Secret quasi-religious cabals behind our politicians should no longer be surprising. The George Bush and John Kerry "Skull & Bones" affiliations are now well known, although few have really looked into what it actually means for them and their politics.

A similar similar secret darkness exists in the shadows behind John McCain as well. First, there was his actively campaigning in South Carolina as a self-proclaimed "Southern Baptist", when he'd never been baptized and has attended Methodist services for the last 15+ years. Now, McCain's recent financial rescue by Baron Rothschild (look up his March 20th fundraiser in London) reveals his links to the transnational "Illuminati".

But, for sheer contemptible sleaze concerning a candidate's religious involvement, you just cant get any worse than today's breaking story about the Clintons' business involvement with seedy foreign real estate speculators, scamming poor Pennsylvania congregations out of their churches...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/10/clinton-firms-deal-with-i_n_96032.html

The Founding Fathers sought the Separation of Church and State for very good reasons. From the Crusades, to the Conquistadors, to the Spanish Inquisition, to the Vatican accommodation of Hitler and Mussolini, to the Muslim and Jewish violence in the Middle East, it is perfectly clear that God and Government do not mix well. The sophistication of the times has not dulled the instincts of cultish religious fanatics, be they in Baghdad, or on Capitol Hill.

David L. Wenbert

Alexandria, Virginia

I applaud Barbara Ehrenreich's article. I've been worried about this issue since reading Hillary Clinton's autobiography, where she praises Yoweri and Janet Museveni of Uganda to the skies and specifically mentions Janet Museveni's work with the National Prayer Breakfast ("Living History" pp. 404-405, p. 455).

Clinton praises Uganda's AIDS abstinence education program, the only success worldwide of abstinence education and apparently based on faked data. Clinton says nothing about their roundups of gays, with Janet Museveni leading one antigay campaign personally. Today the legal penalty for homosexuality in Uganda is life imprisonment. And Ms. Clinton blames his enemies for his roundup of 2 million people into concentration camps, his fomenting civil wars in neighboring countries, and his murdering hundreds of thousands of opponents, a record that would have made Idi Amin blush.

Nope, Hillary Clinton has drunk the Family Kool-Aid in which power is divinely ordained, and thus one can no longer wonder why she and her husband took millions from the murderous Sauds for Bill's presidential library. Those of you who find the article "outrageous" haven't read your candidate's autobiography, where it is all laid out for you including admiration for Doug Coe ("Living History" p. 168).

George Geoffrey Hooper

Chicago, Illinois, United States

A few writers have suggested that some letters are unfairly attacking Ehrenreich with personal attacks, and not addressing the substance of her article. I will try to respond substantively, since I have been friends with the Family, or the Fellowship, or whatever you would like to call it, for over 15 years and consider many individuals to be close friends. I will also respond briefly to Jeff Sharlett, who unfortunately knows that he is cherry picking the most inflammatory comments he could find, while ignoring the purpose and overall tenor of the group he is "exposing".

The Fellowship was a loosely organized Christian ministry founded over 50 years ago in DC to minister to political leaders. It was started at the same time that several other large national Christian ministries were formed - the Navigators, YoungLife, Campus Crusade, etc. After the founding, leaders of the Fellowship realized that praying with powerful political leaders was creating mixed motivations for people who were involved, politicians and normal people alike. For many reasons, people like being connected with important names and figures, sometimes just for the celebrity factor, sometimes to push political agenda. A common human foible, to be sure, but one that creates bad incentives for a ministry that is trying to teach spiritual growth. The Fellowship is trying to teach the ideas of Jesus as written in the four Gospels (the books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the Bible) without all the institutional structure and organizational politics that get in the way. So the Fellowship decided it would be prudent to drop the name of the organization and try to keep the organization low-key or behind the scenes, and keep the name of Jesus in front of the group.

They have had mixed success in doing so, but Sharlett's article put into the internet media a "secret" that had been well known within DC circles for decades. While the members of the ministry have had mixed success in getting rid of their organizational name and structure, they have been very good at keeping Jesus as the center of their teaching and philosophy.

While readers of The Nation are likely to be uncomfortable with discussions of Jesus, the things I learned about Jesus while spending time with the ministry in DC were life changing, even after growing up in the church. Jesus taught us to love and pray for our enemies, to love our neighbors, and to forgive those who hurt us. The only two rules Jesus taught were to love God, and love other people.

