Correspondence
What To Do About Newt Your commentary in support of Newt Gingrich in the editorial "Stand By Your Man" and John Pod-horetz's "Stick It To the Democrats" (Jan. 13) neglect what is perhaps the best...
...6 Clinton switched his permanent campaign to winning back the House in 1998...
...But a rehash of the "New Federalism" does not go far enough...
...The Patient Right to Know Act would ensure, however, that health plans cannot guarantee certain benefits, and then make those treatments virtually inaccessible by keeping health-care providers from offering them with appropriate advice...
...Graduate Equivalent Diploma) as a condition of graduation from high school...
...Until conservatives defend the principles of individual rights, and fight for them consistently, Capitol Hill will never truly be theirs...
...We all know that Clinton isn't very successful at governing, but he is at campaigning...
...Neither the investigators nor the American people have been asked to believe ludicrous tales of disappearing and reappearing documents, "bureaucratic snafus," and selective memories...
...My bill would not alter this fact, nor would it require health plans to pay for treatment not currently covered in the benefits package...
...13) brings to mind Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 parody Pale Fire...
...So their answer is yes to statism, only on a smaller scale...
...M. William Lower Bear, DE Changes for Henry James Donald Lyons's expose of the astonishing biography of Henry James ("Homosexualizing Henry James," Jan...
...But maybe they have anticipated the reaction to reform...
...Greg Ganske Washington, DC To 1998 and Beyond Kudos to Michael Barone for drawing attention to Republican over-confidence regarding congressional gains in 1998 ("The Bad News About 1998," Jan...
...Nabokov writes an execrable thousand-line poem about the banalities of middle-aged suburban life, then provides a bogus critical apparatus (foreword, commentary, index) that turns the poem into an adventure tale of the lost kingdom of Zembla...
...As a former Republican voter who now votes Libertarian, I decided to switch rather than fight because the Republicans seem to enjoy getting beaten up...
...Senate race in Washington state can be considered a GOP vulnerability, given that liberal Democratic senator Patty Murray is facing reelection that year...
...Ray Beeman Arlington, VA In "Stand By Your Man," the editors describe conservatives as being divided and ambivalent about supporting the speaker because "conservatism has long suffered from an inferiority complex...
...Mike Matya Bellevue, NE John Podhoretz's essay "Stick It To the Democrats" is long overdue...
...The education establishment would have none of it...
...Many Republicans are now doing the same thing: sacrificing Newt in order to appease the hungry dogs of Bonior, Daschle, Rangel, and Gephardt...
...Barone is incorrect that GOP senator Slade Gorton of Washington faces reelection in 1998...
...Frum inadvertently makes the case for passage of this legislation when he states that my anti-gag-rule law "would force all HMOs to make one single price/quality tradeoff—a tradeoff that would again tend to drive the cheapest health-care alternatives off the market...
...Indeed, Gingrich's problems have been partly self-imposed, but only because he was willing to own up to his mistakes and take his beatings like a man...
...Clinton P. Sherwood Chester, NH William Kristol's agenda seems like weak tea and offers little to fire the imagination...
...Never...
...In any conflict between two groups that hold the same basic principles, the more consistent one wins...
...On Nov...
...It would be similar to the reaction caused when John Silber recommended, among other things, that Massachusetts high-school students be required to pass the G.E.D...
...An objective test...
...Never mind that Silber sought to blunt the effect of his radical suggestion by giving students three chances to pass the test, beginning in the tenth grade...
...his seat is actually up in 2000...
...Robert K Davis West Hollywood, CA Michael Barone's article was particularly thoughtful regarding the 1998 House races...
...But I utterly fail to see how the 1998 U.S...
...My bill would ensure that people have the full and unrestricted advice of their trusted health-care provider when making difficult medical decisions for themselves or a loved one...
...Our president would be wise to watch and learn from our speaker...
...Furthermore, these issues would go a long way towards ensuring continuation of the Republican congressional majority for many years to come...
...Unlike his similarly embattled neighbors down Pennsylvania Avenue, Gingrich has substantially complied with requests from investigators for information and, in the end, has honorably acknowledged his transgressions (to use the term loosely, as it remains unclear whether Gingrich actually violated any provisions of the morass we call the tax code...
...This includes decentralizing power and money to the local level, not just to the states...
