Kerry's Carping
WILLIAM KRISTOL'S editorial, "Disgraceful" (Oct. 4), lives up to its name by failing to note that Prime Minister Allawi's "impressive speech" to Congress was likely drafted by political operatives for President Bush's reelection campaign.
Can we count on this prime minister to honor the election results here in America if Sen. Kerry wins?
Mike McCurry
Senior Adviser, Kerry-Edwards 2004
Washington, DC
WILLIAM KRISTOL deftly presents George W. Bush as the guy who wants to win in Iraq, and John Kerry as the guy who wants to quit. But this formulation is too simple.
To be sure, Americans insist on winning wars above all else. Yet President Bush has raised considerable doubt about his ability to win this war. Let us be honest: Had Bush been a Democrat and performed this way, the polls wouldn't even be close. He would probably face talk of his impeachment.
If the case can be made that Kerry really wants to quit, that should assure a Bush victory. But Kerry and his new managers are no fools. They will work hard to convince voters that Kerry believes winning the war is critical to American security, even if starting the war was wrong.
It won't be easy to make Kristol's assertions stick. If the Democrats can convince enough voters that Kerry really wants to win in Iraq, Bush could lose.
That we are forced to choose between an incompetent, out-of-touch incumbent with the right vision, and a challenger who may have the wrong vision but makes a compelling case that the sky is falling, is deeply unsettling.
Richard Melmon
Menlo Park, CA
I APPRECIATED WILLIAM KRISTOL'S editorial on John Kerry's behavior following President Bush's trip to the United Nations and Ayad Allawi's speech to Congress. I think the last observation in Kristol's article sums up the basic problem with Sen. Kerry as a potential president.
Kristol writes: "Is this really how Kerry wants to go down in history: willing to say anything to try to get elected, no matter what the damage to the people of Iraq, to American interests, and even to himself?"
Throughout this campaign, Kerry has shown he is not a man who believes in standing up for what is right. He believes, instead, in doing or saying whatever it takes to get himself elected.
If elected, Kerry will fail the American people because he won't have a coherent agenda to implement. He just wants the job, and he'll fill in the blanks later. Americans deserve a leader who has a plan.
Mark Savage
Sikeston, MO
REGARDING WILLIAM KRISTOL'S editorial, "Disgraceful": Does no one recognize that Sen. Kerry is simply doing what he does best? I seem to recall that, upon returning from Vietnam, his words and deeds gave comfort and motivation to our enemies.
I also recall that, when pressed on the issue, Kerry claimed his youthfulness as an excuse. But he is doing the same thing again today on Iraq. What is Kerry's excuse now?
This recent example only shows that, in fact, Kerry is consistent: His wartime remarks consistently offer comfort to America's foes.
Tim Hirota
Santa Ana, CA
CBS Then, CBS Now
I ENJOYED JOHN PODHORETZ'S piece on CBS News and its 40-year history of irresponsible broadcasting on Vietnam ("Dan Rather's Day of Reckoning," Oct. 4). As a Vietnam veteran, I feel especially disappointed that the network has been so deceitful about that war.
I was terribly angry over CBS's reporting of the Tet Offensive in 1968. As a participant in that battle, I knew we had defeated the Viet Cong and had the NVA retreating. Gen. William Westmoreland, as Podhoretz notes, was also raked over the coals unjustifiably.
Now we see similarly irresponsible reporting on Iraq. There is a great deal of good news in Iraq that we are never told about. Thank goodness for the Internet, talk radio, and magazines such as THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Thomas H. Davies
Sequim, WA
JOHN PODHORETZ has written a great article about CBS's history of Vietnam-related misreporting. I would take issue only with his timeline. He is of course correct to cite The Selling of the Pentagon as CBS's first fictitious blast in the documentary field. But the network got their toes awfully wet even before that, when CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite declared the 1968 Tet Offensive a huge loss for the U.S. military.
That was the point, alas, when the mainstream media knew they were invincible.
Tom Wolenski
Peters Township, PA
Memogate
REGARDING MATTHEW CONTINETTI'S "The Case of the Phony Memos" (Oct. 4): I am having a hard time reconciling what appears to be the current media defense of CBS. On the one hand, we are told that CBS has a 30-year history of journalistic excellence, and that Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and others at the network are superb reporters. On the other hand, we are asked to believe these so-called geniuses are so stupid that they were "duped" into believing the false documents were real.