The Christian church has obviously made many mistakes in pursuing these ideas over the last 2,000 years, and misses the mark much more often that it achieves it. But that is the point of the "family" - to keep pushing people Christians to Jesus and his teaching, and not get distracted by political battles or institutions (such as church denominations) that are worldly and temporary.

Readers of The Nation may not believe this, but the discussions of political issues are rare to non-existent. Jeff Sharlett may have had a different experience, but questions about abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, prayer in schools - all of this is pretty much ignored. On some issues, there is a strong political preference - such as being against pornography, but it is never discussed as a political action item or agenda.

That is why Democrats and Republicans could both feel welcome trying to discuss Jesus and his teachings, and whether they are living up to what they claim to profess (ie: loving others). That is why Sam Brownback, a right-wing conservative who is anathema to The Nation, could apologize in person to Hilary Clinton for being so partisan against her and treating her wrong. That is also why Brownback has also been one of the most outspoken advocates on behalf of the people of Darfur in the Senate.

The Family or the Fellowship is basically trying to teach the political leaders to be better people - pursuing love, forgiveness, and peace, not political ideology. Sharlett knows all of this, but it doesn't make for as exciting an article or book as trying to dig up links to dictators around the world. Sharlett also chooses to ignore Douglas Coe's friendship and regular meetings with multiple Islamic sheiks. Does that make Doug Coe, and Hilary Clinton by extension, Islamic fundamentalists? Doug Coe has been a friend and supporter of the Dali Lama for over a generation. Does that make him a Buddhist? Or Clinton? Was Coe somehow responsible for the uprising in Tibet? Or was he responsible for its brutal suppression, sine he also has friends in Chinese leadership? Coe has been one of the leaders of the ministry for almost 50 years traveling the world trying to teach the principles of love and forgiveness to both the best and the worst kinds of political leaders, including theocrats, dictators, and ex-Soviet kleptocrats. He has obviously been unsuccessful in his efforts to make the world more peaceful. (For the record, George W. Bush has always kept the Fellowship at arms length.)

But to accuse Coe or the ministry of fascism or Nazism is a smear and a lie, and Sharlett is doing it for the basest of self-interest. Should Coe be more out in the open with his ministry? Maybe. But as I tried to explain, his reasons for keeping a low profile are to prevent political band-wagoneering and more institutional hypocrisy, rather than to undermine democracy.

Sorry for the long response, but I thought a lengthy explanation might be helpful to some. As for Clinton, she is friends with Doug Coe like she is friends with any one of hundreds of people she interacts with regularly in Washington. She probably likes him, because he is extremely likable. And Clinton obviously takes marching orders from no one. To suggest otherwise is madness.

Feel free to write with questions to jackstraw351 -at- gmail.com. I don't use that box frequently, but would be happy to try to respond to your questions.

Jack Straw

St. Michaels, MD

Well, now she opened the floodgates by telling a newspaper in Penn that Wright wouldn't have been her pastor, and that you don't choose your families but you choose your pastor etc. Let's see the media look into her flocks now! Don't hold your breath. She lied right thru the Bosnia thing...

Harry Thompson

New York, NY

So Senator Obama floats effortlessly once more above the fray as yet another of his groupies grapples in the mire to do the necessary dirty work on his behalf... How is it that Senator Clinton's supporters are constantly reproached for providing ammunition to Senator Obama's future Republican opponents, while similar tactics--by The Nation, for goodness sake!--against Senator Clinton go largely uncriticized?

I don't think anyone benefits from this sort of article, least of all the progressive cause. Limiting its circulation to the website suggests some well-founded doubts about the wisdom of placing Ms. Ehrenreich's poisonous little piece before subscribers to the printed magazine.

And all for what? It just adds to the breathless MSNBC-style high-school tattling about two essentially run-of-the-mill right-of-center Democrats, running the usual murky campaigns on corporate money.

Derek B. Cornish

Wichita, KS

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by The Nation trying to pass this irresponsible garbage off as a credible article. The Nation and Barbara Ehrenreich have endorsed Obama, but even considering this, it's outrageous. Ebrenreich shamelessly ridiculed Al Gore in 2000 and wrote she voted for Ralph Nader as a protest against Gore. So much for her judgement. I wonder what she has to say today about Gore and his Nobel Peace Prize? The woman just can't help herself. Bob Somerby has a great take on Ehrenreich in TheDailyHowler.com. Click on the Previous Page link to March 24th and scroll down to THE WIT AND WISDOM OF PROGRESSIVE “ELITES:”

As for Clinton's association with "The Fellowship," Ehrenreich fails to mention many politicians in Washington, are, and have been involved with "The Fellowship." She further states it's secretive but apparently not quite so secretive, as Clinton wrote about it in her book, A Living History. Interestingly, also, Wikipedia has one of the more researched and in-depth descriptions of the history of "The Fellowship." Maybe Ehrenreich should have consulted Wikipedia for more accurate information.

