Letters

At last--a substantive story about a presidential candidate's accomplishments and visions ("The Stiff Man Has A Spine," September 199%. Thank you. I too am tired of the repeated characterizations of Vice President Al Gore as a "bore." Do we really need another charismatic but empty suit like former President Ronald Reagan?

LEE HELFRICH Annandale, Va.

Not For Our Baby

Thanks to Alexandra Start ("You've Got a Long Way to Go, Baby," October 1999) for acknowledging the pathological state of such women's magazines as Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Vogue. As parents, my wife, and I went to great lengths to make sure that our daughter learned to read at an early age. But this makes it difficult to take our daughter through a supermarket checkout stand, where cover blurbs on women's magazines scream about exotic sexual techniques and new diets, and the models on the covers are all bone-thin with impossibly large breasts.

ROBERT STACY MCCAIN Gaithersburg, Md.

Inspiration matters

I was sorry to see the item in "Who's Who" (November 1999) quoting Elizabeth Drew's swipe at Sen. Max Cleland's intelligence. I haven't dealt directly with Cleland, but I have had some occasion to observe him at meetings. An aide pushes his wheelchair up to the table or dais. Cleland then proceeds, through his own effort, using his three stumps and his one functioning arm, to somehow maneuver himself from the wheelchair into the regular chair. Then he uses a rocking and bouncing motion, a little like a man whose car is stuck in icy snow, to get the chair up close to the table.

You try not to stare, but you cannot help yourself. For a moment the mood in the room shifts. You can practically hear the bottom fall out of pretense. The topic of discussion recedes before the reality of human hardship, courage, and pain. It is sobering and somehow cleansing, a reminder of human misfortune of a kind that life on the Hill rarely provides. In a city of professional whiners and complainers, of whom the best fed and most prosperous complain the most, Cleland accomplishes something just short of miraculous. He makes people reflect on how lucky they are.

There is no shortage of intellect in the Senate, but there is not always the same measure of humility. I have been tempted more than once to walk over to Cleland and thank him both for enduring what he does and just for being there. The swipe at Cleland was unfair on its own terms. In a larger sense it was pathetic. Believe me, intellect is not the only thing a member might contribute up there, nor is it even the most important.

NAME WITHHELD

(The author, who wishes to remain anonymous, is frequently on Capitol Hill.)

Researchers not flacks

It is unfortunate that The Washington Monthly has chosen to lend its prestige to an article ("The Think Tank as Flack," November 1999), triggered by an erroneous New York Times piece (September 18). Had your author, David Callahan, bothered to call or check with us, he would have found that the Times piece was woven out of whole cloth from a source your story neglected to credit, as the original Times article did: "a Microsoft adversary associated with the computer industry."

Both liberals and conservatives have long been supporters of corporate welfare, including antitrust protectionism. Moreover, not only is the Microsoft case championed by Robert Bork, Daniel Oliver, Orrin Hatch, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, and other conservatives, but the business leaders spending untold millions to win this case are primarily conservative and Republican.

But to be more specific, despite the indignant claims of both articles, the Independent Institute has long acknowledged Microsoft as a supporter, by specifying its 7 percent to 8 percent level of support at the June 2 news conference for our Open Letter on Antitrust Proctectionism--Microsoft is not now and never has been the largest contributor to the Institute. Located adjacent Silicon Valley, the Institute has a diversity of supporting members from businesses, unions, foundations, civic organizations, and individuals.

Contrary to Mr. Callahan's presumption, the Independent Institute is not conservative, nor liberal, nor any other kind of political group at all. Instead, the Institute is exclusively a non-politicized, scholarly, policy research organization, with research fellows at universities throughout the United States. We will not accept contract funding for our research, and there are no government policies nor social or economic issues that we might not address. As a result, Mr. Callahan would find that some of our results will predictably please him and other liberals, some will also predictably please conservatives, but by and large, our work will please neither, because that is the nature of the scientific method in pioneering new knowledge and challenging unfounded conventional wisdom.

We stand by the fact that over 240 economists and other scholars independently agreed to oppose antitrust protectionism, without any compensation or involvement from Microsoft on any level. And, we welcome any careful analysis of our work.