Correspondence
by which I mean, a human psychologist who treats elephants—to have a go at Twinkles, a fickle 6500-pounder. Twinkles has lately been showing signs of moodiness, which will make her even less...
...William F. Harvey Carl M Gray Professor of Law Indiana University School of Law Indianapolis, Indiana Bruce Bawer replies: Mr...
...Unreasonable" in the United States Constitution does not mean "random," as Mr...
...This refers to the attitude found in Washington characters who in ignorance and with ignoble attitudes send fine men and pilots to their death, and might remember their orders long enough to drink just a little more that evening at the cocktail party, as they ex-plain their decision and spill their food...
...Granted that this is not Grace Kelly and William Holden in The Bridges of Toko-Ri, but that beautiful film teaches only that men will die from "Washington-Cool," as Holden died, and that their women and children alone knew what their husbands and fathers did, and how very good they were as men, pilots, and Americans...
...As to his writing, I question the ability of an individual who in the third column of page 19 quotes in full the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution and less than three inches away in the fourth column on page 19 misquotes it (U.S...
...Constitution: no fact tried...
...It is great because it repudiates, may I say, "Washington-Cool...
...It's not clear, however, how such an approach would make the IDF less effective...
...A few weeks ago the son of a friend completed "Red Flag," the Air Force advanced tactical fighter training pro-gram at Nellis AFB, Nevada...
...Again, infuriatingly, he misquotes, misuses, or distorts in-formation...
...It now depends less than before on mobilization of the country's total resources for war...
...At the time Mr...
...If Professor Harvey saw Top Gun differently, I suspect he unconsciously carried his own thirty-year-old memories of real-life stress, heroism, and moral purpose to the movie theater with him...
...What point is he trying to make andthrough what kind of logical mire is he attempting to drag us...
...Tucker states that "the popular view is that the Warren Court expanded the rights of criminals...
...Eight trial issues of The American Spectator only $14...
...The point being that, arguably, the Warren Court expanded the rights of defendants...
...Yes, the film affords elaborate (if glossy) coverage to aircraft carrier operations, fighter plane maneuvers, and the like, but these fine documentary sequences are tucked in between the episodes of an inane story that makes war look like a big game and makes fighter pilots look like cases of arrested development...
...If there is a difference here I can't see it...
...Upon entering Las Vegas in uniform, he was besieged by high school-age kids who had recently seen Top Gun...
...Tucker places in each of his paragraphs...
...IIII If Business Reply Card is missing please call 1-800-341-1522 to subscribe...
...I'm just pointing out that nasty little clause in the Seventh Amendment that judges and lawyers love to ignore...
...In fact, its enticement to "joining up" has worked to benefit all of the services...
...I'm not arguing that the jury made the right decision...
...Bawer seems to object, it does not detract from the principal meaning ofthe film although its "sex and sack" are not subtle...
...they are the enemy because, well, they are the enemy...
...Bawer's notion that the film exploits "ignorant, infantile, and ignoble attitudes toward both personal and international relations," it does exactly the opposite...
...Finally, as to Mr...
...It was as if he'd given up hope for a decent life...
...As I point out at length in my book, Vigilante, the galling thing about the exclusionary rule to the Fourth Amendment is that it only protects the guilty...
...One of which, as Mr...
...Finally, the saga of Frederik the elephant came to a poignant close when he was released from his private hell and pronounced dead in the Givskud Lion Park zoo in Jutland, Den-mark...
...They bemoan the "Americanization" of the IDF, what they see as a pernicious addiction to weight of firepower and high technology...
...The particular problem with criticizing writing such as Mr...
...The Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Ad-ministrations may be remembered both for utter social disintegration and lots and lots of "Washington-Cool...
...The problem is that most of what Tucker froths about is a distillation of a few hundred years of common sense...
...Random searches may be unreason-able, but unreasonable searches are not always random...
...Alan Dershowitz works on the appellate level for numerous reasons...
...Moffett Field California Over 30 years ago, I was a combat qualified Officer of the Deck on an Essex Class aircraft carrier in Task Force 77 in the Pacific...
...Blumenthal has lately written lavishly about IPS for the Washington Post without mentioning his earlier relationship with the institution...