Susan Fritts

Atlanta, GA

Dear North Americans, I only wish I could vote for Hillary Clinton for her to become the first woman President of the DisUnited States of America. No one, in my view, is better suited than her. She is an individual both deservingly qualified and personally dignified. Her decorum and sensibility might facilitate considerably the mending of the horrific political disintegration which now threatens the democratic fabric of the DUS. She can be sassy with the boys, and she is already a formidable leader.

It would be Pollyannaish to think that Hillary Clinton will perform wonderworks, that change will evolve effortlessly under her rule, that she doesn't face an extraordinary difficult challenge. Not only has the image of the DUS deteriorated significantly throughout the world in the last eight years, DUS foreign policy for at least a century has given the impression that heavy-handedness and arrogance are the order of the day employed by the Department of Offense throughout the developing world--not even mentioning Asia in this vein. Instead of seeking out esteem from other nations, the DUS has often offended them. To solve the quandaries of the North American continent, a new, humbling appraisal of the DUS role in the world must be initiated, and a radically different slant to foreign relations must be cultivated.

It is naïve to have faith in a "dreamer" who would be thought to offer some fairy-tale solution to this awful political dilemma. Most of the world--with the exception of infantile North American megalomaniacs!--knows that to "dream" in the DUS is to become the target of an assassin's bullet. What is the sense of basing a political agenda on the hallelujahs of a visionary who many become, one day, the object of a hired gun, and/or who still many others wish would be the foil of a murderer? The DUS does not possess the luxury to fantasize for much longer, and it looks pathetic sloshing in the murky waters of the most prodigious unfulfilled reverie of its entire history: the bacchanalian 1960s.

It would be wise to elect a woman as President for another reason. The role of women in the DUS's continuing debacle is scandalously and shamefully not there. Today the Senate and House of Representatives are top-heavy with male politicians. These often incompetent, often corrupt creatures fake the motions of political efficacy and then stand at attention when the national anthem is blared, as if their country--their political turf, the place of their limp-wrist machinations--is something all the world should be proud of and even want to imitate. That their schemes have yielded goodies for all of us!

And the DUS woman? She stands on the sidelines, as she has always done, hoping that one day the imbalance between male and female might be close to equal--at least!

I contend that a vote for Hillary Clinton will facilitate enormously in opening the floodgates for women throughout the world trapped and aspiring to hold public office so as to represent the interests of all their peoples in a proficient and honorable fashion. To vote for Hillary Clinton is to participate in a grander effort that will not only bring to this planet the first DUS President but also bring to millions of women the sense that their one input is finally becoming part and parcel of the existing state of affairs.

Of course, we need a change!

Anthony St. John

Calenzano, Italy

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at Barbara Ehrenreich's crazed venting of hate against Hillary. Laugh because it is a comic example of "guilt by association" gone wild. Cry because I have been an admirer of The Nation since I first wrote a piece on radioactive fallout for Carey McWilliams forty-nine years ago. This zany article--with the imprimatur of The Nation--is being spread all over the Internet, gobbled up by those with an appetite for conspiracy, demonology and witch-hunting.

Walter Schneir

Pleasantville, NY

Unlike Ehrenreich, Clinton's defenders fail to cite sources or to engage in critical analysis. As an independent observer, I would appreciate reasoned arguments as to why Ehrenreich's sources are weak or her conclusions awry. Off-the-wall attacks on Ehrenreich's character or personality don't cut it.

Until I see a reasonable refutation of the allegations about The Family and Clinton's ties to the group, I will follow Arthur Conan Doyle's maxim that "whenever all other possibilities have been ruled out, the improbable, however unlikely, must be the truth." Show me some other possibilities, and I'll consider them. Continue to attack Ehrenreich personally, and I will be led to believe that what she has brought to light is the truth.

Ben Manski

Madison, WI

At one time when I lived in Washington, DC, and worked in progressive women's organization I felt somewhat sorry for Ehrenreich. She hung around on the fringes of even the most progressive groups and was considered more than a little off-the-wall.

