Sandy may have been another 'Hurricane of Providence'

Re: "Will Obama's Sandy bounce fade by Tuesday?" Nov. 4

Well, the "Hurricane of Providence" once again has arrived.

In historical context: "Then the wind picked up and the rain started to fall in buckets. Just in the nick of time, before the entire city was burned to the ground, a hurricane showed up.

"The fires were put out and [British Maj. Gen. Robert] Ross ordered a full scale retreat back to their ships.The British never returned and Washington D.C. was saved from total destruction by this so-called 'Hurricane of Providence.' "

Opportune, in my view.

David Mugan

Alexandria

Movie glamorizes dangerous flying under the influence

Re:"Denzel soars as a troubled pilot in 'Flight'," Nov. 2

This review was a dangerous presentation of a movie without merit, one which glamorizes the adventurous life of a guy who drinks while he transports passengers.Four stars notwithstanding, who needs this reckless account of betrayal?

I'm reminded of the similar flight of a doomed Air Florida 737 in 1982,which crashed into the Potomac River during takeoff with a heavy loss of life. The pilots seemed not to care thatthe aircraft was in trouble, and instead of aborting, the voice recordersuggested their lack of concern, strongly indicative of adrunken state.

This practice of drinking during layovers was common a few years back, long after drinking and driving was declared verboten on our highways.

EdwardAbramic

Washington

Abortion ruling based on Jeffersonian autonomy

Re: "Who is the real extremist on abortion?" Oct. 28

Tim Carney insists that the Supreme Court's 1973Roe v. Waderuling legalizing abortion was "awful jurisprudence," citing leading liberal legal scholars Laurence Tribe ("Behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.") and Edward Lazarus ("As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible.")

However, these eminent scholars do not understand thatRoe was not cast in the modern liberal judicial method used for most "activist" decisions, but instead rests on traditional strict construction of the 14thAmendment's "born or naturalized" and equal protection clauses, the NinthAmendment's implicit recognition of a privacy right (which even Chief Justice John Roberts, when pressed at his confirmation hearing, acknowledged) and the Civil Rights Act of 1964's prohibition of gender discrimination.

AlthoughRoe's chain of reasoning is complex and addressed an unprecedented circumstance the framers did not contemplate, the Supreme Court could not have reached any different conclusion.The 14thAmendment's reliance upon the term "person" inescapably makes this concept federal, forcing the court to grapple with it.

The original Constitution's strictures on government power and guarantees of personal liberty is fundamentally Jeffersonian, with a few Hamiltonian concessions in commerce and foreign relations.Although Lincoln's legacy was to tip it in a Hamiltonian direction with the 14thAmendment,Roe was based on Jeffersonian concepts of liberty and autonomy, not Progressive ones.

No wonder judicial activists don't recognize it.

Dino Drudi

Alexandria