I don't buy it. Dan Rather may be a lot of things, but he is not stupid. I think CBS colluded with the Kerry campaign in an effort to bring down George W. Bush. I wonder why some journalists these days consider it their job to defeat Bush. Isn't that Kerry's job?
Sheila Blanchet
Guilford, CT
Winning the Peace
MY ONE OBJECTION TO William Kristol's excellent "Victory or Surrender" (Sept. 27) is that it perpetuates the idea we are still at war in Iraq. The war is over and has been for some time. Presently, we are conducting security and assistance operations. This is not just a euphemism--it is a fundamental truth that is being lost.
Reasonable people may have been for or against the war to depose Saddam Hussein. But who can be against the Iraqi reconstruction except a penny-wise, pound-foolish paleocon or a latent fascist masquerading as "progressive"?
Paul Deignan
Lafayette, IN
Stopping By The Soo
IN HIS ARTICLE "Swinging Right" (Sept. 27), Fred Barnes writes that George W. Bush was the "first" president to visit Michigan's Upper Peninsula "since William Howard Taft visited in 1911."
This is incorrect. In September 1992, President George H.W. Bush visited St. Ignace, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, during his campaign for reelection.
Frederick T. Carr
Sault Ste. Marie, MI
Dakota on the Dole
LIKE JOSEPH BOTTUM, I am from South Dakota ("Prairie Politics," Sept. 27), although I have lived in Colorado for the past 25 years. During that time, I have watched from afar with amazement as the supposed "conservatives" of South Dakota continually vote Democrats into national office.
The explanation for this has gradually become clear: They are conservatives except for one thing--they love that government check. If you lump together all the farm subsidies and various federal relief money that goes to South Dakota and call it what it is--welfare--then you understand. Most of South Dakota is on welfare of one kind or another.
No wonder they love Tom Daschle. Nothing beats a government check, and you never bite the hand that feeds you.
Scott E. Bell
Greenwood Village, CO
Prison Break
I MUST RESPOND TO a small selection of the numerous inaccuracies and distortions contained in Eli Lehrer's review of my book, American Gulag ("Jail House Blues," June 14).
Lehrer asks, "If a reader takes Dow at his word that he doesn't want to draw an analogy with the 'purpose, scale, or often fatal brutality of the Soviet gulag,' then why does he include the word in his book's title?" Good question. And I offered three answers to it, all in the same paragraph from which Lehrer has quoted. Instead of contesting these answers, Lehrer pretends they aren't there.
Lehrer further asks why I "litter the book with quotations from Russian gulag writers like Joseph Brodsky." The book contains quotations from exactly two Russian gulag writers. The first is Solzhenitsyn and this comes in response to the question cited above. The second is Brodsky himself; I quote his brief description of the prison experience in general and its relationship to literature--the latter from his introduction to a PEN collection of prison writings from around the world, including the United States.
Concerning the case of a Somali being locked in a car in a hot parking lot by an immigration official, Lehrer writes that I "[insist] on finding a racial angle to the story." But I write that the immigration official who told me the story said it "made her think of Alabama in the 1950's" (she related the term "nigger roast"), and the incident opens a chapter that examines discrimination against immigrants from Africa.
"None of" the prisoners I spoke to "faced gratuitous beatings," according to Lehrer. This is false. Examples can be found on pages 76-77, 134-135, 142, 204, and 213 (a single incident), and on pages 328 and 348. Lehrer also neglects to mention that a detention guard I interviewed described a beating he administered, and a correctional officer described one he witnessed.
There's more. According to Lehrer, "Dow implies that it is an injustice the authorities will not release Lawniczek to Afghanistan so he can join up with a friend who is (no joke) connected to the Taliban." This is ridiculous. My description of the prisoner's wish to go to Afghanistan is plainly told to illustrate his apparent mental instability.
Lehrer also writes, "Nobody Dow talks to has a story of being denied medical care, although a few complain about inadequate psychological services . . . ." Presumably this formulation allows Lehrer to omit accounts which (to borrow his words) "would detract from his narrative." These include: a suicidal woman denied her antidepressant medication; a man denied psychiatric care by the immigration service, despite a correctional officer's repeated requests; a prisoner's complaint, verified by the immigration service itself, of a vermin-infested clinic; and an interview with two former nurses from a Houston detention center owned and operated by the Corrections Corporation of America who relate the practice of denying medical care as a cost-cutting measure.
This is just a sampling of Lehrer's technique. I invite interested readers to judge the book for themselves.
Mark Dow
Brooklyn, NY