Correspondence
Correspondence SAME OLD TIMES IN NYC NOEMIE EMERY'S "The Grudge Report" (Oct. 1) is right on target. But her comments regarding Paul Krug-man's New York Times column on Sept. 14 did not go far...
...Secretary Powell is trying to address America's credibility problem in the Middle East vis-a-vis human rights and terrorism...
...Further, I am shocked at Stelzer's fiscally liberal notion of reversing a tax cut...
...How absurd, but how predictable...
...But not for Krugman...
...relationship is more important than ever, as the United States works with the United Nations to secure a global coalition against terrorism...
...And we will need all the federal revenue we can get to fight the war...
...Or is it just the misleading headlines in the New York Times...
...There are enough onesided "news" stories and commentators in print and on the airwaves...
...His ardent and repeated defense of Israel's right to defend itself—necessary given the frequent anti-globalization and anti-zionist leanings of some of his guests—has gone so far as to vigorously and accurately dispute one guest's claim that the Jews stole Palestine and lack a historical presence in the area...
...This fact has been demonstrated every time the tax has been cut...
...Military force is "the key to political survival from casablanca to Kabul," our hard-nosed commentator writes, as if Muslims were mindless brutes incapable of understanding anything other than violence...
...While it is true that overt support for the U.S...
...I don't think a publication like THE WEEKLY STANDARD that sits on one side of the political spectrum has a leg to stand on criticizing the most circulated newspaper in the United States about biased coverage when it doesn't employ the same standards itself...
...Is it that the average New Yorker complains, as he did not about the previous president, that the president doesn't get out to see him quickly enough...
...NORMAN HINES Ridgecrest, CA...
...The newspaper, despite the wrongly worded headlines, prints words from what a majority of its readers agree are world-class reporters and op-ed writers, including William Safire and, recently, Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld...
...Otherwise, we might as well officially declare the Seventh Crusade, because that's how it will look to onlookers in the Middle East...
...Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman offer insightful, well-researched opinions that have critiqued both Democrats and Republicans...
...That being the case, wouldn't it seem logical to support some tax breaks for businesses and even a modest drop in the capital gains tax...
...The column decried partisanship in response to the terrorist bombings of Sept...
...In noting that he did not yet know the motivation of the perpetrators, he was not suggesting that he might approve of it once he found out...
...The U.N...
...Now, I suspect that Gerecht will lose little sleep over the brutish sensibilities of Muslims, but anyone interested in regional peace and stability should care...
...casualties, and determination to truly hold countries sponsoring terrorism accountable...
...Cutting capital gains taxes and marginal tax rates stimulates the economy, producing more income to be taxed and thus more tax revenue...
...will take "all necessary steps" to bring to justice not only those responsible for the attacks, but also those who support and harbor them...
...military action against those responsible...
...Unlike every network news organization and most of the print media, Maher has not fallen into the trap of moral equivalence that has equated the actions of those defending themselves from terror and attack with the attacks and the terrorists...
...He was saying that motivation was irrelevant because no motivation or cause could justify mass murder of innocent civilians...
...I believe Maher made it quite clear that he was not referring to the soldiers firing missiles from afar as the cowards, but rather our government in its deciding to seek coalition with terrorism-sponsoring states, rather than accepting that success in the war on terrorism will almost certainly require ground troops, U.S...
...But even if capital gains are taxed at the same rate as regular income (and capital losses deducted in the same way as other losses), this is still double taxation...
...Or does Stelzer equate allowing organizations to keep the money they've earned with giving them a handout...
...relations...
...Contrary to the author's cartoon-like sketch, the Muslim masses aren't irrational America haters, but rather daily witnesses to Washington's double standards and its inhuman indifference to Arab/Muslim suffering...
...SVEND WHITE Washington, DC DENUNCIATION OVERDUE I APPRECIATE THE OUTRAGE toward Bill Maher expressed in John Podhoretz's "Politically Unforgivable" (Oct...
...1) not only completely misunderstands what makes the terrorists tick, but wallows in stereotyping that would make any 19th-century race theorist proud...
...secretary general has worked tirelessly to strengthen U.S.-U.N...
...Until I see Ted Koppel protest Hannan Ashrawi's false, inflammatory, and frequently anti-Semitic, libelous statements, the need to keep Bill Maher on the air will persist...
...and its secretary general have done to address this issue...
...The item neglects to mention that within a day of the heinous terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council passed strong resolutions condemning the attacks and providing the international legal framework for U.S...
