Correspondence
Correspondence THE RICH CONNECTION JAMES HIGGINS'S PIECE on Marc Rich ("The Unpardonable Pardon," Feb. 5) is incisive and well researched. One facet of the case it fails to mention is that the...
...She's desperate...
...Forget that AmeriCorps is blatantly unconstitutional...
...At the federal level, they're an expensive joke...
...When the shutters had stopped, you were history...
...it's a shame that at a time when the U.S...
...Labash skewers Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others for their cant, corruption, and hypocrisy...
...You were just another prop...
...So please, please be careful...
...PAUL FALER Wakefield, MA ONE PEEVED PUPPETISTA I DON'T CARE WHETHER Matt Labash is right-wing, left-wing, or no-wing, but his portrayal of the Justice Action Movement ("The Inaugural Invaders," Jan...
...What breathtaking naivete...
...Every administration since FDR's death has honored that request...
...Trashing from the highest levels...
...Supreme Court seems to be moving in the direction of federalism and a newfound respect for the Enumerated Powers Doctrine, certain segments of conservatism seem to think that the federal government can do just about anything, as long as conservatives are in charge...
...The New Democrat in George W. Bush exhibits a wide-eyed acceptance of Bill Clinton's assessment that AmeriCorps is proof that if we "hold hands and believe we're going into the future together, we can change anything we want to change...
...it is not a noun-title, like captain or president or judge...
...And what do we have to show for our devotion...
...I saw you many times both in and outside of the White House, but the day I most remember was November 29, 1993...
...But buried in his brilliant expose is the revelation that Jackson received a reassuring phone call from George W. Bush...
...attorney largely responsible for gathering the evidence leading to the Rich conviction—including a dramatic late-night seizure of an airplane on the runway at JFK from which thousands of pages of incriminating documents about to depart for the privacy of Switzerland were seized—was Rudy Giuliani...
...What is Bush doing in the company of Clinton and Gore, who also made reassuring, sympathetic phone calls...
...She was the one who truly loved you all along...
...I enjoyed the pleasure of your company many times in the White House...
...Eight million dollars...
...She needs money...
...29), Woody West overlooks an even greater injustice to the great man—the existence of the memorial itself...
...It was my cat...
...Dear Socks, You may not remember me, but I certainly remember you...
...Don't lose sleep over this, but you got one very disturbing detail wrong in your book proposal...
...Join the club...
...Isn't it interesting that your old mistress just did such a deal...
...But the idea of limited government seems to be of little consequence to Lenkowsky and his fellow neoconservatives...
...This word is an adjective...
...One facet of the case it fails to mention is that the young assistant U.S...
...We worked long and hard to get our guy elected...
...She's just looking for a quick buck," they said...
...We gave our time and money gladly, because it was always for the public good...
...In her response to letters critiquing her attack on pedophilia ("The End of a Taboo," Jan...
...White House Office of Marriage Initiatives...
...You have served your country well...
...After all, the president's ill-considered faith-based initiative is pretty much AmeriCorps writ large...
...I was in the middle of a terrible crisis at home, and I went to see your master for help...
...I never saw affection come your way from anyone named Clinton...
...So now you have been banished from public life by the Clintons, and I know how disappointed you must be—used and abused, of no further use...
...It reminded me of the first attack against me from those hallowed halls...
...You are going to need it...
...29), she mentions my article in the October 20, 2000, issue of the American Prospect (www.prospect.org) as a classic example of the allegedly permissive treatment of homosexual pedophilia, wondering rhetorically if the magazine would have allowed me to "weigh the pros and cons of men having sex with little girls...
...EDWARD H. CRANE Washington, DC JESSE'S NEW GROOVE IN HIS OTHERWISE BRILLIANT PIECE"Jesse Jackson Returns...
...No more 30-foot leash, no more photo-ops, no more dodging flying lamps and figurines, no more "Buddy...
...This is your life we're talking about...
...What's the federal government for if not a little marriage counseling...
...One of the Clintons' sleazy private dicks told me so...
...CRAIG KEPLER Minneapolis, MN RETHINKING AMERICORPS LESLIE LENKOWSKY'S CALL for the Bush administration to "broaden the mission of AmeriCorps" pushes, regrettably, on an open door ("AmeriCorps the Beautiful," Jan...
...Programs like AmeriCorps rarely work at the state and local level...
...False accusations...
...CLAY bWARNICK Warsaw, KY THE END OF A TABOO?..II Is Mary Eberstadt laboring under some irresistible impulse to mischarac-terize the work of other writers...
...It was obvious how much she cared for you...
...Their burgeoning alliance with so-called communitarians like Don Eberly and Amitai Etzioni and New Democrats like David Osborne and George W. Bush should be cause for concern for all Americans who care about their heritage of individual liberty...
