Inbox

Will Gore Get on the Trail?

I hope Al Gore will run for President in 2008 [May 28]. He has the intelligence a President needs to deal with complex situations both domestically and internationally. I am heartbroken that I did not realize that in 2000. I hope Gore will give me and many other voters the opportunity to make things right in 2008. Our current President's thinking has mostly remained dualistic, regarding people and nations as either good guys or evildoers, with us or against us, resolute or wimpy. The leader of the free world needs more than just conviction and resolve.

Jane Lin, NORTHBOROUGH, MASS.

You called Gore "improbably charismatic" and an "environmental prophet," which couldn't be further from the truth. A wooden, pseudo-scientific charlatan would be more accurate. This is not your finest hour.

Rick D. Smith, BUHLER, KANS.

If my fellow Democrats want a Presidential nominee long on experience, vision and brains, they will persuade former Vice President Gore to throw his hat into the ring. President George W. Bush's disastrous terms have shown us all how hazardous it is to pick a President with very little relevant experience. Good intentions, handsome hairstyles and slick sound bites don't help much when the chips are down.

Douglas C. Kelley, ANN ARBOR, MICH.

I am insulted at at worst and aggravated at best when politicians, actors, intergovernmental panels, activists, socialists and rock stars lecture about stopping global warming. Climate change is a fact. Man-made global warming is a farce. Gore dropped out of divinity school with failing grades, but that hasn't stopped him from traveling around like an evangelist huckster, preaching his phony religion of man-made global warming. Go get a degree in science, Al.

Tony Almond JAMAICA BEACH, TEXAS

To run or not to run is the question, but Gore answered it when he said, "If the crib is on fire, you save the baby!" American democracy is the baby, and the future of the free world is at stake. A somewhat cooler globe will be uninhabitable if the values we cherish are on fire. Run, Al, run!

Sheenu Srinivasan, GLASTONBURY, CONN.

I don't understand the blind faith you put in this ex--Vice President and ex-presidential candidate. You fell for his global-warming theory hook, line and sinker. What about the noted scientists who say the global-warming theory is nothing but a load of methane-producing raw sewage?

Peter Yurk, LAS VEGAS

Global warming is an issue important enough that there should be someone as competent as Gore to give the U.S.--and the rest of the world--an ecological conscience. It is a tough challenge to save the world. Please, let him focus on that! He shouldn't be distracted by a run for the presidency.

Tanja Schwarze, OLDENBURG, GERMANY

A War of Words

Joe Klein referred to Congressman Ron Paul's "singular moment of weirdness" as "proposing that al-Qaeda attacked on Sept. 11 because the U.S. had been messing around in the Middle East, bombing Iraq" [May 28]. Klein assumed the reader would see this perfectly reasonable notion as weird when it echoes an observation made in The 9/11 Commission Report. I have to wonder where the weirdness really rests.

Joshua Glassman, ARLINGTON, VA.

Moore Zooms In on Health Care

Filmmaker Michael Moore romanticizes the government-run health-care system in Canada [May 28]. I wonder if he really understands what a single-payer system would mean for Americans. The government would hold a monopoly over health-care coverage, offering one insurance plan with no alternatives. If the government decided to reduce funding or deny coverage for certain medical technologies or procedures, patients would have to forgo their use or pay for it out of pocket. Under the current system, if people are dissatisfied with their plan, they can simply switch insurance carriers. No one denies the moral imperative for reform to provide health-care access to all Americans, but a single-payer system is not the answer.

Janet Trautwein, ceo, National Association of Health Underwriters, ARLINGTON, VA.

Multinational pharmaceutical companies are out of hand with their pricing. While it is acceptable that they should make a reasonable profit, they have gone beyond that. Some of their profit margins reveal their obscene greed. Why do medications cost 77% more in this country than they do in Canada? We have the best politicians money can buy.

Phyllis Ray, GREENWICH, CONN.

Chrysler's Crash

RE "Buying a used Chrysler" [May 28]: The automakers have to stop thinking in terms of breaking their contracts with retired workers, who devoted their lives for these promises. The industry's problems cannot be solved by the unions or private takeovers. The U.S. car industry is just another casualty of insurance and pharmaceutical companies that have bought the White House and Congress, rendering medical treatment and insurance unaffordable.

Paul R. Del Vecchio, GUNNISON, COLO.

Farewell to Falwell

In "Jerry's Kids", Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs dismissed Jerry Falwell's influence and wrote him off as a ranting, Bible-toting demagogue [May 28]. Falwell's rich life was about 5% politics, with the rest spent preaching biblical truth and establishing homes for alcoholics and unwed mothers. But his greatest living legacy--aside from the massive Thomas Road Baptist Church--is Liberty University, a college that has 100,000 graduates and more than 21,000 students. They will be his final tribute, bearing his standard for decades. As for Falwell's "politics of division," Jesus said, "Do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the earth! I came to bring trouble, not peace" (Matthew 10: 34). As Falwell knew, the word of God is often at odds with the twisted schemes of mankind.

Brian Robinette, VAN NUYS, CALIF.

Falwell argued that "The Supreme Court was in favor of abortion but not prayer in school," as Duffy and Gibbs put it. Falwell typically prevaricated on the truth for his own purposes. The court doesn't care about school prayer as long as it is not an official activity that requires unwilling persons to endure it. Lots of praying goes on in schools across the U.S. The problem is not prayer but attempts by some Christians to control everyone else. That leads to theocracy, something the settlers of New England tried and found wanting but that Falwell seems to have thought was O.K.

Karl E. Moyer, LANCASTER, PA.

CLASSIC LETTER

TOUGH LOVE JULY 14, 1997

Gee, I felt bad that you called me quirky and deemed two of my movies "box-office poison." But then I noticed in the same issue you said that Dennis Rodman's sometime religion is "Moron" and that Farrah Fawcett has Jell-O for brains. Now I realize it's still an honor to be mentioned in such a classy magazine!

Geena Davis, LOS ANGELES

LETTER FROM AN AIRMAN

THE PRICE OF A DRINK

It took all my restraint not to explode with anger after reading the article on the Baghdad Country Club [May 7]. Cheers to all of the contract workers who get to enjoy themselves with cigars and cocktails after a long day of earning bloated salaries under the protection of allied troops. The contractors' fear of not having beer delivered is tremendously stressful and surely the need to unwind is well deserved. But they can rest assured that the Country Club is secure, thanks to the many young soldiers fighting beyond the walls of the Green Zone. Those soldiers, I would add, do not have the pleasure of patronizing the bar; they just get to defend it. Cheers to all you carpet-bagging contractors and nonessential embassy employees. And if it gets too hot, just fan yourselves with all the money you're making.

Dennis R. Slowinski, Captain U.S.A.F. ALI AL SALEM AIR BASE, KUWAIT

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

The May 21 Numbers column mistakenly reported that Japan's video-game industry had total sales of $520 billion in 2006. While sales were the highest ever, they totaled $5.2 billion.

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