Correspondence

...As for the Palestinians, Barnes is also correct that there has never been a better time to do nothing...

...If he asks nicely I might even teach him the secret handshake...

...I would like to further point out that following Krugman's April 1 column, in which he sarcastically wrote about "the recriminations fly[ing] over Operation Predicted Cakewalk," he quickly reversed course on April 11 when he reminded his readers that "even skeptics about this war expected a military victory...

...This time around, things are quite different...

...But what professional embarrassment will those incorrect and foolish predictions cause for the commentators, writers, and pundits...

...In the case of iraq, saddam Hussein may have been the only person with the apparent power to act for the nation as far as other nations were concerned, but when he borrowed money in the name of Iraq for what was obviously his personal use, the lenders were on notice that this was not the will of the people of Iraq...

...The French government has failed completely to appreciate the impact that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 had on American citizens and their opinions on foreign affairs...

...I have worked with the French for 25 years and have lived in France...

...His April 11 comment followed the near completion of the brilliantly planned and executed U.S...

...To paraphrase, let's say "caveat creditor" should be the applicable principle...

...Consistent with the president's policy that those who support terrorists are themselves terrorists, nations who supported Saddam Hussein should be made to pay and not profit...

...The world's evil aggressors are only made stronger if the United States behaves as though acting in self-defense requires apology or amends...

...Americans now consider the behavior of the French that of an enemy of our country, not an ally...

...What is most impressive about Krugman is that he has a remarkable knack for never being wrong about anything...

...Every American citizen is aware of what the French have done...

...Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease' was the opening line of my start-of-the-war column)" [emphasis added...

...During the Q&A, an elderly man stepped up to the microphone and took his opportunity to let us all know that Hitler should have finished "the job" of ridding the world of Jews...

...beyond the scope of power allowed or granted by a corporate charter or by law...

...Barnes's most trenchant point, however, is that the president doesn't owe anybody anything...

...The big news organizations themselves are to blame for failing to learn from the past...

...Countries claiming to be creditors of Iraq should be denied any recovery from the people of Iraq absent a conclusive demonstration that the debt was incurred in good faith and that the Iraqi people benefited from it directly...

...I admire Elie Wiesel, but I felt that bearing the weight of an auditorium full of angry people would have been more instructive...

...But the majority of the people quoted in The Scrapbook will continue doing business as usual...

...Rifts are inevitable among uneven partners who hold a fundamentally different understanding of what makes a country great...

...Debts incurred by a despotic power for the purposes of staying in power by repressing the population that fights against it are not obligations of the nation...

...Podhoretz is a writer—he should use his gift to do a little "squashing...

...PAM SALIMENO Westerly, RI CLEARLY, JOHN PODHORETZ has not read Donald Westlake's three rules for living: (1) Never carry a sofa up stairs alone, (2) Don't get involved with a Scorpio unless you are serious, and (3) Never argue with a crazy person...

...What is a good rule for American corporations would also be good for aiders and abettors of terrorist organizations...

...People who excrete the kind of anti-Semitism he describes in "Watching the Invective" (April 21) need to be squashed, albeit verbally, like bugs...

...French-American relations are no longer the province of diplomats...

...MARK ANKCORN Manhattan Beach, CA...

...ENRIQUE BARGIONI Miami, FL THE FRENCH have always been a little cantankerous on the world stage and at odds with the United states...

...But France has definitely crossed the line this time and (rightly) will not be forgotten or forgiven anytime soon...

...Historically, the French "state nobility" has demonstrated a fundamental disdain for countries such as the United states where, as Tony Blair put it a few years ago, "people who do well don't have questions asked about their accent, their class origin, their beginning...

...Hayes's comments regarding New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's self-serving inconsistencies made for especially good reading...

...Peter Arnett and Geraldo Rivera were both employed in this war by prominent news organizations in spite of their backgrounds...

...JOSEPH VASS Maplewood, MN AS A RABBI, I'm well connected to the international Jewish Banking Conspiracy, so John Podhoretz should let me know if he needs any help ruining credit ratings, cancelling bank accounts, and the like...

...When political discourse among Palestinians becomes alive and free, the time will come to make peace with them, but not before...

