Sir:

I have read with interest your interview in Esquire. (HT: Race42008.)

I thought these comments of yours to be particularly striking:

I would never say this publicly, but some of these talk-show hosts—and I'm not saying they should be taken off the air; they have the right to do what they want to do—I don't think they're good for America....I urge my friends who complain about the influence of the religious Right, get out there and get busy. That's what they do! Now, if we believe in the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, the big-tent party, then we have to get out there and show that. The fact is, some of us have sat idly by while those very active people have basically set the agenda for our party. I get attacked every day because I'm working with Ted Kennedy. How can I work with Kennedy? Because I want to get something done!


Senator, I have said this on the air and in print many times: You are a great American, a lousy senator, and a terrible Republican.

You are a great American, and I will stand up in any room you enter, and applaud as long as anyone because of the service you have rendered and sacrifices you have made.

But you are a lousy senator, and I offer up McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, the Gang of 14 and your vote on the Marriage Amendment as four evidences for my judgment. The legislation was not bad because you worked with Senator Kennedy, by the way, but because it was lousy legislation.

You are a terrible Republican because of personal attacks on your opponents like this latest one on talk radio hosts and the "religious Right." You repeatedly refuse to debate your Republican critics or answer their questions. You are a regular on Hardball where only softballs are pitched underhand, but you are as rare as rain in California in August when it comes to appearing on center-right programs. While I understand your reluctance to engage anyone who has made personal attacks on you, most of the criticism you receive --and all of it when it comes from me-- is about your policy choices and your political decisions. You confuse such criticisms with personal attacks, and lash out at other Republicans.

Your interview --and I have to assume you meant that I as well as all my Salem colleagues like Bill Bennett, Dennis Prager and Michael Medved aren't "good for America"-- was simply more posturing and noise designed to win more friends in the MSM. It will be widely read and distributed on the center-right, and this will not help you win the GOP nomination.

You are of course always welcome to come on the show at any time for any length of time.

If I am wrong and you do win the GOP nomination, I will support you and do so with enthusiasm and urge listeners do the same.

But interviews like this one make the prospect of a unified party in 2008 far more difficult to imagine. What troubles me is that I doubt very much you'll mind if you are not the nominee.

Sincerely,

Hugh Hewitt