...And let me assure the reader that "sex and sack" is Harvey's expression, not mine...
...its logistical system, for example, no longer needs the callup of all civilian vehicles to function...
...If the tremendous ability, and strain, are not shown, then they are never known except to those persons who actually do or did participate in Naval flight operations...
...What man can blame him...
...Winston Churchill was not speaking of the Russians but of the Huns when on May 19, 1943, in a speech to Congress, he said, "The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet...
...Dershowitz indicates in his own writing, is that he is skilled in appellate legal work and not jury trial work...
...Tucker's is that it takes three paragraphs to clarify the issues, place proper perspective, and refute the contention Mr...
...Top Gun teaches that if you are not the best, you die...
...He constantly moves (continued on page 52) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1986 9...
...Most frustrating, he is often flatly wrong and obviously so...
...The distinction is enormous to the knowledgeable...
...I argue in my book that the exclusionary rule actually violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it offers constitutional protections to only one small group—people who had actually committed crimes...
...Tucker begins with a prejudice that is carried throughout his meanderings and consequently invalidates many of the assumptions which he, like any author, requests his readership to make...
...As he has done in his earlier article, "Private Prosecutions," as printed in your May issue, Mr...
...Clarification In Penn Kemble's review last month of Sidney Blumenthal's The Rise of the Counter-Establishment, it was noted that Mr...
...But anyone who has followed a few cases through the appeals process—especially in civil courts—knows that judges often simply substitute their own verdict for that of the jury...
...This is indeed true and does not need argument...
...His remark that the movie "sure is good at what it does" makes me suspect, how-ever, that we differ on the question of what it is that a general release Holly-wood film like Top Gun is supposed to do...
...AF CORRESPONDENCE...
...Dershowitz indicates that jury work is a separate skill and relies upon those skilled in that area...
...Tom Bethell's column in our July issue has apparently left me talking to myself, and in public...
...Tucker chooses...
...I must disagree...
...Not one, and this includes Task Force, with Gary Cooper, Midway, with an assortment of fine actors, and seemingly hundreds of miles of U.S...
...TUckeritis William Tucker creates two difficulties for me ["Bring Back the Jury" TAS, August 1986...
...What complete blather...
...Four days before his death, Mr...
...Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Whitten and I are in accord: I agree with him that Top Gun is a successful recruiting film and he agrees with me that: it is aesthetically deficient...
...COHEN (continued from page 49) active force of regulars and conscripts backed by a huge militia of reservists— it has undergone remarkable transformations...
...Schiff and other observers have worried that the IDF, as a result of its continuous growth in size and sophistication, may be losing the spiritual qualities of resourcefulness, improvisation, and creativity which characterized its early years, particularly during the Six Day War...
...About two years of that and about 9,000 accident-free launches and recoveries of jet aircraft, plus the years since then, permitted me to conclude that no motion picture show has ever captured the essence of Naval flight operations aboard an aircraft carrier...
...The movie Top Gun is outstanding because it permits the non-participant to understand both the ability and the strain in carrier operations, as no other film has ever done...
...Robert C. Whitten, President Santa Clara Valley Council Navy League of the US...
...Top Gun permits all viewers, not just the remaining women and children, to know and understand something about the abilities of the men who as Naval carrier persons fly and sail at the edge of our civilized order, and who are the distinction between the light of a free community, and the nations where it is forever dark...
...As for Professor Harvey, I wish that Top Gun had some hints—just a touch—of the fine seriousness, the consciousness of a moral purpose, with which he concludes his letter...
...Navy training film, much of which is integrated into public films such as Midway...
...Alas, it doesn't: the Russians in Top Gun are like video game opponents...
...To be unable to see the distinction strongly suggests that Mr...
...was the incessant refrain...
...Mr.] Frederik had always been a bit frail," said Mr...
...Frederik was wantonly humiliated by seven females who were unsatisfied with his performance in conjugal matters: after chasing him into a muddy pond, they watched as he was extricated at last with the aid of a crane...
...There is no "illegally obtained evidence" to be thrown out of court...
...By the way, that William Holden film was called The Bridges at Toko-Ri...
