Waffle Watching
REGARDING ROBERT KAGAN and William Kristol’s “Taking Flip-Flops Seriously” (Sept. 20): Certainly it is fair to point out Sen. John Kerry’s inconsistencies on the issues. There are a number of them and he should be held to task.
But let’s be honest: President Bush also changes his positions frequently, including on the subject of Iraq and how the reconstruction should be implemented.
Indeed, Kagan and Kristol’s “Flip-Flops” column appeared within a week of Bush’s flip-flop on the budget authority of a national intelligence director. If we look back over time, we see an eye-popping range of Bush flip-flops. Who could forget his promise not to dip into the Social Security surplus? Apparently the president himself has.
President Bush, a self-proclaimed free trader during the 2000 campaign, went on to impose steel tariffs in 2002 and provide a “safety net” for farmers. And who could forget the administration’s opposition to, then support for, the Homeland Security Department and the 9/11 Commission? The list could go on and on, but you get the idea.
If we really want to take John Kerry’s flip-flops seriously, then we must point out George W. Bush’s myriad flip-flops, as well.
Jason B. Shear
Austin, TX
Kerry on the Porch
JOHN KERRY’S campaign may well be foundering, and the senator may be having trouble keeping his facts straight, as Matthew Continetti details in “Critical Condition” (Sept. 20). But on Labor Day morning, I saw Kerry give his “front-porch” speech in blue-collar Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, 20 miles south of Pittsburgh–not in the mythical town of Canonsburg, West Virginia, where Continetti misplaced him.
The loyal Democrats who turned out by the hundreds to see Kerry visit the birthplace of crooners Perry Como and Bobby Vinton witnessed a tiny but perhaps revealing example of his and his campaign’s sloppiness.
As Continetti noted, Kerry opened his 45-minute Canonsburg Address by telling a story about a colorful local eatery: Toy’s “My Way Cafe.” Kerry said the restaurant sounded like his kind of place because “confused people like me who can’t make up our minds” don’t have to struggle over what to order from the menu. “He just gives you . . . whatever he’s cooked up that day.”
Kerry didn’t pretend to have actually dined at Toy’s. Which is a good thing, because every Democrat in town would have known he was lying. Toy Gregorakis is not a he, but a she.
Bill Steigerwald
Pittsburgh, PA
Reprint! Reprint!
DAVID GELERNTER has written a brilliant article (“Bush’s Greatness,” Sept. 13). His treatment of the so-called Bush haters is perfect. There is no question that much of the American left is now “progressive” in name only.
Here in New York City, I meet people who claim to be educated, well-read, and sensitive to the opinions of others. Yet when describing conservatives in general, and President Bush in particular, they become filled with rage and spew invective worthy of the vilest hate-monger you could imagine.
Just one recent example: During the Republican convention, an anti-Bush protester carried a sign in front of Madison Square Garden that read, “Where is John Hinckley When You Need Him?”
Sadly, it’s this kind of reflexive Bush hatred that drives many of today’s so-called liberals.
Thomas J. Croke
Greenlawn, NY
I WOULD BE HAPPY to double the price of my subscription for the next year if you would use the money to buy a full page in the New York Times and reprint David Gelernter’s magnificent piece, “Bush’s Greatness.”
Perhaps a new title–something like “The Ghost of Kitty Genovese”–would draw a few more Times readers into the text.
Steve Chambers
Cypress, TX
DAVID GELERNTER’S “Bush’s Greatness” is a blockbuster. It should be reprinted in every daily and weekly newspaper in the country, including campus newspapers. Not for electoral purposes, mind you, but to educate the general American public about this nation’s moral principles in helping the less fortunate of the world. The author should become spokesman and historian of William Kristol’s “majority party.”
Charles C. Henderson
Henderson, TX
Kass Critics
MICHAEL COOK offers an insightful but frightening commentary on critics of the Kass Council on Bioethics (“Embryo-centrism and Other Sins,” Sept. 20). The evidence suggests these critics have embarked on a protracted rhetorical war of attrition designed to wear down their opposition.
I fear that, eventually, they might succeed in persuading Americans of their coldly utilitarian approach to bioethics. Be afraid.
Greg Brown
Norfolk, VA
A Grand Old Party
LIKE ANDREW FERGUSON, I watched the entire Republican convention on C-SPAN (“I Can’t Believe I Watched the Whole Thing,” Sept. 13). I was electrified and, for the first time, truly optimistic.
