Alec Loves Newt
Alec Loves Newt Iam writing in response to Andrew Ferguson's "Starstruck Republicans" (Mar. 31). I would like to specifically comment on the references made by Ferguson to an interview I personally...
...It passed the House with a veto-proof 295-136 margin on Mar...
...Aside from that one omission, I thank Labash and The Weekly STANDARD for their masterly, intelligent coverage of the current media obsession with this ever-downward trend toward social destruction...
...Alec Baldwin President, The Creative Coalition New York, NY Newt Stays Solid Between William Kristol's "Time for an Insurrection" (Mar...
...Labash begins by lumping this serious theologian and establishment figure, fresh from celebrating 25 years of ministry at Harvard, with various clerics of lesser renown and (in some cases) conduct, as if their stories weakened Gomes's own moral and intellectual authority...
...I applaud the speaker for his interest in beginning what he called a "genuine dialogue" about future funding and public policies related to the arts...
...10), Andy Ferguson's "Newt's Collected Works, Vol...
...As much as it pains me, a fellow traveler in these conservative trenches, I have to ask, "So what...
...Either Emerge is responding to the wishes of its audience or it is dumping poison on an unsuspecting populace...
...Is this to be considered an improvement...
...Trevor Potter Washington, DC Emerging from Racism After reading Robert Weissberg's "White Racism: The Seductive Lure of an Unproven Theory" and Elena Neuman's "Emerge and the Lure of Racism" (Mar...
...It stretches the limits of credulity, however, to suggest that the black middle class, appropriately seen as the hope for the black community, is now apparently the primary threat to continued black advancement...
...Regarding the speaker of the House, we have come full-circle...
...For the record, most of the agenda items raised in "Time for an Insurrection" (Mar...
...Robert A. George Washington, DC...
...The Republican agenda is not a mere wish list...
...The House hearings on Clinton campaign fund-raising will examine this issue further, and the Republican majority voted to fully fund this effort...
...The arts are a serious issue of national public policy and economic concern and have a great impact on the citizens of this country...
...I look forward to my next meeting and the continuation of a cordial working relationship with the speaker and other members of the House leadership...
...He has, but unlike many politicians he has admitted them and moved on to the business of leadership...
...Do you seriously believe Newt Gingrich to be one of them...
...10) were unveiled in the Republican agenda of Mar...
...Allowing display of the Ten Commandments...
...Gomes's point in this book is that people like Labash might benefit from putting their assumptions and modern translations aside long enough to understand the original context and social history of the Bible...
...Istook's Religious Freedom Amendment is fully supported by the Republican leadership, as are other initiatives designed to ensure that our fundamental rights are protected...
...making them feel like they're being kept down and they'll never prosper in this country...
...While negative rhetoric is sometimes flung too quickly between people, what is important to note here is that I was impressed with House speaker Newt Gingrich regarding this issue after meeting him on Arts Advocacy Day...
...But the larger issue is how we bring China under the rule of law, respectful of human rights, through an engaged trade policy that does not inflict onerous economic burdens on American workers...
...Labash leaves his readers completely in the dark about Gomes's arguments about the Bible and homosexuality in The Good Book by assuring us that "the logic [is] too tortured to replicate here...
...Weissberg is correct in saying that there is as much of a political element in the recognition of these "isms" as there is a scientific one...
...Cold War rhetoric is not the best means to nudge China into recognizing its citizens' civil liberties...
...31), conservatives are being led to believe that there is no problem with liberalism in this country and, instead, all our problems stem from Newt Gingrich's approach to solidifying a conservative majority for the 21st century...
...I would like to specifically comment on the references made by Ferguson to an interview I personally gave months ago to the entertainment magazine US...
...Has the speaker made mistakes...
...Our agenda, developed under the speaker's supervision and with the full cooperation of all 13 Republican committee chairmen and the full House Republican leadership, is well underway and proves there is no need for an "insurrection...