...Only when the police do find incriminating evidence is the exclusionary rule wheeled into place...
...R...
...William Tucker: retrying cases on the facts...
...52 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1986...
...Hackett makes a distinction between the wording of the Seventh Amendment"no fact tried by jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States"—and my paraphrase: "retrying a case on the facts...
...Ticker suggests in this second column of page 19...
...It suggests that a Naval fighter pilot must have the arrogance of a William J. Brennan, and the justified confidence of a heart surgeon...
...Navy is crying all the way to the recruiting office...
...Tucker again misinterprets, misapplies, misuses, and misses the point...
...Granted, appellate judges usually make every effort in finding some subtlety of the law to overturn a verdict they don't like...
...As for the "sex and sack" to which Mr...
...Bawer's review, I suggest, is very wide of the mark, and far too steeped in psychological pother...
...William Bowen, who is blind, pleaded innocent to drunk driving charges on the grounds that his highly intelligent dog, Bud, was in fact driving the car before the arrest...
...As for Mr...
...McLean, Virginia The Navy Fights Back Regarding the review of Top Gun by Bruce Bawer ("Shooting Blanks," TAS, August 1986), the U.S...
...As to philosophy, I would point to page 20 of the August issue, the third column, where Mr...
...First, his philosophy, and second, his writing...
...Blumenthal was filing dispatches, however, the magazine was published by the Institute for Policy Studies—an interesting item, in part because Mr...
...Ricker says "Criminal attorneys who understand the system best—Alan Dershowitz, for example—don't even bother to go before juries anymore...
...Leif Nielsen, director of the zoo...
...What evokes this onanlalia is Bethell's rare lapse into error, and a common error at that...
...More important, even the events of the Lebanon War suggest that the IDF has lost little of its basic skills, and as Schiffs book confirms, the strengths of the IDF have such deep roots that it will require much more than a surfeit of hardware to choke them...
...Hackett says that I am wrong in saying that the Warren Court expanded the rights of "criminals" instead of "criminal defendants...
...The tone of Tucker's article then becomes something akin to "Let's get the golldang lawyers and judges outa there, and use some common sense...
...This is indeed false and it does need argument...
...The artistic value of the film may be low, but it sure is good at what it does...
...The third column of page 20, Mr...
...If the police come to your house, break down your door, ransack your belongings, and don't find any evidence of wrongdoing, the exclusionary rule does nothing to protect you...
...James Hackett Edwardsville, Illinois William Ticker replies: Mr...
...In Louisville, Kentucky, Mr...
...Hackett's characterization of my argument as "Let's get the golldang lawyers and judges outa there, and use some common sense," I never use the word "golldang...
...And to think that in Bombay poor Bud might have ended up a necktie...
...How can I become a FIGHTER PILOT...
...The poor, infantry-dominated army of the 1950s has given way to a highly mechanized, technology-rich force comparable in size and quality to those of the major European powers...
...Again, on page 19 in the second column, Mr...
...Twinkles has lately been showing signs of moodiness, which will make her even less inclined to take to the couch for ex-tended doses of Freudian claptrap...
...040 ,1N1 ugilpll~ ....01111...
...This may seem to be an insubstantial point, but it is a point upon which hinges the ability of an author to write on the subject Mr...
...The attack capped a prolonged, explicit, and obnoxious pattern of harassment by the female pachyderms—in human terms, something on the order of spending twenty minutes with Miss Eleanor Smeal...
...Ricker quotes the Constitution and immediately preceding the quotation misquotes the Constitution...
...He occasionally has valid points but they become lost in his wandering verbiage...
...In the original Karen Silkwood verdict, for example, the federal appeals court simply rearranged the facts of the case and came to its own different conclusion...
...The argument here is near the argument which says that one who is skilled in editing, but does not himself write as an author, is showing disdain for writing in general...
...Blumenthal began his career at In These Times, the "independent socialist newspaper" now published by the Institute for Public Affairs...
...CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 9) from the particular to the general where the path does not exist...
...The Editors To The Editor (Myself...
...The misquote is typical of his distortion and his failure to grasp the truth and essence of an issue...
Vol. 19 • October 1986 • No. 10
