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Posted on Jul 19, 2007 in Armchair Reading

End the conservative tilt

By Andrew Heller

Dear Editors:

I love Armchair General, in fact I just reupped. But good grief, please can the conservative articles and commentary. I don’t buy the magazine to hear righty — or lefty! — commentary.

Specifically, your March article about how unpopular Lincoln was during the Civil War. That was true and unto itself was fine. But when I picked up the Sept. issue, in the letters section you congratulated yourselves for "never once" mentioning President Bush in that article, and yet amazingly people had made the connection. Gee, how’d they ever do that? Come on. You know the tenor of the article pointed huge, comparison arrows directly at Bush.

Also, Ralph Peters, wow. He posits himself as a military expert and then goes on in his Sept. commentary ("Myths of insurgency") to present an utterly political view on the current "war" that seemed straight off the Fox network or Rush Limbaugh’s program. Hey, Ralph: The war is not the media’s fault. Nor the fault of liberals. Objecting to it is not unpatriotic, nor does doing so mean the objector somehow doesn’t support our troops. I’ve heard very few of the myths you mention. Mostly, the creation of those myths was a writing trick designed to make it seem as if there’s some huge liberal conspiracy to ruin America by "not allowing" the military to do the job. (Jeez, we’ve been there four years with everything we have! What else is there? A draft? Nukes?)

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I understand his piece is an opinion, but like I said, that’s not why I buy a military magazine. I’m interested in tactics, battles, history, personalities etc.

For the record, I wouldn’t like it if you included lefty or liberal commentary either. I read Armchair General to escape that nonsense.

I’m not going to threaten to cancel, as so many do. I love the mag, but I’ve noticed a rise in this kind of polemic, and I don’t appreciate it.

Thanks for reading, if you did.

Andrew Heller
Grand Blanc, Michigan