...DONALD E. CASEY Chicago, IL KRUGMAN'S INFALLIBILITY STEPHEN F. HAYES is to be congratulated for exposing the blatant hypocrisy of many liberals in their effort to promote their own moral and intellectual superiority over those who support President Bush and the war in Iraq ("Beyond Baghdad," April 21...

...SHAHAR TSADEEK Santa Fe, NM FRANCE'S FATAL FLAW IN "FORGIVENESS FOR FRANCE...

...Wiesel asked us to let him speak so that we would know that anti-Semitism is alive and well and waiting for its chance...

...its earlier, broader twentieth-century roots can be found in the inability or lack of desire on the part of its citizens to change a ruling class which has consistently suffocated the greatest catalyst of economic growth: the entrepreneur...

...it has been a disastrous bet, leading France into a steady economic decline, particularly during the past 10 years, when France's share of the world's GDP has gone from about 6 percent to 4 percent...

...Ultimately, only time will tell whether the French accept this challenge and abandon their second-rate status...

...The average American citizen didn't think twice about that...

...Such lenders/nations have no standing, therefore, to try to enforce such debts against the Iraqi people who neither wanted nor authorized the debts to be incurred in their name...

...war plan...

...Gurfinkiel argues that the present time may be ripe for French citizens to debate "la pensee unique" (the "single thought...

...STEVEN MORRIS East Hampton, NY TALKING HEADS THE SCRAPBOOK (April 21) really picked out some of the worst predictors of the war in "The Cassandra Chronicles...

...Ah, the joy of being right all the time...

...Change is generational, at best, and the biggest danger for the coming years is that the tone for generations to come will be set by the clutch of tyrants and terrorists surrounding Iraq, eager as they must be to fill the power vacuum that always follows war...

...American television provided them with a big sounding board to again treat us to their profound wisdom, and they screwed up again...

...RICHARD ROBBINS Santa Rosa, CA CAVEAT CREDITOR HERE IS ONE LAWYER'S RESPONSE TO "Forgive Them His Debts" by Irwin M. Stelzer (April 21...

...A loss of economic power of this magnitude translates into a loss of military power and political influence...

...Fred Barnes is right on the money about how to make the most of our victory in "The Tempting of the President" (April 21...

...April 21) Michel Gurfinkiel points to a "growing rift between America and many of its nominal allies or friends...

...The French placed their bet on the power of pedigree, not on the power of talent...

...This rift is neither recent nor is it based on the disagreement over iraq...

...On the contrary, the world has a debt to the United states and her allies, which it might begin to pay with radical reform at the U.N...

...i have always admired its culture...

...A common Latin phrase in the arena of corporate law is "ultra vires" which means "unauthorized...

...Backing down, letting it go, turning the other cheek, not dignify-ing—doesn't cut it...

...The new realities in iraq are likely to spark the beginning of a process of soul searching in the Arab world that might, if the pressure is kept on, lead to a two-sided peace process...

...such behavior was the concern of the French government and the American government in the minds of most Americans...

...France betrayed us in "our hour of need," and they did so after Americans fought and died to liberate them twice in the past century...

...Professor Alexander Nahum Sack had it right...

...our American fallen still lie buried in French soil...

...The audience erupted verbally in response, but Mr...

...Perhaps some of the new talent among the embeds will exhibit a bit more realism in the next crop of talking heads...

...Pushing the peace process now would undermine the introspection that is needed among Palestinians to make progress...

...Judging from the past, they won't suffer at all...

...His April Fool's comment resulted from the temporary "slowdown" on the path to Baghdad...

...LARRY G. DEVRIES Eden Prairie, MN INBOX ANTI-SEMITISM JOHN PODHORETZ'S wife, although well-meaning, is wrong...

...We will be seeing Chris Matthews chattering on television for a long time to come...

...I was in the audience many years ago at Trinity University in San Antonio to hear Elie Wiesel...

...Also, as a former prosecutor, I'm intimately acquainted both with The Man and his methods for keeping the poor in their place...

...Under this well-recognized American legal doctrine, when the board of directors of a corporation takes any action which exceeds the authority granted by the bylaws or by the law of the state of its organization, that action is void and unenforceable as to the corporation...