CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence NO, IT'S WORSE THAN WATERGATE As perhaps the only San Franciscan who has continually used the postage stamps honoring Richard Nixon, I must take issue with David Frum's denigration...
...It must eliminate several layers of middle management—both in the Pentagon and in the field—and fully man and equip the deployable forces it has...
...The game, as I argue, is always a rhetorical one in which no position can ever be conclusively (that is, to the satisfaction of all parties) refuted...
...Although I did declare that I was not a supporter of abortion rights, I did not chastise the pro-choice movement "for refusing to acknowledge the fact that abortion takes the life of an innocent human being...
...JEFF WEINTRAUB BETHLEHEM, PA MORE TROOPS, FEWER STAFF William R. Hawkins is correct— deployable active Army divisions have shrunk in number from 18 to 10 ("Ground Troops Win Wars," Sept...
...I did not, as you say I did, accuse the pro-choice movement of ignoring "the facts of life before birth now that science and technology make clear that the being killed by abortion is a human being...
...The one samurai they find who is willing to agree purely out of financial need proves to be completely worthless as a protector...
...Correspondence NO, IT'S WORSE THAN WATERGATE As perhaps the only San Franciscan who has continually used the postage stamps honoring Richard Nixon, I must take issue with David Frum's denigration of the late, great former president by comparing the unfortunate Watergate affair to the self-inflicted scandals wrought by the "grossness of President Clinton's misconduct" ("Yes, It Is Like Watergate," Sept...
...Richard Nixon—who had the courage, decency, and honor to acknowledge his mistakes by resigning —respected, loved, and was faithful to both his wife and his America...
...All they have to do is scramble around and find a new set of arguments that will replace the ones of which they have been deprived...
...My point would be that both positions can and have survived the loss of the evidentiary basis on which they formerly relied...
...Even the uniformed military members of these staffs may go years without zeroing an individual weapon...
...ROBERT FAIRCHILD HAMPTON, VA THE GAME OF LIFE Your account of my remarks at the American Political Science Association is in error (Scrapbook, "Stanley Fish, Pro-lifer," Sept...
...I was doing what I always do: explaining how arguments work...
...STANLEY FISH ARTS AND SCIENCES PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH PROFESSOR OF LAW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS ASSOCIATE VICE PROVOST, DUKE UNIVERSITY DURHAM, NC...
...THOMAS M. EDWARDS SAN FRANCISCO, CA KUNG FU FIGHTING I enjoyed reading J. Bottum's fine reflections on Kurosawa and his movies ("The Last Samurai," Sept...
...I had gotten that point wrong in my First Things essay, and I said so in public, as one should when one is corrected...
...Bottum recalls the wonderful early scene from The Seven Samurai—which is simultaneously grim and comic— where a skeptical peasant says that samurai will be too proud to work for a village of mere peasants, and a wise, old man then replies, "Find hungry samurai...
...These vast legions of office drones push paper and computer icons from 8:00 a.m...
...That's a fitting message from "the last samurai...
...I am particularly distressed at the inaccuracy of your account because, as I tell many people, The Weekly StanDARD, to which I am a loyal subscriber, is my favorite magazine...
...Defense does not need more money...
...While the manning, training, and readiness of the deployable force have been neglected, top-heavy, swollen Cold War-era staffs persist at all levels of the military...
...But worse, some of the surviving 10 are seriously short of both infantrymen and tankers in the line companies and battalions, and therefore are unready for combat—and a recruiting failure for infantry and armor is only partially responsible for this problem...
...The samurai who actually come to defend the village are ones for whom quite different motives are central: pride, generosity, loyalty, vanity, and (above all) personal honor...
...What I did was acknowledge that Professor George's observation— that it is now pro-life proponents who cite scientific evidence while pro-choicers look elsewhere for arguments in support of their position—is accurate...
...But I in no way expressed my agreement with Professor George when he wrote that "the pro-choice position simply collapses" when its scientific basis is removed...
...to 5:00 p.m., five days a week, and do no physical work...
...This account leaves out one of the interesting lessons of the film, which is that this plausible piece of "realism" turns out to be wrong...
...That would be an argument against abortion rights, and I was not in the business at APSA of making any such argument or its opposite...
Vol. 4 • October 1998 • No. 5
