Correspondence
Correspondence In Defense of Pat Robertson In a memorable scene in the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, Allen is standing in line at a movie theater, and a self-proclaimed "expert" is pontificating on...
...Most disturbing, Bates mentions in the same breath Pat Robertson's 1991 book The New World Order and Oklahoma City bombing suspect Michael Fortier...
...While to a certain degree it is true that Republican primary voters are not as ideological as the national media portrays them, it is equally true that new Republican activists cannot be induced to vote for a candidate solely on the basis of his media image...
...Her economical use of language to present a most astute diagnosis of that generation marks her as not only a professional writer but a penetrating thinker...
...To suggest any equation between the violent terrorism of a deranged few and the writings of one of the nation's most respected religious and broadcasting figures is beyond the pale...
...Sept...
...Although I am not currently supporting him, I would support Sen...
...Gingrich knows whereof he speaks...
...Yes, we are all torn between allowing public school prayers (whether before math tests or not...
...Bates concludes that Robertson has "lowered his profile" due to allegedly high negatives...
...Does this sound even remotely like a Republican, much less a presidential hopeful...
...A constitutional amendment legalizing voluntary school prayer, the elimination of federal funding of abortions, abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts, and returning control of education to the local level by abolishing the federal Department of Education are neither timid nor modest...
...Melvin J. Glazer Fairfax, VA...
...Correspondence In Defense of Pat Robertson In a memorable scene in the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, Allen is standing in line at a movie theater, and a self-proclaimed "expert" is pontificating on the work of Marshall McLuhan...
...Nathaniel T. Trelease Cheyenne, WY William Kristol's column in the inaugural issue of your publication is an excellent example of the sort of amateur analysis I expect to read in the Atlantic Monthly or the New Yorker, not in a new journal of so-called conservative opinion...
...The actual items in the Contract were selected based on a survey of our grassroots members, and on discussions with members of Congress and our governmental affairs staff, a critical fact Bates fails to mention...
...The reason that "nobody knows" about the Christian Coalition he describes is because it simply does not exist...
...If General Powell is an honorable man, and not an ambitious one in the Shakespearean sense, then he'll stop exploiting the Republican party (with which he disagrees on all important issues) and challenge Bill Clinton in the Democratic primaries...
...None...
...On at least one thing we agree with Bates: the religious conservative movement should not be counted out by friend or foe, and its greatest influence in the political process is yet to be felt...
...Bob Dole, a true war hero, wounded in battle, over Colin Powell, a former Army bureaucrat...
...Nothing is gained, neither by the Republic nor The Weekly Standard, by fueling the political immaturity that now yearns, as of old, for rescue by the General on the white horse...
...I am the product of a public elementary school education in Atlanta, GA, where every morning there was a Christian devotional prayer or reading over the loudspeaker followed by another class devotional...
...The problem seems to be that a) this country which has been raised on prayer, albeit in churches, synagogues, and mosques, seems to be no better off for all of the words we have directed to God...
...Frank M. Adams Orlando, FL It is the height of irony how the media-including conservative strategist William Kristol-keep touting Colin Powell as some kind of Republican moderate, when in fact they know he is an unadulterated liberal...
...To offer the excuse that the characters' sexual orientation needed to be established "quickly via visual cues" raises the question of whether deploying grotesque, Fagin-like Jews as a quick means of establishing religious identity would trigger the same nonchalance...
...Better put your money on Netscape...
...President Powell...
...Adoption is often the best option...
...Allen then steps off-camera and produces none other than McLuhan, who tells the critic that he knows nothing about his work...
...After all, it's one thing to criticize the left-leaning political agenda of certain "gay rights" activists, but quite another to wink at callow mean-spirit-edness, and conservatives who engage in the latter ought to be called to account...
...Perhaps that is why I attended a Jewish Day School in high school...
...Patrick D. Purtill National Council For Adoption Washington, DC Mel Gibson, Stereotypist Stephanie Gutmann's spirited defense of Mel Gibson's penchant for using homosexual characters as comic relief, or, ? la Braveheart, signifiers of weakness and villainy, was unworthy of your magazine...
...It's a fool's bet, Bill...
...Of course, there too, we had similar problems with our prayer services since there were Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and non-religious students enrolled...
...The debate over welfare reform is not between the nightmare of foster care and a Dickensian orphanage...
...Conservative primary voters cannot be so easily deceived into voting for somebody who, like Michael Dukakis in 1988, argues that all that is at stake is competence, not ideology...
...In fact, Reed has repeatedly stated his support for "statutory and constitutional protection of innocent human life," and he played a central role in 1992 in preserving the existing pro-life language in the Republican platform...
...Bates writes that Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed "has also worked to find an alternative to the GOP platform's support for a Human Life Amendment...