...The howl from the education establishment over this recommendation could be heard from Providence to the Canadian border...
...A Republican version of this would recognize that soft money and PACs are not the real problems...
...It's what the conservative movement, as a whole, needs to be...
...This is why the liberals, who are consistent statists, have been able to force the conservatives into retreat on the minimum wage, Medicare, and pre-election spending sprees, and turn conservatives into self-haters when they support their leader over an ethics violation that is the political equivalent of a traffic ticket...
...To gain seats would bolster his claim to be a successful president...
...He could have added, with accuracy, that the Democrats' double standard is exceeded in pusillanimity only by the Republicans' failure to fight back...
...I submit that Clinton is expecting the 1998 election to overturn the pattern of the White House party's losing seats in Congress...
...As for the "vulnerable" seat in Iowa next year, Charles Grassley was reelected in 1992 with 70 percent of the vote despite the downdraft of Bill Clinton's concurrently carrying Iowa over President Bush...
...On a healthcare plan there is no obligation to pay for any treatment that is not medically necessary or included in the package of benefits...
...But they fail to explain why conservatives feel this way...
...The current political battles are similar to the fight over Vietnam, in which the Republicans let the ideological enemy set the tactics...
...An agenda for the 105th should include campaign-finance reform...
...It is in full swing already...
...We need a strategy to defeat the left-liberal cabal...
...William Van Nest Wayne, NJ Icouldn't agree more with "Stand By Your Man," as well as the Kristol and Podhoretz plans of action described in "An Agenda for the New Congress" and "Stick it to the Democrats...
...Daniel Pipes Philadelphia, PA...
...Bryan Taplits Cincinnati, OH On the Agenda William Kristol hit the nail on the head when he said the Republicans stumbled on the education issue ("An Agenda for the 105th Congress," Jan...
...Conservatives have conceded the basic premises of liberals...
...Republican congressmen who say they cannot campaign continually and still attend to the business of governing had better learn how...
...As conservatives, we need to quit hoping that the media will someday stop hating us and start treating us fairly...
...GOP targets in the Senate races in 1998 are much more promising than Barone says and, depending upon retirements, include opportunities in California, Washington, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Arkansas, and Kentucky...
...Clinton has cast the die...
...They don't believe in big government, but they say some government help is needed...
...But there is no smaller scale in matters of principle...
...By arguing that the bill would drive up costs for health plans, Frum tacitly acknowledges that some health plans keep providers from telling patients about treatments that are both appropriate and covered by the plan...
...Rather, the Washington Senate race is a prime GOP target of opportunity...
...The only time the leadership ever seems to get angry is when they snarl at the religious Right...
...The Congress could achieve these goals by honoring the Reagan revolution...
...Far from being a big step on the road to national health care, the gag-rule bill is a small common-sense step to protecting patients...
...Republicans lost that struggle because they deemed it better to sacrifice American lives than to use all our force to safeguard them...
...Every time conservatives support a policy that defends individualism they understand, at least implicitly, their contradiction and feel they're doing something wrong...
...Rep...
...It fails to confront the major issue before our republic—how to improve our politics and revive civic life...
...It's not going to happen...
...Peter Bearse Gloucester, MA Welcome the Little Fix As the author of the Patient Right To Know Act, which would prevent health plans from restricting the content of discussions between patients and their health-care providers, I must take exception to a statement in David Frum's "Health Care: Beware the 'Little Fix'" (Jan...
...They include Richard Brookhiser's remark, "In their hearts, they know they're wrong...
...Never mind that the test apparently covers only eighth- grade skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic...
...Sounds like poor Henry James has suffered at the hands of his latest biographer, Sheldon M. Novick, a fate roughly akin to Nabokov's hapless suburban poet...
...The ethics subcommittee investigating Gingrich was able to proceed in the fact-finding process only because Gingrich did not engage in anything approaching a campaign of obstruction or of smearing his accusers...
...Thanks for being bold, visionary, and confident...
...13) neglect what is perhaps the best reason for supporting Gingrich in his plight: Gingrich's respect for the investigation process, especially when compared with the Clintons' contemptuous disrespect for that process...
...These two initiatives would not only constitute a remarkable Republican agenda for the 105th Congress...
...they would make "strengthening local democracy" and "rebuilding civic life" Republican issues...
Vol. 2 • January 1997 • No. 19