...I have seen Politically Incorrect many times and can say that among all so-called entertainment personalities I can think of, Maher has more in common with the political views of The Weekly Standard than most (excepting perhaps Maher's views on the drug war...
...MICHAEL CONTI London, England MOURNING KOFI THE SCRAPBOOK ITEM "Wake Up and Smell the Kofi" (Oct...
...Stelzer advocates cutting the regressive payroll tax...
...A reduction in corporate taxes would stimulate the economy and produce more income to be taxed, and would be far superior to the corporate welfare of bailout packages...
...RICHARD R. WEST Genoa, NV SO, NOEMIE EMERY, what's your beef with the New York Times...
...Corporate taxation is another form of double taxation...
...The U.S.-U.N...
...PETER CARTER Chula Vista, CA I BELIEVE JOHN PODHORETZ has unforgivably misunderstood Bill Maher, his politics, and his show...
...My defense that Maher was misunderstood arises from the consistency of his views, which on foreign policy most people would call conservative...
...For example, cutting capital gains taxes stimulates the economy and increases federal revenue...
...Tax cuts are always better than welfare for everyone concerned...
...Those who opposed the recent income tax cut did so because it helped the people who paid the most taxes more than those who paid the least...
...It's as though he forgets that a stimulated economy makes more income, which can mean more income tax revenue...
...The resolutions, echoing President Bush's words, pledge the U.N...
...is it that the "man-in-the-street" of that city doesn't have favorable words about him...
...campaign could undermine many moderate regimes' popular legitimacy in some quarters, it does not follow that Secretary Powell's attempts to gain regional support for American efforts are in vain...
...I hope The Weekly Standard will keep that in mind, and look at the more complete picture of what the U.N...
...A better stimulus to the economy would be a flattening of the pro-gresive income tax...
...DARRYL JACOBSON New York, NY DON'T .LET WAR TAX US AT VARIOUS POINTS in Irwin M.Stelzer's "The War Economy" (Oct...
...interestingly, however, Krugman admitted "the driving force behind the economic slowdown has been a plunge in business investment...
...Reuel Marc Gerecht's piece "The Coalition Delusion" (Oct...
...8) are indications that he has forgotten everything we learned from Reaganomics and supply-side economics...
...We ignore Muslim perceptions at great peril to regional stability, and thus betray the principles upon which this great nation was founded...
...Soon thereafter, however, he argued that those who might prescribe tax cuts, particularly business or capital gains tax cuts, as a tonic for the economy were using the current crisis for partisan political purposes...
...I quit listening to Maher when he belittled Reeve's mishap...
...Allow us to hear and read more fair journalism instead of more biased yelling and knee-jerk screaming...
...Moreover, The Scrapbook seems to willfully misconstrue what the secretary general has said about the attacks...
...PHYLLIS CUTTINO Executive Director Better World Campaign Washington, DC OUR WARY ALLIES AS AN AMERICAN MUSLIM with experience in the Middle East, I never cease to be amazed at what hackneyed cliches and barely veiled bigotry masquerade as informed commentary on the Middle East...
...But like virtually all of Krug-man's recent columns, it quickly became a partisan attack on Bush and Republicans...
...What took The Weekly Standard so long...
...When Christopher Reeve suffered his riding accident, Maher said publicly that Reeve deserved what happened because of the animal abuse he was inflicting on the horse...
...1) was an unfair and unfounded attack on the United Nations and its secretary general, Kofi Annan...
...The reason we have a surplus in the first place is that the economic growth begun by Ronald Reagan's capital gains tax cuts and marginal tax rate cuts sustained itself in spite of Bush I and Clinton tax increases...
...For him, virtually all tax cuts are nothing more than partisan Republican politics, while all increases in government spending are simply sound economics...
...Just as governments receive their just power from the consent of the governed, governments receive their just revenue from the money initially earned by the taxpayers...
...For more than a few economists, it certainly would...
...Krugman found no trouble envisioning major increases in government spending, well beyond the initial $40 billion appropriation or even a bailout bill for airlines as a logical, nonpartisan approach to coping with the economy's woes...
...Is it that the major newspaper for a city in which Bush lost the 2001 election by more than "about 25 percentage points" produces not-so-glowing reports about him...
...To the contrary, our penchant for unilateralism, selective adherence to international law, and unflagging support for Israeli brutality mean that we need to publicly demonstrate that our beef is with bin Laden rather than Muslims in general...
...He's never retracted that statement or apologized for it, and he has uttered equally idiotic statements on numerous occasions...
...14 did not go far enough in exposing his biases...
Vol. 7 • October 2001 • No. 6
