would quit with his smarmy paeans to Americans in uniform. By his own admission, when it was his time to serve, he avoided it, and it would be best for the man to keep his guilty feelings to himself and to say his prayers in silence.

“Hypocrisy Ben Stein Style” does not sit any better than any other kind.
— David Sciacchitano

A major inconvenient truth for those who want to make the Foley issue about pedophilia instead of homosexuality is the APA definition of pedophilia. The APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition, Text Revision gives the following as its “Diagnostic criteria for 302.2 Pedophilia”:[26]

Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger). The person has acted on these urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty. The person is at least age 18 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A. Do not include an individual in late adolescence involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12 or 13-year-old.

Since the page in question was 16 at the time of the incident in question this does not meet the strict medical criteria for pedophilia and this would seem to be about homosexual behavior. Since it doesn’t meet the criteria for pedophilia what about pederasty (which some of Ben’s critics claim is the real problem). Guess that depends on whether you take pederasty to mean homosexual behavior in general (an accepted definition) or male homosexual pedophilia (also an accepted definition but this incident doesn’t meet the criteria for pedophilia).

Perhaps a better term would be Ephebophilia — sexual attraction primarily to adolescents. (I will note that the term pedophilia mostly seems to be used as a combination of both pedophilia and ephebophilia.) But in any case most states set the legal age of consent at 16, so again, not even legally do Foley’s actions even constitute pedophilia although they are very creepy and morally wrong. I think it was the right and decent thing for Foley to resign but before I come down on the GOP for not taking steps to correct this what did they know when and isn’t the timing convenient right before elections and all.

Regarding homosexuals not targeting young men — me thinks they doth protest perhaps too much. A recent commentary on www.wnd.com-yes I know, even more right wing than the Spectator and even less credible to the liberal left than the Spectator — by Olivia St. John cited Dr. Jeffery Satinover as saying that pedophilia as an absolute numbers phenomenon in heterosexuals is only more prevalent than that of homosexuals because there are more heterosexuals. When you look at the rates amongst the two groups controlling for groups size, the rate of pedophilia amongst homosexuals appears to be 3 times more common!

This Free Republic discussion makes some interesting comments to make on the subject of homosexual behavior as it relates to boys. Here are a few of the postings, chosen because these were gleaned from what appears to be peer reviewed journals: that boys molested by older men were four times more likely to be homosexuals than non-victims; half of another study cohort of homosexual and bisexual men, both control and study group, reported a sexual act with a male by age 16 and 20% by age ten; a study on childhood and adolescent molestation found that 46% of homosexual men reported by molested by a person of the same gender; and in a study of convicted child molesters 86% described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.

If Ben really is a friend to the gay and lesbian community as he claims (thus explaining the misguided comment since he likely knows that this legally isn’t pedophilia) and this really isn’t about pedophilia (page over age 16, legal age of consent, definitions etc.), it must really be about the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party and vote getting.

Kudos to Ben for getting it right!
— Joyce
Arizona

Please tell Denny Hastert that if we wanted to be represented by perverts we would have voted for the Democrats. The page program should be canceled because our youth are obviously not safe around members of Congress.
— G. Ferguson

I read Mr. Rigdon’s letter re: Ben Stein on the Foley matter. Two words in response: Gerry Studds. Once again, we see the Democrats’ timeworn “claim-victimhood” gambit in operation to avoid addressing constructively the real issues raised.

Finally, is it possible to freefall, tailspin and nosedive simultaneously?
— Reid Bogie
Waterbury, Connecticut

LUCY NANCY
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s When Nancy Met Harry:

Thank you for running this article.

Nobody can be that desperate for votes to lower themselves to being part of an event that is more about exhibiting sexual deviancy than about promoting equal rights.

In the aftermath of the Mark Foley scandal, both Nancy Pelosi and the San Francisco Chronicle (in the words of the late Desi Arnaz) “got some ‘splainin’ to do” and should disassociate themselves from future “Pride Parade” events at once.
— Stephen V. Gilmore
Charlotte, North Carolina