I had an opportunity to spend time with her at a weeklong conference some years ago in San Francisco and, try as I might, I simply could never make clarity of the fog that is Ehrenreich's "brilliance."

Now she has really come undone with this blatant "hit" piece against Clinton. It smacks more of Ehrenreich's batty ideas, and is somewhere between Margaret Atwood's fictional world and Ursula K. LeGuin's science fiction.

I now understand completely why prominent women in Washington referred to her as "the fruitfly."

Mabelle Johnson

Silverdale, WA

What absolute tripe! As an admirer of The Nation, I am astounded with this thinly vailed bunch of crap. While I share your liberal leanings, I do not share your liberal interpretation of the truth. Now I don't know if I'm going to subscribe or not.

Quentin Allen

Prestonsburg, KY

As compelling as Barbara Ehrenreich's article is, the Mother Jones story that inspired it induces a degree of sobriety Ehrenreich's story lacks. The Family is obviously out of touch, as are all Christians, frankly, with the human propensity to want life to be more fun than it is at places like Branson, Missouri. What does Hillary's associations with these laugh-inducers make her? What we knew she was all along, at least those of us who took a good look: a nicer version of Carrie Nation and one who wants to help you (I almost wrote "force you") to eat right, exercise and avoid demon tobacco, at that. This is enough to reject her candidacy out of hand, though it still might not be enough to pick the Dems over the Greens.

Douglas Presler

Minneapolis, MN

This should be included in The Screwtape Letters--a work of Christian fiction by C. S. Lewis first published in book form in 1942. The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of an earthly man, known only as "the Patient."

Andrew Bryant

Virginia Beach, VA

This is a joke, right? Does anyone out there besides Ehrenreich and some naive editors at The Nation really think that Hillary Clinton prays, other than to Mammon and the God of Absolute Power?

Curious, too, that Ehrenreich is forced to draw largely on the Prayer Breakfast's supposed association with political figures from the '60s and '70s, when Hillary was still praying to "Our Lady of the Miracle of the Cattle Futures." What nefarious figures now control that meeting, Ehrenreich? Who attended the last time Hillary did?

And exactly what current domestic and foreign policy positions do they push that Mrs. Clinton is also pushing?

Anna Keppa

Lexington, MA

I actually had to check to see if this was an article from the Onion website, famous for satire dressed up as semi-serious news stories. This must be what madness feels like! Hillary Clinton and "the sinister heart of the international right" I mean, Wow!

As a right-wing conservative I would like nothing better than for Hillary Clinton to be a fundamentalist Christian, but I was at all the secret meetings of the VRWC (Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) and don't recall her being there.

I suppose to liberals the world can be anything you want it to be if you just click your heels and wish for it!

Barbara Ehrenreich needs to get help! Seriously, get help!

Travis Barton

Campbell River, British Columbia

This is the most preposterous piece I have read this election cycle. Can we assume this charlatan of a journalist actually believes what he reports--that Hillary and her Bible study group support, defend and admire adolf hitler...and where is the proof? This is a new low for The Nation, which in the past has sunk to gutter levels of credibility.

Henry Butler

Santa Fe, NM

What a joke, this article is a poor excuse for investigation and journalism, and a professional smear job. Rovian? I think not! This is far nastier than anything Karl Rove ever did. This is complete bullshit!

Ken Clouser

Columbus, OH

It appears that you have to be a Christian to run this nation, and whatever kind you are, it's best that you do it in secret. Yet the video lynching that was attempted on Obama is looking as if it wasn't tried with strong enough rope. He survived with minimal neck damage. He suggests we behave as adults. As if we could in this bitter playpen.

As for Hillary, whoever would consider voting for her has but a thread to cling to, as she has shown time and again that it is her judgment that condemns her, not her petticoats. But why not hide there, or in your white churches, and continue to deny that it is racism that blinds most assuredly? Give us your fear of the 3 am phone call, because mostly what you think is on the other end of the line are more chickens coming home to roost. Vote for the woman who knows how to play the reverse race card and bomb accordingly. But can she do it as well as a white man? McCain would say "no."

I will vote for Obama despite his faith. Hillary only has faith in herself. I have less so.

A. Peterson

San Diego, CA

To quote our revered Vice President: "So?"

