Quotes of the Day

State of the White House
Re "Now What?" by Joe Klein [Feb. 1]: President Obama spent a year working within the system to bring change. Wrong choice. Special interests gutted the reform out of the health care, banking and climate-and-energy bills, showing that congressional Democrats are as susceptible to the influence of money as Republicans. The President now understands. After the Massachusetts election, he went over the heads of the system to ask for help in getting action on banking reform. Now it's us vs. Wall Street in a fight to win over our Representatives.
Ray Richardson
Greenfield, Ind., U.S.

Obama has ordered a Bush-style troop surge in Afghanistan. Warrantless wiretaps of Americans are still allowed. "Don't ask, don't tell" continues to ruin military careers, and Guantánamo is still open and booming. Unless Obama attacks these issues and leads or drags his Democratic colleagues in Congress into doing the same, his Administration may be seen someday as a curious pause before the Second Reagan Era.
Holmes Brannon
Woodland Park, Colo., U.S.

Obama inherited the debris of two wars, a global economic crash created by the greed of Wall Street and the stubbornness of right-wing ideologues. He has done more in one year than Bush did in eight. Hang on America. You have a great leader.
Lois Grant aldgate
Australia

Klein is as guilty of "Beltway blindness" as every other pundit opining about Obama's first year. To say Obama needs to show the people he gets their problems, as if we didn't think he does, is simplistic. Why do you think the majority of us still like him? He respects our intelligence and seems to understand that we appreciate the enormousness of the challenge he faces.
Jan Hurd
Poulsbo, Wash., U.S.

The more of President Obama's interviews I read, the more I respect him for his integrity and class. He has been in office just a year but is widely expected to clean up the mess it took the Bush Administration eight years to create. And he has to do it while dealing with some of the worst partisanship I can recall in recent history. Anyone who remembers Economics 101 knows unemployment is the hardest and last problem to be solved. Give the President a break.
Donna J. Moore
Moweaqua, Ill., U.S.

If health care reform is dead, it is the fault not of overreaching but of not reaching far enough. To gain the votes of conservative Democrats, the President was too willing to compromise on important components.
Jay Talkoff
San Francisco

You say President Obama ran into a stone wall of Republican opposition. But didn't the Democrats have a filibuster-proof Congress they meant to ram down the throats of those who objected, for whatever reason? Your article made it seem as if the Republicans were the only bad guys, when actually it was all of them.
Alan Cannon Sr.
Anderson, S.C., U.S.

Two Haitis TIME says, "We owe it to the survivors ... to help build a Haiti that will never again be so vulnerable" [Feb. 1]. Does this mean other nations can persuade the handful of families and businesses that control the wealth of Haiti to begin paying appropriate taxes? Does this mean Haitian leaders will direct foreign aid to health care facilities, water and sewage systems, education, job training and proper building construction? Or after this acute crisis has passed, will Haiti return to baseline poverty? The ethics of those who run this little country must change or be coerced to change.
Seymour Levin
Los Angeles