Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Bethell in the Right I was delighted with Tom Bethell's column in the January American Spectator. Bethell is absolutely 100 percent right. The alibis about not balancing the budget...
...It is a wonderful expose of the obvious failings of the Literary Establishment...
...Greenwood Houston, Texas Please accept my deepest congratulations for Bryan F. Griffin's "E.L...
...H.M...
...Critical Reception You have outdone yourself in the January and February issues of The American Spectator...
...Griffin has my sympathy for having to read all those reviews, to say nothing of the books themselves, but he has put all that hard, grueling work to good use...
...Rah TAS\ Please cancel my subscription to your paper...
...Carol Berg St...
...Please-can't you find any subjects better suited for rumination and criticism...
...Your February 1981 issue is so offensive to me that I don't care to continue on your lists...
...Is it any wonder that the literate public has abandoned the contemporary novel for the sanity of '' Masterpiece Theatre'' ? -Leonard P. Liggio Institute for Humane Studies...
...The alibis about not balancing the budget have become ridiculous especially with a raging inflation which makes prudent fiscal policy not only right but overwhelmingly popular...
...William Proxmire United States Senate Rah AC...
...I am still in shock: to think that eight precious pages out of a too-slender total should be devoted to excoriating people like Doctorow and Vonnegut...
...Joseph, Minnesota I have been a long-time subscriber (20 years) to the National Review because I regarded it as the journal of informed and intelligent opinion...
...Critics today heap praise on any denigration of the Anglo-American literary tradition, whose standards they find too burdensome...
...Doctorow and the Anxiety of Critical Reception...
...Buckley often but you lack his saving grace: wit...
...I particularly disliked-and found most offensive- the editorial on Jimmy Carter...
...It documents what I have long felt as an outside (far outside) observer, namely, that this Establishment has reverted to a modern form of Dadaism, in which any whim or feeling-preferably, an irrational one-will do...
...R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s political obituary on the Wonderboy (February 1981) was the most outrageously funny piece of sustained political invective I have ever read...
...How refreshing it is to see such issues as government spending, the unwillingness of Congress to face issues honestly, the intellectuals, and bureaucracy, and socialism treated intelligently, and in good, clear English...
...Also, I suspect that Buckley can laugh at himself occasionally and doesn't think he has all knowledge...
...Good heavens...
...I also enormously enjoyed the articles in both issues by Tom Bethell...
...I read Wm...
...We heed more attention to the public figures of today...
...Doctorow is a devastating piece of satire and beautifully done...
...a great revival of a lost art...
...The Spectator surpasses The Review in every respect: editorials, commentaries, features, and reviews...
...My compliments to you for putting out what is simply the finest journal of them all...
...However, in the eight months that I have been subscribing to The American Spectator I have revised my judgment...
...I find reading your paper a real downer, by and large...
...You can be sure that I will continue to hammer away at this and offer budget balancing amendments, thanks in no small part to the encouragement of people such as Tom Bethell and the Spectator...
...Henry Regnery Chicago, Illinois My copy of the January American Spectator gave me some welcome respite from the usual Christmas hullabaloo, until I reached page 7-followed by 7 more incredible pages...
...In publishing this article, you have made an important contribution to the maintenance of civilized standards in criticism...
...I'm not sure you can ever see any position but your own...
...The piece by Bryan Griffin on E.L...
...Ric Williams Glendale College P.S...
Vol. 14 • March 1981 • No. 3
