A couple of reasonably good letters to The New York Times Magazine in response to a recent article on "Hipublicans" -- allegedly hip GOP college kids:

If I were to bump into the Democratic National Committee chairman, Terry McAuliffe, I would staple John Colapinto's article to his forehead (May 25). These conservative campus groups are well organized and financed! The political right is stealing the hearts of kids. Why can't the leaders of the left stop reveling in their glorious past and fight this conservative wave head on. There are people on the left, like myself, who would laugh at Charles Mitchell's dorm-room decor, then ''deconstruct'' it Hunter Thompson-style.

William Kleppel

Mount Kisco, N.Y.

*******

I was puzzled by the way the conservative movement portrays itself as under attack by liberals. The president of the United States is a conservative. The majority leader of the Senate is a Republican. I'm not sure what these college students think they are fighting for except preservation of the status quo.

Zaahira S. Wyne

Fredericksburg, Va.

But Robert L. Mills of Monroe, Connecticut, a defender of the Hipublicans, writes this:

...Young people also have little patience for the concept of victimization. The victim culture doesn't add up, and college kids are quick to sense it.

Young people have little patience for the concept of victimization? Has this letter-writer listened to any commercial rock music of the past ten years? Would someone please e-mail Mr. Mills an MP3 of "Crawling" by Linkin Park?

(And actually, I think there's a fairly thin line between youthful self-pity and the youthful interest in justice -- both derive from a focus on fairness that older people tend to lose.)