Exposing HRC's rightwing religious affiliation here is not a Rovian tactic. Rove tactics gain votes. Whereas HRC's right-wing Christianity either pleases her supporters (she's with the Lord, at least) or leaves her opponents unmoved & nodding that they guessed it all along. The undecided won't be moved, because the affiliation is right-wing, not left-wing.

So in the end, it's a wash electorally. Karl R. doesn't waste his time on non-effect.

R.H. Weber

Geneva, Switzerland

But Barbara! Didn't you know that all women must support Hillary because she's female? I mean, geez. She could be Leni Riefenstahl and we'd still be enjoined to support her. Just look at all the Hillary-bots swarming the letters section, apparently on cue. Hillary good, Barack bad, Ignorance is Strength.

Tamara Baker

St. Paul, MN

Ms. Ehrenreich is a writer I never miss, but I do take somewhat of an issue with her characterization of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act.

Flawed as it is, I see this act as a reaction to the excesses of secular progressives and especially the pro-abortion faction therein. Certainly, anecdotes about pharmacists refusing to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers opting not to guard abortion clinics are compelling, but let's see what the other side has been up to.

For years now the radical pro-choicers have sought to overturn the tax-exempt status of faith-based hospitals whose policies restrict the practice of abortion. The problem is that these institutions are often located in under-served areas and are a primary health resource for poor women.

Due to reasons unrelated to abortion, fewer and fewer professionals are entering the ObyGyn field. Like it or not, many in that field have ethical views opposed to elective abortions. Some have taken strides to have these people decertified. With fewer qualified practicioners, it seems unconscionable that anyone would wish to construct another barrier.

There should not be a reason for this act. All sides need to use common sense and not let their desire for power override an obligation to the very people they are supposed to be trying to help.

Robert Stephens

Flagstaff , AZ

It's a big disappointment for me this election year--a massive disappointment, in fact--to see the pillars of the left behaving like Rove at his most cynical. Obama has a nasty church? Well, not really, as it turns out, though the pastor said some things that weren't too admirable. So, tit-for-tat, somebody has to come up with something on Hillary. And there, for a moment, Obama talked to us like adults on religion. It's a pity that The Nation can't do the same.

Jim Hassinger

Glendale, CA

This is quite a fantasy you've cooked up--an absurd History Channel-inspired "Hitlery's Bible Secrets." If, as Sen Obama said, we are to have a debate and airing of grievances about race, then, lets do so, but lets not smear Hillary Clinton with some ridiculous story about how she is part of a biblical cult with Rick Santorum. I guarantee you that Santorum and Clinton do not hang out together as best buddies.

Todd Bandrowsky

Bear, DE

I'm grateful to Barbara Ehrenreich for reading my book and recommending it here in The Nation, but I'd jump in on this regardless. She's right to describe a group whose leader distorts Jesus like so--"You say, hey, you know Jesus said, 'You got to put Him before mother-father-brother-sister'? Hitler, Lenin, Mao, that's what they taught the kids. Mao even had the kids killing their own mother and father. But it wasn't murder. It was for building the new nation. The new kingdom"--as "fascist-leaning."

Actions matter more than words, of course, which is why The Family's active support for the late and very murderous dictator Suharto, as reported in my book, based on The Family's documents; and its interventions during the 1980s on behalf of death squad leaders, as reported by the LA Times--presents even stronger evidence for describing the group as "fascist-leaning." One could go further--in the book, I dedicate a chapter to The Family's postwar efforts to bring together former Nazis with American Congressmembers.

Of course, that doesn't mean Hillary, who writes gushingly of the group in her memoir, is fascist-leaning any more, than Obama's friendship with Jeremiah Wright means that he, too, believes that perhaps white people invented AIDS. But Wright's, and Obama's, roots are in liberation theology, regardless of how far afield Wright may go on occasion; Hillary's are in a conservative interpretation of neo-orthodoxy that has allowed her to seek spiritual counsel from as authoritarian a thinker as Doug Coe. To me, that's a problem, not a conspiracy. There's no conspiracy here, just a mixture of bad theology and opaque politics that should be troubling to anyone, left or right, who believes in open democracy. But then, maybe I'm just a conservative--I believe ideas have consequences.