...Federal funding of local charities, including religious organizations...
...Well, good luck to you...
...I've often wondered what would have happened had you followed me into that inner sanctum that day...
...I see you are now out there hawking "the big book deal...
...Jefferson once wrote that "the natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield...
...Funny thing about that...
...LAURI APPLE Washington, DC LAST MAN STANDING IN HIS CRITICISM of the politically correct statue of Franklin Roosevelt ("The New, Improved FDR," Jan...
...5) Matt Labash repeats a mistake made by many journalists today in calling Jackson a "reverend...
...You certainly would have been shocked by your master's pitiful behavior...
...I noticed that on the night Labash came to Adam Eidinger's apartment to take a stilt-walking jaunt with a group of activists, he seemed to scribble into his notepad during moments of idle chitchat but kept his pen still when anyone brought up political issues...
...With love and affection, KATHLEEN WILLEY "Sister Comrade Bork" and Partnership for Civil Justice attorney Mara Verhey-den-Hilliard as a "sourpuss...
...You were sitting on Betty Currie's desk, right outside of the president's office, tethered to that long, long red leash that became a necessary part of your everyday life at the White House...
...More federal oversight of public education...
...We were right...
...ALLEN A. TAYLOR Atlanta, GA MATT LABASH'S SUPERB ARTICLE left me disappointed, puzzled, and angry...
...I used to be a journalist...
...It was not my dog who was done in by the Clintons before my deposition in Paula's case...
...My cynicism just gets deeper...
...Once I saw you on the president's shoulder, "allergies" and all, but that was only for a photo-op...
...Roosevelt left clear written instructions that no memorials should be erected in his name in Washington, D.C...
...Sure, why not...
...You are now with a kind and caring lady who loves you very much...
...You are now a member of an illustrious group of alumnae (at least we like to think so...
...The new, unflattering statue only adds insult to the original injury...
...I wish for you long days lying in the sun, many successful critter hunts, and a long and happy future with a very nice owner...
...What about the emphasis on the restoration of character and integrity, about personal accountability, family values...
...It's true you've now been cast aside, but, someday very soon you will realize what a favor that is...
...He also seems to harbor ill will toward intelligent females, mockingly referring to Bork, a mother and self-confident woman, as THE CAT'S MEOW In response to our January 22 Parody—^n which Socks, the Clintons' cat, proposed a tell-all book on his White House years— reader Kathleen Willey wrote this letter to America's onetime first pet, who now lives with former Clinton assistant Betty Currie in Arlington, Va...
...There is thus an element of "rubbing Rudy's face in it" in the Rich pardon, a Clintonesque "flip of the bird" to a political rival who dared stand in the way of the Clinton machine...
...But I quit reporting when I realized the field was overpopulated with the likes of Labash...
...Of course, Giuliani later became Hillary Clinton's adversary in her senatorial bid...
...29) is so pathetically outdated, sloppy, and cliched, that it seems as though he had hired somebody's red-baiting grandfather to write it...
...in fact, I have a picture of the two of us together during my short stint in the Social Office in the East Wing (see right...
...Bill Clinton did not...
...Say hello to Betty for me...
...Although I did note that I found the concept of consensual, mutually beneficial sex between adults and minors absurd...
...She's broke...
...The question is utterly irrelevant since my column did not weigh the pros and cons of men having sex with little boys...
...it was the momentum from that case that served as a springboard for Giuliani's political career...
...His article includes very little substance, makes fun of issues raised by activists as well as leaders of faith, labor, and environmental communities, and serves as a character assassination of people Labash apparently decided were too young and idealistic to be taken seriously...
...No problem—we conservatives can do it with "compassion," with none of the perverse incentives, attached strings, and hamfisted bureaucracy that are the hallmark of liberals when they set out to do good...
...Socks, I know how much this rejection must hurt, but face it...
...it was a defense of the right to speak about such relationships, a right that Mary Eberstadt should appreciate...
...Who does he think he is anyway...
...My column was not a defense or even an evaluation of sexual relationships between children and adults...
...They were wrong...
...So many of us...
...Betty was saying sweet nothings to you—you know, those little words that all felines like to hear— and she was going on and on about what a warm, loving cat you were...
...As someone who served as a spokesman for JAM, and who knows most of the people crassly insulted in Labash's article, I have concluded that the author isn't really a journalist...
...What gives...
...WENDY KAMINER Cambridge, MA...
...It is just as wrong to say "Good morning, Reverend" to a clergyman as it would be to say "Good morning, Honorable" to the mayor...
...You're a lucky guy...
...it is a case study in improper advocacy, fraud, and political patronage...
...Public humiliation...
Vol. 6 • February 2001 • No. 22
