Clueless and Clintonized
CLUELESS AND CLINTONIZED My confidence in Senate majority leader Trent Lott was ebbing when along came "Clintonized Republicans" (June 9) by William Kristol settling the issue. Sen. Lott, being...
...I did not say that Wasserstein writes "liberal agitprop...
...In documenting that, Carlson did a real service to your readers, including me...
...His focus on Kelly Flinn's adultery obscures the major issues involved in her lamentable case and serves the purposes of the liberal intelligentsia, who would have us believe that adultery was the defining element of the case...
...The most shocking part of all is that, to this day, child pornography remains legal in Denmark...
...Prior to the contretemps that landed her in hot water, Flinn engaged in an affair with an enlisted man...
...Nor are we all Clinton Republicans, as Kristol speculates...
...Another point that was obscured by all the hype is Lt...
...But (like most of its reviewers) I do believe that the play's protagonist was intended to be, on balance, sympathetic and a victim of the (stupid, thuggish) anti-woman Right...
...Barely were the votes counted before the inundation of fund-raising pleas resumed...
...Air Force and a holder of an honorable discharge, I was outraged by Lott's stand on the Kelly Flinn affair...
...But it happened, on Wednesday, August 17, 1994...
...I continue to guess that this is not what Wasserstein intended...
...In response, I made a copy of my honorable discharge, printed "Worthless Thanks to Trent Lott" across the front and mailed it to Lott's office...
...R.L...
...Wasserstein does extend human sympathy to all her characters...
...Next, I made several copies of the question and answer period that appeared with Kristol's article...
...The Academy experience evidently had little effect upon Lt...
...Whatever next...
...Then our commentators, a bit more experienced, could spend a year telling the GOP to learn how to get around the liberal domination of the press, rally public opinion, and make real change...
...Bacevich brushes up against an .important issue only to be sidetracked by the minutiae...
...This, however, may be too subtle...
...When the party sends me requests for money, as it does on almost a daily basis, I will stuff the return envelope with a copy and a note saying that when Lott steps down, I will resume contributing money to the party...
...The true ground for the charges levied against her is that she conspired with her lover to continue in adultery after receiving the orders...
...Thomas Harding Jones New York, NY Cheaters Never Win Ienjoyed reading Tucker Carlson's "The Making of a Feminist Hero" and A.J...
...This leads people like Kate O'Beirne to attack Republicans for not doing honest things such as zeroing out the NEA...
...But I'm not sure they add up to a clueless GOP unsure of its principles...
...But I do not understand, perhaps naively, why he needed to besmirch Denmark...
...Michael Kinsley Redmond, WA LISA SCHIFFREN responds: One hardly knows what to make of so nasty and intemperate an attack occasioned by a critical review of a play that was almost universally panned...
...That in itself should have gotten her bounced out of the Air Force, even before she took up with Gayla Zigo's husband...
...But remember that it's illegal for an adult in Denmark to perform a sexual act with a person under the age of 14...
...As for the kiddie-porn documentary I cited, Burcharth is right: It's hard to believe that such a thing was shown on Denmark's largest television station or that anyone, even a pornographer, would make such an appalling statement in public...
...Schiffren discovers that King Lear is not a happy man...
...During those same years, the core values of the Air Force Academy were promulgated: "Integrity First, Service Before Self, Excellence In All We Do...
...Bacevich's "The De-Moralized Military" (June 9...
...Schiffren understandably finds that confusing...
...J. W. Pueschner Houston, TX William Kristol and David Frum ("Confused Conservatives," June 9) made some very good points regarding the "Clintonization" of Republicans...
...Carlson is right that it's not illegal to possess child pornography in Denmark...
...Correspondence Credit should go to the Air Force chief of staff, Gen...
...Flinn was charged with adultery incidental to her insubordination, fraternization, and lying...
...Schiffren chooses to interpret it as simple-minded liberal agitprop and then, with a self-congratulatory flourish, announces her own brilliant insight that the author unconsciously reveals the failures and sadness of this crowd...
...Very little that David Frum suggests can be accomplished until conservatives learn how to sell their reforms...
...I tend to agree with him that the Danish couple who left their baby outside an East Village cafe probably qualify as irresponsible parents...
...They might then understand why Republicans on the Hill are so gun-shy...
...Tom Harkin...
...As a former member of the U.S...
...That's what voters want...
...One gathers that her superiors knew about her adulterous relationship, else they would not have issued orders for her to stop...
...The party, along with its ideological allies, is irritated because it misunderstands one key point: The GOP does not have a real majority because it does not have the press on its side...
...I applaud Secretary Widnall, who had the courage to stand up to the preening classes and deliver a fair, even generous, punishment to an individual who daily dishonored the uniform she wore and the oaths of duty that she took so lightly...
