If the U.S. were a corporation…

Again your bias shows! In an Oct. 10 editorial, you refer to President Bush’s (who is not running) response to 9/11 as not being adequate. What rating do you give President Clinton (remember two for the price of one, one of whom did run) in response to the first World Trade Center bombing, Khobar Towers bombing, and the attack on the U.S. Cole?

In the same issue, on a news page in discussing the VP debate, your headline reads “Palin joins Dems….” It would have been equally proper to start the headline “Biden joins the Repubs….”

Why not publish the fact that the campaign of your favorite – Barack Obama -recently refused to permit its surrogate, Rep. Shapiro, to participate in a debate at Temple Sinai in a Philadelphia suburb with a representative of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Wow – and for one who would negotiate with anyone without pre-conditions!

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Let’s put it this way. I’m a shareholder (voter) seeking a new CEO (president). I receive a résumé from someone who is a smooth talker and appears to have a good résumé. However, a closer look reveals that he has no executive experience and has had frequent absences from his present job (senator) while seeking this position. Although he attended prestigious schools, his background is very sketchy. He has not submitted school transcripts, including his grades (and he has admitted taking drugs). Although he was a member of Law Review, I can find no articles written by him – a requirement. As to recommendations: Under pressure, recently, he has disavowed his preacher (who condemns my corporation) and has a fellow board member who is an unrepentant terrorist and a convicted felon (who aided him in a house purchase). On the other hand, I can find no one of stellar quality who knew him in those formative years who has highly vouched for him.

My company (United States) has been successful in its centrist approach for over two centuries. Just because the corporation has hit a recent rough patch (allegedly caused by his like-minded legislators) after over six years of success, do I really want someone running the operation with such liberal (if not Marxist) ideas with a liberal VP and a liberal board of directors (Congress)? To make matters worse, they can select life-time arbitrators (Supreme Court justices) who can continue their approach long after they’re gone, against future stockholders’ wishes.

Just substitute a “c” for a “g” – not change but chance. Not for me.

Leo Strauss Jr.

Ho-Ho-Kus

The editor responds: In August, Ben Smith and Jeffrey Ressner wrote on Politico.com about Obama’s Harvard Law Review presidency, during which he mainly reviewed and edited articles, and about an unsigned piece by him on fetal rights. See http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12705.html. Meanwhile, it is interesting to see how quotes can get distorted in the retelling. What we wrote in that Oct. 10 editorial was: “[A]lthough, to be sure, the challenges George W. Bush has come up against in his presidency have been enormous (9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, for example), few today would term his responses even adequate.”