...As Speaker Gingrich said in an address to the National Council for Adoption: "I wish I had been really smart when Sam Donaldson said to me, 'What would you say to somebody who just couldn't take care of their children?' If instead of saying orphanages, I had said adoption, we would have had, I think, a more profitable debate...
...News, was interviewed on the Evans and Novak show, and was profiled by the New York Times...
...Your survey asking how parents, if they died, would want their children raised clearly demonstrated the high level of distrust Americans have for the present foster care and welfare systems...
...Congratulations on a splendid magazine...
...When Gibson does stereotypes, he goes all the way...
...Robertson recently appeared on the cover of U.S...
...In fact, surveys show Robertson on a par with or exceeding Billy Graham in admiration among evangelical Christians...
...Today, the GOP has a majority in 27 delegations...
...In particular, the article by Marshall Wittmann struck a receptive chord ("Coalition Man," Sept...
...In my own opinion, it is prayer together with active membership in a religious community and constant and continuing study of one's religious tradition which will ultimately heal our country, and ourselves...
...While I can certainly agree that such things did not seriously harm the degree of religiosity of this particular rabbi, I will admit to feeling extremely uncomfortable hearing the name of Jesus every single day, sometimes twice a day...
...Stephen Bates's article on the Christian Coalition ("The Christian Coalition Nobody Knows," Sept...
...That must be news to our foes on the left...
...Conservatives gain nothing by escapism...
...it is the "moderate" voter who, once convinced that a candidate doesn't believe anything too clearly or firmly, is willing to vote on the basis of something so amorphous...
...Frank Di Silvestro Bronx, NY Don't Forget Adoption The first item in your Sept...
...If Powell runs as an independent, it is virtually impossible that he will gather 270 votes in the Electoral College...
...Thomas Mehan West Lynn, MA Pro-choice, pro-gun-control, pro-affirmative action...
...25) reads a lot like that scene...
...18) was worth the entire price of a year's subscription...
...He is a signatory of the pro-life pledge promising to preserve the language that guarantees that the right to life is inalienable and cannot be infringed...
...If he chooses to run as an independent, he will virtually guarantee the Republican nominee's election in November...
...Some of Bates's analysis is prescient...
...The sole purpose of the Luntz survey was to determine levels of support among the American people, which averaged between 60 and 90 percent...
...18 Scrapbook caught my eye...
...Splitting the electoral vote three ways will throw the election into the House, where each state will be allocated one vote...
...Colin Powell will never be elected President-at least not in 1996...
...But Bates's otherwise fine article is marred by overdrawn conclusions...
...When the Christian Coalition unveiled its Contract with the American Family, Robertson was in Africa holding an international news conference to announce the distribution of $1.2 million in medical aid to victims of the deadly ebola virus...
...Mel Gibson, One of Us," Sept...
...By the way, the "swishy bartender" in Gibson's Bird on a Wire was actually a swishy hairdresser...
...Conservative voters, remember, do vote on the basis of issues...
...Unfortunately, you left the best option out of your survey: adoption...
...But at least we were the majority and we shared a universe of discourse...
...Stephen H. Miller Washington, D. C. A Hopeless Generation...
...It is a bold, conservative, pro-family agenda...
...The Christian Coalition's antipathy for triumphalist rhetoric, its adoption of a pro-family rather than theocratic political platform, its ecumenism in reaching out to like-minded Roman Catholics and Jews, and its emphasis on lay as opposed to clerical leadership all point to a growing level of maturity and sophistication...
...Having been adopted himself, Mr...
...How can Colin Powell continue to wear a Gulf War halo for a war that he had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into...
...If he chooses to run as a Republican, he will not win the nomination...
...private moments of silence (how many 6-year-olds do you know who will pray quietly during that moment...
...and nothing...
...Whether one agrees or not, her conclusions deserve an equally intelligent discussion of the prognosis for the Boomer generation...
...Only then will I-and the legions who think like me-have any respect for him...
...Laura S. Curb Farmerville, LA Jews and Jesus Ithoroughly enjoyed reading the first issue of The Weekly Standard...
...Mike Russell, Communications Director Christian Coalition Chesapeake, VA Not Wild About Powell If I had to bet today," writes William Kristol, "I'd put my money on Colin Powell...
...Noemie Emery's analysis ("Charles, Clinton and the Boomers," Sept...
...Jesus is not my God, and I wondered then-and now- what good there was having the majority culture always dictate the terms and dimensions of those prayers we heard each morning...
...To take just one example, Bates asserts that a survey by the Luntz Research Corporation on our Contract with the American Family was designed to help us "sculpt a more moderate image...
...Is there any hope...
...Now the question is: Can a nice Jewish boy like Wittmann help the Christian Coalition understand and advocate all this without giving up their fundamentalist Christian vision of America...
...and b) prayer, in school or out, does not by itself have the power to alleviate crime in the streets, homelessness in our communities, or hopelessness in our hearts...
Vol. 1 • October 1995 • No. 4
