Top 10 Letters

*1*
Matthew Continetti focuses on the wrong measurement when he looks at the heights of presidential candidates in The Tall Man. Of all the frivolous presidential prediction tools, the Presidential Nomometric Index is by far the most accurate.

An analysis of the family names of presidential candidates reveals, a simple set of rules exists that predicts the winner of every presidential contest since 1896 (except 1960, when the losing party claimed widespread fraud). I developed PNI in early 1996, and both the 1996 and 2000 contests have confirmed its reliability. The PNI consists of four simple rules:

(1) All else being equal, a candidate with a monosyllabic last name (Smith, Ford, etc.) will lose to a candidate with a polysyllabic family name (Hoover, Carter, etc.); and

(2) A candidate whose last name ends with a “schwa” (Nixon, Reagan, etc.) will defeat a candidate whose family name does not (Humphrey, Carter, etc.).

(3) However, a candidate whose family name is obviously Dutch (Roosevelt, Eisenhower, etc.) will defeat any opponent, even one whose last name ends in a schwa (Landon, Stevenson, etc.); and

(4) A candidate whose family name is obviously not of northwest European origin (Dukakis, for example) will lose to any opponent, even one whose last name has only one syllable (Bush, for example).

These rules do not apply to party nomination contests; indeed the parties of late have shown a preference for candidates with monosyllabic names. Republicans, in particular, have put a monosyllabic candidate on every presidential ticket since 1976, and four times–1976, 1988, 1992, and 1996–the Republican ticket has included two candidates with single-syllable family names.

The PNI even accurately predicted that the 2000 election would effectively result in a tie: Bush and Gore are equally monosyllabic. Cheney and Lieberman don’t break the tie, since both are polysyllabic and Lieberman both ends in a schwa and obviously does not originate in northwestern Europe.

Of the serious Democratic candidates, the PNI indicates that Democrats would do well to draft Hillary Clinton or nominate Senators Kerry, Edwards, or Lieberman. Howard Dean, it seems, represents the monosyllabic wing of the Democratic party, and is joined there by Bob Graham. Dick Gephardt’s Germanic last name is tricky; the four-time non-speaker has an extra syllable on President Bush, but if voters hear his name as one that originates too far from the North Sea, a Bush victory will be certain.

Republicans, therefore, must dream of facing a Democratic ticket of Howard Dean and Wesley Clark. With such opponents, the 2004 election will be a close-run thing for Republicans, but Dick Cheney’s extra syllable should give President Bush a small majority at the polls.

–R. Scott Rogers

*2*
Parody doesn’t get any better than that, does it? (Victorino Matus, Razing Arizona) Germans, running their mouths about “human rights” and “human dignity.”

Golly, those oh-so-sensitive, high-minded Teutonic Jeffersonians. Matus might have replied as this grandson of a German immigrant would have:

“You can lecture the United States on “human rights” and “human dignity” when . . .” (multiple choice):

(a) Three generations have passed after all your Nazi pensioners are dead.
(b) Your people have sacrificed even a fraction of the blood, treasure, and sacred honor as ours to free and sustain others.
(c) You have a functioning democracy that stands on its own two feet for more than 50 years and without seeking to conquer its neighbors.
(d) You stop finding yourselves always standing with the dictators and tyrants.
(e) You show as much tender care for the “rights” and “dignity” of the Jews on their little spit of land.
(f) You act as though you remember why the Jews are on that little spit of land.

–Mark Shepler

*3*
I normally agree with Terry Eastland, but regardless of Roy Moore’s impolitic actions, and gauche approach, one cannot obey laws that are unconscionable (Coming Back for Moore). Part of the rights of juries when adjudicating criminal trials is not only to determine if the accused is guilty under the law, but also to determine if the law is just.

By Eastland’s logic, if judges continue to trample upon and distort beyond recognition what the Constitution actually says, every judge who’s lower on the totem pole has an obligation to uphold the illegal higher decisions, regardless of their lawfulness. That’s a bum’s game and a government by judicial tyranny. The Constitution is already being violated by decisions that ignore the actual words of the Constitution and instead cite only precedents for their justifications. Since when did case-law precedent trump the actual wording in the Constitution itself?

To say that something is “settled law” and give up on the truth is not noble, it’s cowardly, and should not be encouraged.

–Bill Asbell

*4*
In When Linguists Attack David Skinner writes: “. . . Postal points out, any standard that prohibits certain language because of its’ being ‘offensive to’ a certain group or person is necessarily subjective. This opens the door to a ban on words that merely seem offensive.”

I hate to say it, but this door is wide open. I was alerted to this fact by none other than the American Educator, the publication of the American Federation of Teachers. In their summer issue they had a series of articles about the “language police” from both right and left wings. You’d be shocked to hear about the sorts of things that have been stricken from textbooks by publishers’ “bias and sensitivity review” panels:

*passages about 19th century frontier women quilting (despite the fact that it was historically accurate)

*a story about a blind mountain climber (besides “unfairly” suggesting that blind people face hardships that sighted people don’t, the story was “regionalist,” discriminating against those children who don’t live near mountains

*a passage about owls was stricken because “owls are taboo for the Navajos”

Personally, I was surprised to see the AFT put this sort of an article in their publication. I can’t wait to read the huffy, defensive letters to the editor in the next edition.

–Tom Boegel

*5*
I remember an early excrescence of PC language at UC Berkeley, where my stepfather was a physician at the student health service in the 1960s. The “Conception Control Clinic” once put out some literature giving the proper method for putting a condom on a “person’s” penis.

–Peter Borregard

*6*
While I agree with Bill Whalen that Hollywood’s innate snobbery is a factor in the lack of attention that celebrities are giving the recall, there’s a bit more to it than that (The Walk of Fame).

Being a liberal in Hollywood is the default position if you want to continue to work with the powerful lefties who run the entertainment industry, sort of like being a Catholic in Spain in 1492. If you’re not part of the dominant faith, you practice it very quietly and avoid the wrath of the Inquisition. Consequently, most celebrities are content to mouth liberal pieties, but are not very committed to their positions. Their only real commitment is to themselves and their careers, and they are fervent careerists. Thus, the same situation that makes them superficially liberal also makes them sit out the recall. They won’t cross a very powerful industry player such as Arnold. Notice that Tom Hanks was much more concerned that he not be seen as taking sides than he was about any ideological considerations.

In short, the Hollywood left is going to sit out the recall for the most part, not because they aren’t highly partisan Democrats, but because they’re highly partisan careerists, and the political is definitely personal.

–Mike Harris

*7*
Hollywood’s lack of hostility toward Arnold has nothing to do with their being his friends. The Hollywood elite doesn’t really care about the economic and political issues–their only litmus test is right thinking on sexual issues: abortion on demand and gay rights. Arnold passes on both–who cares about schools, jobs, foreign policy, etc.

–C. Thomas

*8*
“Arnold talked policy–suggesting he could squeeze more money out of Washington.” Spoken like a true conservative!

–Alan Vanneman

*9*
We give tests to both female and male athletes (see www.mentalgame.com) but will be happy to neutralize our gender nouns. How about “standing at the urinal, Betty pulled out her penis”?

–Kenneth Parady

*10*
So, the visiting German’s noses are out of joint because of what they see are offences against human dignity by American louts. This takes some cheek!

Americans have, for the better part of a century, shed blood by the bucket and spent enormous national treasure in the cause of defending human dignity. And against whom for the most part? Does the name Germany ring a bell?

–M. McGlenister