Letters to the Editor

OPINION:

Classic Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a terribly flawed individual and candidate (“Clinton’s records vanished after warning,” Monday, Page 1). If truth be told, I cannot with ease separate the two.

From dissembling about cattle futures, law-firm billing records, the White House travel office imbroglio and the Whitewater fiasco, she has graduated to confabulating about peacemaking prowess in Northern Ireland, seen now as pellucid political prattle, and outright lying about tarmac terror in Tuzla.

And yet, you gotta admire her spunk, no? After years and years of Clintonian shenanigans, after more of the James Carville, Paul Begala and Terry McAuliffe camarilla than anyone should be asked to tolerate, she is still electorally alive, still striking at the Obama juggernaut when most Democrats are ready to apply extreme unction to her hopes and dreams.

God bless, I say. God bless her mettle, for the inability of Sen. Barack Obama to write “fini” to her presidential aspirations, to close the deal, as it were, leaves alive a tiny spark, a tiny chance that her desire for power may yet be requited.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the show. You go, girl.

PAUL BLOUSTEIN

Cincinnati

In support of Mrs. McCain

I am surprised the article “Cindy McCain lags with public image” (Page 1, Tuesday) came from the right-leaning, pro-capitalism paper I love so much.

Yes, Mrs. McCain has a considerable amount of money, but that does not mean we should hate her or attack her because she is well-off. She has supported her husband in a supplemental role.

I respect her for deciding to keep her finances private; the election is not about Mrs. McCain; it’s about her husband. Might I remind you that she won’t be running the country when Mr. McCain is president?

I also respect her for standing behind her husband when the New York Times wrote that vicious article about his supposed affair with a Washington lobbyist.

She has handled media questions about her husband deftly and has hid little when confronted with her problems in the past. No one is perfect, and most of us are lucky we do not have to confront our past mistakes before the nation.

She’s 10 times better than Michelle Obama or BillHill. She’s the very kind of first lady America needs. I’m baffled as to why this article was necessary; it sounds like a liberal wrote it.

JOY DOWNEY

Arlington

Environmental wake-up call

The recent raid on Agriprocessors Inc. by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, with hundreds of slaughterhouse workers arrested, should be the latest wake-up call to the need for a major reconsideration of the production and consumption of meat and other animal products. (“300 arrested in ICE raid at Iowa plant,” Nation, Tuesday.)

Agriprocessors’ glatt kosher slaughterhouse, the world’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, has a history of heinous animal cruelty, environmental law infractions and employee abuse.

The Agriprocessors slaughterhouse is making a mockery of what kashrut should represent: the humane treatment of animals, not just at the moment of slaughter, but for the entire period during which they are in the care of humans.

Clearly, this particular slaughterhouse must be shut down until major changes occur and inspection processes are improved. However, far more needs to be done overall to eradicate the paradoxical contradiction between immutable Jewish ethics and the inherent cruelty of producing meat and other animal products.

The Jewish community must face the fact that animal-based diets and agriculture represent an unequivocal violation of basic Jewish mandates to preserve our health, treat animals with compassion, protect the environment, conserve natural resources, help hungry people and avoid a chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name).

RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ

President

Jewish Vegetarians of North America

Newport News, Va.

Democrats and the Jewish vote

When it comes to politics, America’s Jewish community is both savvy and sophisticated. Neither party “owns” our loyalty, and neither party can count on knee-jerk support from American Jewry on Election Day. (“Obama’s problems with Jewish voters,” Editorial, Monday).

It is because of our sophistication as a community that American Jews continue to vote for Democrats in overwhelming numbers. Quite simply, the Democratic Party is far and away the party most closely aligned with Jewish values on issues both foreign and domestic.

One need only look at the numbers. According to the authoritative public exit poll for 2006, just 12 percent of Jewish Americans voted for Republican candidates for Congress that year — a historic low.

President Bush’s 22 percent of the Jewish vote in 2004 was significantly lower than the 30 percent to 39 percent Republicans regularly won in the 1970s and ’80s.

There is every reason to believe that Democratic candidates will earn overwhelming support from Jewish voters in 2008. Why? Because of where Democrats stand on the issues.

In this year’s presidential primaries, every major Democratic and Republican presidential candidate supported Israel, and no matter which candidate wins in November, we will have a president who understands the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The smears against Sen. Barack Obama are little more than partisan gamesmanship. The best way to judge a candidate’s support for Israel is his or her voting record. Since Mr. Obama entered the Senate, his record on Israel and security issues has been impeccable. In fact, he’s leading the way to pass legislation that would promote divestment from Iran.

IRA N. FORMAN

Executive director

National Jewish Democratic Council

Washington

A new global Marshall Plan

Gary Scott Smith did justice to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (“Revisiting the New Deal,” Commentary, Sunday) by detailing Roosevelt’s “religious convictions” and the “spiritual” foundation of “significantly increasing the size, spending and scope of the federal government” and the “tremendous impact” it had on American lives and “the foundation” of our nation’s current welfare system.

Mr. Smith unfortunately left out an important motivation for Roosevelt’s transformation of our nation’s welfare system — security. Roosevelt was well aware of the difficulties that might threaten our great nation’s stability and security if the disparity of wealth between rich and poor Americans was allowed to continue.

In that context, the next U.S. president should consider another transformation of our nation’s government that occurred almost immediately after Roosevelt’s death — the Marshall Plan. That postwar effort essentially was a new “federal welfare system” that our nation applied to devastated Europe at the end of World War II. It also was in line with our moral interests and our nation’s Judeo-Christian faith — as well as our future security — because it greatly reduced Europe’s susceptibility to the spread of communism.

With the growing threats we face today from pandemics, terrorism, climate change and economic instability, our next president must be as bold and as generous. He or she could provide no better national spiritual legacy to the world while also protecting our homeland security than initiating a new global Marshall Plan. General recommendations for such a plan are listed in House Resolution 1078, recently introduced into Congress by Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota.

Our new generosity will be, as Roosevelt said, “wholly in accord with the social teachings of Christianity,” and it also will provide our most cost-effective investment in protecting our cherished freedoms, valued security and future blessings of prosperity. Paying for it will not be easy, but it won’t cost us any more relative to the original Marshall Plan. Also, considering the price of failing to improve the living conditions of all people in this increasingly interdependent world, we can’t afford not to.

NICHOLA TORBETT

Berkeley, Calif.