Correspondence

...Would Burchfield seriously have us believe that one rule, such as the "express-advocacy standard," which the learned justices like, and not another one, which they don't, is embedded in the Constitution...

...It is a view of America's role in the world that is certain to exhaust the supply of willing young Americans, the wisdom of our leaders, and the tolerance of all those we will end up governing...

...The Constitution is not a writ for appellate judges to nullify at will the purposes of the people as expressed by their duly elected representatives...

...Yet he fails to note that two of the four consistent liberals in the Supreme Court were placed there by Republican presidents...

...White was easily as smart as Chesterton, et al., and that his choice to keep his writing lighthearted and endearing doesn't detract, it just proves how smart he was...

...Burchfield endorses the same powers of judicial legislation, accountable to no one, that have befouled so much of this century's jurisprudence...

...The Court Is Doomed Andrew Peyton Thomas has joined the pack baying for conservatives to vote Republican next year on the grounds that "the liberal bloc...

...If this understanding leads to a basic distrust of the actions of government, that is only prudent...

...There is no reason to think that the second Bush will deviate from the standard Republican practice of appointing two liberals for each conservative...

...Eisenhower had his Brennan, Nixon had his Powell, Ford had his Stevens, George I had his Souter, and George II may profit from their example...

...To connect Buchanan's name with the Left is subtly to accuse him of their condescending disdain for the institutions of America (including the American Constitution), and their fundamental dishonesty...

...Ferguson also insists that White be labeled "just a journalist," by implication not profound enough to be mentioned as an essayist alongside the heavy hitters he names—G.K...

...But why is state regulation less offensive to the First Amendment than federal regulation...

...it's evident he was also principled and brave...

...The Supreme Court has no more right to forbid legislatures from controlling campaign finance than it has to forbid them to control abortion...

...and that they are willing to kowtow to the Left to the extent that they use the Left's tactics to destroy one of their own...

...It does not follow from World War II and the Cold War that every problem in the world has to be ours to solve...

...But why say, as Ferguson does, that the "little book" is flying under false colors because it doesn't include a labyrinthian examination of grammar and rhetoric...

...More accurately, he seems to prefer to return to a conservative understanding of those institutions that has surely been wrested from us over the course of this century...

...Peter Helseth Minneapolis, MN Timor Trouble Tom Donnelly belittles as isolationists those who do not agree with him that East Timor requires a big dose of that indispensable American leadership, the kind that is bringing democracy and peace to the Balkans, Haiti, etc...

...Why East Timor Matters," Sept...

...Apparently, managing crises around the world is an exclusively American responsibility that cannot be shared no matter how much of a burden it places on U.S...

...These certainly do not apply to Buchanan...

...Had he stayed in the Senate, he would today be the highly respected, third-ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, able to bring an insider's knowledge of the way Washington works, his incisive political analysis, and his strong appeal to social conservatives to a ticket headed by the governor of Texas...

...When a Republican president chooses a liberal, he says later that "mistakes were made...

...This is a foreign policy that desperately needs to be tested with the American people...

...Give the man full credit...

...The "little book," after all, warns us not to confuse glitter and complexity with being profound...

...Burchfield accepts the alleged wisdom of the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo and related cases, but the very specifics of the rules laid down by the Court to govern campaign finance tell us that what we have to swallow is judicial fiat, not constitutional mandate...

...The Court was clearly correct regarding expenditure limits, and may yet reverse itself with regard to contribution limits...

...If running the world requires more troops, then Donnelly thinks we should build a bigger military...

...It was Quayle's ironic fate to have been running mate with the wrong Bush...

...What's more, no one would read it and get its real message, if it were as long as all that...

...But I doubt if he will...

...You read it here first: Whether the next president is George W Bush or a Democrat, the Supreme Court will turn to the left as soon as some of the current justices retire...

...Richard Brashares Glenside, PA Quayle's Ironic Fate Along with everyone else who served with him in the Bush administration, I am an admirer of Dan Quayle and have always lamented the lift and crash of his public career in 1988 (Christopher Caldwell, "The Thinking Man's Candidate," Oct...

...Although I would fully support such a reversal, my article commented on the law as it currently exists...

...Doesn't the First Amendment bind the states through the Fourteenth...

...Chase Untermeyer Houston, TX Vindicating Buchanan To portray Pat Buchanan as a modern Republican version of the New Left, Blame America First crowd of 30 years ago, as William Kristol does, is wildly inaccurate and essentially identical to what those same New Leftists have been doing to conservatives since that era ("A Party of Appeasement...

...The America that lies behind Donnelly's vision is precisely the kind of country that America fought and defeated in both those wars and should be mobilizing now to oppose...

...So we are left to wonder if Republican presidents are invariably dumber than Democrats, or if perhaps they know a "liberal activist" when they appoint one...

...i assert that E.B...

...Hal Riedl Baltimore, MD Bobby R. Burchfield responds: In the 23 years since the Supreme Court decided Buckley v. Valeo, many have criticized the Court's effort to distinguish between limits on political expenditures, which it considered offensive to the First Amendment, and limits on political contributions, which it sustained...

...forces...

...The fact that the Australians stepped forward to run the East Timor peacekeeping effort is shameful in Donnelly's view because the Australians do not have much military capacity...

...That is one of its charms...

...that the party is elitist...

...If Buchanan's point is that this century has witnessed a progressive takeover of the nation's institutions by the Left— including government, the courts, academia, the church, and popular culture— well, this is irrefutable...

...But no Democratic president ever appoints a conservative by accident...

...C.A...

...if Congress and state legislatures could be persuaded to forbid media outlets from charging candidates for air time, we would enjoy a great deal more of that freedom of political speech which Burchfield agrees is the "oxygen of democracy...

...Yes, his ways were simple, but i'm not sure he wasn't truly sophisticated as well...

...Burchfield tells us that Shays-Meehan and McCain-Feingold are all the more objectionable because they run roughshod over state regulation of state and local campaigns...

...In all of the salivating furor to denounce Buchanan, his contentions are being proven: that the Republican establishment, and apparently even some who call themselves conservatives, will do anything to win the next election, including nominate someone with whom the Republican base strongly disagrees...

...Heffernon Pardeeville, WI...

...Chesterton, George Orwell, Rebecca West, Edmund Wilson...

...Why doesn't any regulation of campaign finance offend the First Amendment...

...is one vote away from a liberal activist majority" ("Team Clinton on the Supreme Court," Oct...

...Harvey M. Sapolsky Cambridge, MA White's Simple Genius Andrew Ferguson's piece on Strunk and White's The Elements of Style was heartwarming, great stuff ("Unmanning Strunk and White," Oct...

...It is fear-mongering at its worst...