This is hardly tit-for-tat as part of the electoral cycle. Barbara Ehrenreich drew from a book I began back in 2003, with a Harper's story about a month I spent living with The Family. I spent the years in between then and now researching the group. Hillary emerged as part of the story as early as 2003. The piece certainly wasn't intended as a hatchet job--I actually voted for Hillary, months after Kathryn Joyce and I wrote the MoJo piece Ehrenreich refers to, on the strength of her health plan vs. Obama's. I've since been won over to Obama's camp, but that's beside the point--everything here is documented, and, for that matter, almost all public record. Put the electoral cycle aside and ask yourself: What do you think of public officials seeking spiritual solace in a group that repeatedly praises Hitler as a leadership model? They're not Nazis--they consider Hitler an evil man. The problem, they believe, is that he put himself where Jesus should be. Huh. Somehow, I don't imagine Jesus wanted to be a führer. There's no conspiracy here; just some very dangerous theology. And that's plenty bad enough.

Jeff Sharlet

Brooklyn, NY

Wow! This doesn't sound like Sunday School. Or Bible Study. My preference is that I would rather have someone saying aloud (even if they yell) from the pulpit what is in their heart, and preach what they consider gospel. Secret "cells" or any kind of secret meetings, of religion somehow scare me more than anything I have seen or heard from The Reverend Doctor Wright.

My Bible says "go in the closet and pray." What it doesn't say is "worship in the closet." I know there is a logical explanation for why this cell--or group or whatever--is done the way that it's done. And I certainly look forward to hearing it from Mrs. Clinton.

All this time, I thought she was a Methodist. However, with this, as with most things she does, maybe this is more politically advantageous.

E.R. White

Houston, TX

I am not a Clinton supporter and welcome evidence she is a secret Kool-aider. Ms. Ehrenreich gives me evidence of Clintonian spiritual depth, curiosity, sincerity. I knew Christians like Hilary Clinton in college and found them to be the best we poor primates can produce.

The Clinton she describes could with Machiavellian mind be seen as one who looks to understand the enemy. Or with Liberal mind be seen as one who is willing to test her own hypotheses with a compassionate inquiry into the hearts and minds of a sincere, principled opposition.

I don't see a Clinton tormented by doubt and ready to joust with teaspoons against Satan. I would like to, because I believe Obama to be the better candidate, but Ms. Ehrenreich has led me to sympathize with Clinton in spite of myself.

Barry Blitstein

New York City, NY

Hillary will not get the nomination. It is clear after Obama's speech yesterday and the more than 2 million downloads on YouTube of that speech that he has touched people in a way no other politician has since John Kennedy did in 1960 and his brother Robert did in 1968. The number of young people that are joining the political process because of Obama is staggering. The commentators like to speak about the black vote, but he is not winning states such as Minnesota, Washington, North Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming because of any black votes. He has clearly tapped into a deep yearning for change in the American people and for a leader to bring the country together. If you hate the Republicans, then I guess you are going to vote for the revenge-minded candidate, Hillary Clinton, but what both both Clintons have failed to understand is that America wants to get beyond the politics of divisiveness, polarization and demonizing those who don't agree with our particular point of view. Obama's message is the message of hope and a new way of getting the nation's business accomplished without angry and nasty partisanship.

Mark Jeffery Koch

Cherry Hill, NJ

I can understand that you do not like Hillary's alleged ties to this Christian group. Yet, you resort to the same demagoguery that is often associated with right-wing Christian leaders.

Can you really compare Rev. Wright's beliefs with people who swear off illegal drug use and sex before marriage? That is far-fetched.

Do you really believe they are "fascist-leaning"? Here is the definition of fascism: a system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

I know that some talk show hosts label will apply the fascist label to you, but do you need to pull the same reactionary antics to prove your point? I would hope that a woman of your intelligence would be able to reasonably explain your positions rather than resort to pejorative labels to rouse hatred in your readers.

I am a person who is trying to follow Jesus Christ, but I am not a right-wing conservative. There are many people like me in this country, but we are mostly unwelcome in your circles. I hope that someday all of us will be able to beat our rhetorical flame-throwers into plowshares so that we can respectfully and peacefully work towards mutual understanding, a better country and a peaceful world.

Peter Vanacore

Westborough, MA

I thought Barbara Ehrenreich was a respectable journalist, if a bit on the loony left. But the idea that Hillary Clinton is involved with a fascist-like Bible study group is a bit too much, even for Ehrenreich. The biggest weakness of the left is its partiality to conspiracy theories. There is no evidence that Hillary is part of this group, as far as I know. Perhaps she is part of the Elders of Zion, Female Branch?

Norman Ravitch

Savannah, GA