...China...
...They are what make Correspondence Gomes's book worth talking about in the first place...
...Joseph R Pitts Washington, DC Clergy and Critics Iwas pleasantly surprised to find Matt Labash's excellent analysis of the way ordained homosexuals are flagrantly demeaning their church affiliations by ignoring, twisting, and misinterpreting the plain meaning of Scripture ("Coming Out of the Cassock," Mar...
...Anti-Semitism may or may not exist, but the Holocaust happened...
...Before he took office, Newt Gingrich was characterized as "Scrooge" and "The Grinch" by Time and Newsweek...
...Does it make any difference that the term "homosexual," referred to in many modern Bibles and concordances, is a 19th-century word unknown to the Jews, Greeks, and Romans writing the Bible, as Gomes points out...
...It's slowly killing people mentally...
...Knowing of the House leadership's intent to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts this year, I became involved in this issue...
...Why, Gomes asks, should we ignore the Old Testament law on dietary matters and New Testament praise of slavery, but accept unquestioningly Leviticus's strictures on same-sex relations...
...Ending partial-birth abortions...
...17), and now Major Garrett's "Newt Melts" (Mar...
...What comes first...
...The House Judiciary Committee has already held hearings on judicial activism, and legislation will be in committee this spring...
...At some point, one must ask, Who are the enemies of the conservative movement...
...6— four days after the issue hit the stands...
...Barbara W. Elliott Columbia City, IN Matt Labash's discussion of Peter Gomes gives the reader a nice caricature, but very little real information...
...This may be the first time I have heard the "underclass" described as anything other than the fount of all that is destructive in the black community...
...The only way Labash could improve his excellent review of these "barely penetrable thickets of pop theological assumptions" would be to actually cite the "12 references in 10 different books of the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), all of which [speak] as disapprovingly as Leviticus" on homosexuality...
...It's like keeping them mentally depressed...
...Now that conservatives are in charge in Congress and are close to attaining a majority in the country at large, The Weekly Standard has adopted the tactics of old liberals: finding fault with their leaders and criticizing the agenda rather than addressing the key issues...
...But then she quotes commentator Armstrong Williams, who notes, "The stuff Emerge is feeding its readers is poison...
...On one hand, she asserts that Emerge, though a radical magazine, is actually reflecting the beliefs and viewpoints of its target audience...
...If the fact that these "isms" are ideologically based is reason to dismiss out-of-hand the product of their existence, then what does this say for the conservative movement—often treated in the mainstream media as an entrenched minority—and by extension, The Weekly Standard...
...And now, despite developing the strategy that returned a Republican House majority for the first time in 68 years, the speaker still faces a firing squad—this time from a conservative magazine...
...Regarding "Emerge and the Lure of Racism," Elena Neuman's analysis is more than flawed, it is blatantly contradictory...
...The "cautiously optimistic underclass...
...We can all agree that the experience of every ethnic "ism," whether race- or gender-, or religion-based, is to some extent in the eye of the beholder...
...Neuman's final conclusion is that black middle-class angst will "trickle down" into the cautiously optimistic underclass...
...Trying to deny the existence of something that is demonstrable is, aside from foolish, ultimately insulting...
...Making them hateful, resentful...
...White racism may or may not exist, but slavery happened...
...it is being enacted...
...Or that physical affection between men in Biblical times was never voluntary, between equals, and part of a long-term romantic relationship...
...Alas, in his haste to diminish Gomes, Labash discusses none of these, which is a pity...
...24), the reader is left with two conclusions: First, white racism is a figment of the imagination of most blacks and many whites, and second, the real problem is black racism— imbedded in the black middle class and gaining mainstream credibility...
...That does not invalidate the actual events that form a foundation for these beliefs...
...It's very dangerous...
...It was once said that liberals tend to eat their own...
...1" (Mar...
Vol. 2 • April 1997 • No. 29
