Letters - Letter to the Editor

National Review, Dec 31, 1999

Clearing the Record

I never expected that NATIONAL REVIEW would welcome my critique of public piety, but I was surprised to see your reviewer, Norah Vincent, accuse me of being pro-Clinton and anti-Catholic ("Unbelievable," Nov. 22). I didn't even vote for Clinton in 1996. I have great contempt for him, which I've clearly expressed (comparing him in the book to Elmer Gantry). So I assume that Vincent implies that I am a Clinton ally simply to discredit me before your readers.

The charge of anti-Catholicism is more baffling. Vincent's only evidence of it is a remark I make about the double standards the mainstream media apply to religious faiths. In my experience, the media do not tolerate much irreverence toward established Western religions but do invite derision of New Age. I write, "The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is always fair game, but not the Pope." I chose the Pope as an example, obviously, simply because he is the most prominent world leader of an established Western religion.

I have one substantive reference to the Pope, a mention of his 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio as evidence that religions have "inspired and supported scholarship, argument, and intellectual inquiry." I question what seems to be circular reasoning in the encyclical-the assumption that right reasoning will always lead us to God.

Do the editors of NATIONAL REVIEW believe that merely questioning the ideas or reasoning processes of a Catholic is an expression of anti- Catholicism? Is Vincent's attack on my book anti-Semitism? I don't think so. But it did make me reconsider the value of teaching the Ten Commandments. Isn't there one about bearing false witness?

Wendy Kaminer

Boston, Mass.

The Constitution's not the thing

When it comes to abortion, Clarke D. Forsythe ("First Steps," Dec. 20) seems not to realize that any constitutional-amendment strategy is doomed to failure. The amendment would fail to be enacted, or fail to be enforced. Worse, it would concede the principle that the Supreme Court has the power to amend the Constitution unilaterally. This we must never concede.

The problem is not the Constitution, but Roe. Therefore, our only hope is a concerted effort by the two elected branches to reshape both the statutory law and the Court's makeup, to the point where the justices are only too happy to return the issue to the states-sustained confrontation, rather than a fool's errand.

That can happen only when a pro-life president and Congress are elected simultaneously. And that can happen only when pro-lifers finally come to grips with reality, hold their noses, and vote Republican, and only Republican, en masse. Pro-lifers who fail to do this on November 7, 2000, will have only themselves to blame for the continued failure of their cause, and the deaths that result.

Dean Clancy

Annandale, Va.

Open Campus

John J. Miller's article "Horror at Hillsdale" (Dec. 6) needs more balance. I've taught American history at the college level for 20 years at three institutions-one of which was Hillsdale College. Yes, George Roche, like most college presidents, did exert a lot of influence on campus. But the faculty had wide latitude in hiring and firing; and the students were not only bright, they had much freedom and control over the campus newspaper. It regularly satirized Roche and other administrators.

Hillsdale College is the most intellectually open campus I've known. That's why I was stunned by Mr. Miller's decision to quote an anonymous source referring to a "Stalinist kind of environment" at Hillsdale. My assignment to Mr. Miller: Write on the blackboard 100 times, "I will avoid sensationalist journalism."

When Hillsdale's leaders saw a situation in which the school's values were being compromised, they took action. They fired the president, installed a search committee, and now want to go back to the business of providing students a first-class education. It's time to leave them alone.

Burton Folsom Jr.

Houston, Tex.