I did not stoop to nitpicking about Bill Frist’s gestures, John McCain’s message, George Pataki’s quiet but forceful delivery, or indeed Zell Miller’s fiery denunciation of John Kerry. Nor did I obsess, as Ferguson did, over the repetition of the home ownership issue. It seems that only Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Bush escaped Ferguson’s rake-over.
Ferguson appears to have become so cynical in his profession that he missed the exuberant spirit of the convention. It was a grand old show for a Grand Old Party–to be enjoyed, not picked apart.
Ferguson doubtless thought he was being funny, but he sounded instead like a sneering liberal with a hangover. I recommend that he take a long vacation to regain his perspective. It might do the old grouch some good.
Charlotte Anderson
Wayne, PA
Cambridge Copycats
IN “Another Harvard Copycat” (THE STANDARD READER, Sept. 20), Joseph Bottum lends tacit credence to the calumny promoted by those modern masters of agitprop–MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn, and DePaul professor Norman Finkelstein. Bottum repeats the story that Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz “is accused of excessive dependence on an earlier book about Israel.”
The statement is technically true: Dershowitz was accused of plagiarism by the trio named above. But when Harvard administrators looked into the matter, they cleared Dershowitz of plagiarism and any other form of academic misconduct growing out of his book The Case for Israel.
James Friedman, the former president of both Dartmouth College and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, concluded the assertions against Dershowitz did not set out a case of plagiarism “under any reasonable definition of that word.” And Dershowitz’s Harvard colleague (but hardly ideological soulmate) Charles Fried told the Harvard Crimson that Dershowitz’s alleged offense was “a normal thing” that “everyone does.” Fried said the plagiarism charges were “stupid, unfair, and ridiculous,” and came “from biased accusers.”
Doris Kearns Goodwin and Charles Ogletree, linked with Dershowitz in Bottum’s piece, were indeed accused of academic misconduct–misconduct for which they have, properly, apologized. Dershowitz, on the other hand, has rightly counterattacked against Chomsky, Cockburn, and Finkelstein, who have a long history of criticizing any high-profile scholar with the nerve to support Israel.
Harvey A. Silverglate
Cambridge, MA
JOSEPH BOTTUM RESPONDS: I respect and admire Prof. Silverglate, but I did say merely that Dershowitz had been “accused.” For that matter, I have interviewed (and admire) Prof. Dershowitz and second his support for Israel against his accusers. But I am less confident than Prof. Silverglate that there was no “excessive dependence” in The Case for Israel.
Vietnam Culture Wars
EDITOR’S NOTE: In editing this letter for publication two weeks ago, we put a few of our words into the author’s mouth. Herewith his original.
MACKUBIN THOMAS OWENS neatly divides protagonists in America’s decades-long Vietnam war debate into two categories, which could hardly be more simplistic (“Fahrenheit 1971,” Sept. 6). “On the one side in this culture war,” he writes, “are those who believe that Vietnam wasn’t very different from other wars. The cause was just, but it was as affected by ambiguities as any other war, including World War II. . . . On the other side are those for whom the Vietnam war represented the very essence of evil.”
Of course, this dichotomy presents some immediate problems. We know into which category Owens places John Kerry, since Owens accuses Kerry of giving “‘Americanized’ Soviet propaganda” in his 1971 Senate testimony. But into which category would Owens place Bob Kerrey, whom he mentions elsewhere in his article, but doesn’t categorize?
For that matter, into which category would he place such eminent Vietnam war critics as Stanley Karnow (for his firsthand accounts of American atrocities in Vietnam), or William Bundy (for his writings about indiscriminate American bombing in Cambodia), or even Robert McNamara?
And on which side of the divide would he place other distinguished historians who have researched alleged American atrocities in Vietnam? For example, as Peter Beinart of the New Republic recently wrote:
“Miami University Professor Jeffrey Kimball, one of the most respected Vietnam historians, says, ‘On the whole, the Winter Soldier Investigations established that some Americans committed atrocities in Vietnam. Claims that their testimony has been discredited are unwarranted.’ Another prominent historian of the war, Wayne State University’s Mel Small, says, ‘Most of the evidence of atrocities presented by the [Winter Soldier] vets remains unchallenged to this day.'”
Notwithstanding the complexity of these critics’ research, Owens leaves himself no choice but to include them among his “essence of evil” believers.
Steve Wineberg
Exeter, NH
