Quotes of the Day

Two Candidates, Two Styles
Re "Does Temperament Matter?": Throughout his career, John McCain has shown himself willing to put others at risk to advance his career or his causes [Oct. 27]. Like President Bush, he is a person who shoots from the hip, invites conflict and sees compromise as a sign of weakness rather than a path to progress. His impulsiveness has been evident this fall in rash decisions such as selecting Sarah Palin and suspending his campaign. While his supporters call him a maverick, I call him reckless. And as the past eight years have shown, recklessness is not what we need in a President. We need someone with intelligence, composure, discipline and restraint.
Robert J. Inlow,
Charlottesville, Virginia

There is no question as to which candidate is qualified to serve this great country. McCain is ready to stand up and fight for our country and our freedom. He won't just be "present" while looking cool and working on his next book deal.
Sharon Peterson,
Clinton Township, Michigan

Examining leadership style gives some insight into how the candidates might govern. McCain exhibits the characteristics of a troubleshooter. This type of leader tends to deal with the here and now, is action-oriented, sees problems as separate issues and is primarily reactive. Barack Obama is more of a visionary, seeing a bigger, intertwined picture. For example, the visionary would perceive energy as an issue related to our security, the environment, our domestic economy and foreign policy. The troubleshooter, McCain, tends to approach energy by proposing immediate fixes: opening areas for drilling, now; building nuclear plants; reducing restrictions. While style is no guarantee of competence, Obama's fits the country's needs.
James A. Savage Jr.,
Holly Springs, North Carolina

Though many pundits accuse obama of being too cool, I do think some of it is on purpose. Imagine being the first African American with a real shot at the job. A hotheaded, emotional approach could make many whites uncomfortable. If Obama is elected and does the job well, the next time an African American runs, he or she will be freer to act less controlled.
Diane Lake,
Machesney Park, Illinois

Including Barack Obama in a composite picture with Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and fellow candidate John McCain implies that Obama is of the same stature as the others. He doesn't come close. McCain at least has a career of genuine accomplishments behind him. Specifically what has Obama accomplished that qualifies him to be President?
William G. Meyer,
Las Vegas, Nevada

Which candidate has Gerald Ford's fundamental decency? Both. Jimmy Carter's discipline? Obama. Ronald Reagan's sunny optimism? Obama. George H.W. Bush's diplomatic instincts? Both. Bill Clinton's intellectual curiosity? Obama. George W. Bush's dogged determination? Both. The score: Obama 6, McCain 3.
Victoria Brago,
Los Angeles

A Democratic Tilt?
We read Joe Klein's "The Obama Surge" in my English class [Oct. 20]. We had heard about Klein's bias toward the Democrats, but this column took it too far. There was not a single complimentary remark about McCain or a single negative one about Obama. Klein also noted that McCain seems awkward because of his physical impairments. This was insulting and, I believe, irrelevant to voters. McCain has sacrificed far more for his country than Klein ever will.
Peter Fitzpatrick,
Norwell, Massachusetts

What the World Needs Now
I appreciated Michael Kinsley's essay on intelligence and leadership [Oct. 27]. I have long felt that U.S. presidential candidates should be subject to a preliminary examination in their area of expertise. Candidates should have some knowledge of, if not proficiency in, world history, religions, cultures, geography. As it is now, we assume the media and debates will ferret out deficiencies in candidates' education — and that is not always the case.
Marcetta Darensbourg,
College Station, Texas

Kinsley names Winston Churchill as a leader who was great because he was astringent. But Churchill never won an election through astringency. In the 1930s, when he was warning of the Nazi peril, he was almost uniformly rejected as a crank. He was not elected Prime Minister in 1940; rather, he was installed by a Parliament that deferred elections until after the war. When one was finally held, in 1945, Churchill was voted out of office. We need not only great leaders but also a public great enough to accept their leadership.
M.L. Cross,
Stephenville, Texas

Where the City Came From
Your skimmer item on Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates [Oct. 20] states that the phrase "city on a hill" was coined by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts. Not so. Winthrop was quoting Jesus' Sermon on the Mount: "[The righteous] are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden" (Matthew 5:14).
Nathaniel Jewell,
Adelaide, South Australia

Causes of the Crash
Reading about the subprime loan debacle, I am amazed that nobody seems to have asked the simple question: What will happen if a large number of these loans default? [Oct. 20] Or was it only greed that made everybody turn a blind eye to the possibility that the bubble could ever burst. Did no one consider that if the subprime-mortgage market crashed, thousands of families could have their lives turned upside down virtually overnight?
Frederik Steenbuch,
Oslo

Picasso's Legacy
Re "The Fine Art of Theft," by Don Morrison [Oct. 27]: Picasso may be indicted for many crimes against art, but plagiarism is not one of them. The photos you published show no resemblance between his works and the ones they are supposedly copied from. The article ends by quoting Picasso's remark that "art has neither a past nor a future." A quotation more revealing of Picasso's attitude to art might have been: "Titian and Rembrandt were great painters: I am only a public entertainer who has understood...the imbecility, the vanity, the stupidity of his contemporaries." Having fooled a generation of "masters and critics," as he called them, Picasso was no longer able to fool himself.
Ian Macdonald,
Sydney

To the Moon, Alice
Re your article on Mars: human exploration of the moon, Mars and beyond would restore national pride and bring purpose to our space program [Oct. 27]. If such visionaries as President John F. Kennedy, rocket designer Wernher von Braun and astronomer Carl Sagan were alive today, we probably would be walking on Mars by now. Let's keep the dream alive.
Rick Schreiner,
San Marino, California