...He wrote "by last year, pornography was the country's [Denmark's] third largest industry...
...But how much air time can she and her colleagues muster when Alec Baldwin and hundreds of actors, directors, producers, and writers appear on countless talk shows and rally to the cause of protecting our children's right to experience art...
...Lott, being from Mississippi, is no doubt aware of Mark Twain...
...Flinn, other than strengthening an overweening pride and self-centeredness...
...The Republican party suffers from an inability to communicate with the American people...
...Martin Burcharth Cambridge, MA Tucker Carlson responds: I can't comment on the condition of Danish journalism, but Burcharth does seem to have missed a story...
...I didn't give up my hard-earned after-tax dollars just so Republicans could keep the bigger offices...
...And I did not donate in anticipation of invitations to parties with senators and celebrities...
...Flinn was an officer with what can only be considered monumentally bad judgment...
...Both articles, however, overlooked one important fact...
...I don't expect miracles or a "revolution...
...The Right is not suffering from complacency, counting on voters to reject the unacceptable liberal pol...
...I am aware that the liberal cultural establishment (not to mention those of Wasserstein's friends given small roles in this play—as Kinsley is) and similarly disposed audiences identify with these characters...
...They could also offer better solutions to what is now viewed as confusion and complacency...
...But my point was that audiences lacking such personal affinity are likely to find them self-righteous, insular, self-destructive, weak, and/or untrustworthy—in short, unambiva-lently tiresome and unsympathetic...
...But it's clear from Kristol's article that Lott missed some valuable Twain advice: "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please...
...According to data presented by researchers from the University of Minnesota at a regional meeting of the U.N.-sponsored World Congress Against Sexual Exploitation of Children, held last April in Brasilia, pornography is indeed Denmark's third-largest industry, right behind furniture making...
...Flinn was apparently unmoved by her exposure to these principles...
...Ronald Fogleman, who forthrightly laid out what the case was really about to some Capitol Hill clowns, notably the dimmest of dimwits, Sen...
...I'm betting that as recent history gets written, the failure to fully support Newt Gingrich for more than two weeks will prove to have been a source of much GOP failure...
...Hands Off Denmark Iwas amused to the point of laughing when I read Tucker Carlson's "Strol-lergate" (June 2...
...Whatever its merits (and I think it's terrific—though, as a friend of the author, I'm biased), the play is obviously an ambivalent treatment of the Washington liberal establishment...
...DiNardo Jersey City, NJ AJ...
...And can anyone believe that Denmark's second TV channel, TV2, let a producer of a documentary about child pornography actually state, "I know that children are not harmed by it...
...We wouldn't then be worried about whether there is a conservative crack-up...
...Richard E. Hall Palm Bay, FL William Kristol concisely states what many conservatives now believe about Trent (Wind Sock) Lott and the Republican Congress in general...
...I wish conservative pundits and journalists had spent a year trying to turn public opinion around on the subject before suggesting that GOP politicians walk off the NEA cliff...
...The conservative cause will advance once these "Clintonized" Republican politicians understand they have no base...
...Had the GOP rallied around him along with conservative pundits, they would have learned from what was political necessity (backing one's leader) how to face down the liberal press and union cash...
...Flinn was lucky the double standard worked in her favor...
...If this is true, then we Danish journalists missed the biggest story of the year...
...Nor do I question that the author intends to convey ambivalence about her peers...
...That makes it illegal to produce pornographic films with children under that age...
...One shudders to think of Kelly Flinn in command of a platoon...
...For four years she lived under an honor code that states, "We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does," without any apparent effect on her own lack of honor...
...I do expect that they will at least try to reduce the stranglehold of government regulation and interference that pervades this country...
...Gordon Matthews Orange, CA Bravo for the articles on the "Clueless GOP" During the 1996 election season I increased my contributions to Republican candidates and committees several-fold over any previous year...
...Flinn's much-vaunted status as an Air Force Academy graduate...
...We should be thankful that the only thing she had to command was a single aircraft...
...A man facing the same charges without the publicity machine that worked overtime for Flinn would have been court-martialed and given a dishonorable discharge...
...I have a message for those sending the letters: not one nickel more until congressional Republicans stand up and stop acting like whipped dogs cowering in front of the AFL-CIO bosses and the New York Times editorial board...
...Lance Robinson Oak Harbor, WA The Playwright's Pal Lisa Schiffren's take on Wendy Wasserstein's play An American Daughter ("Isn't It Pathetic?," June 2) is characteristically thuggish and stupid...
...Too bad Carlson let his emotions supersede his reporting...
Vol. 2 • June 1997 • No. 40
