Daryl L. Jones

Earl Ofari Hutchinson laments the Senate’s rejection of Daryl Jones’ nomination for secretary of the Air Force (Commentary, July 27) by saying that it was racially motivated and was flimsily based on allegations that “he was a lousy flyer, collected extra pay for flight time he didn’t earn, sought to sell Amway products to enlisted Air Force personnel, improperly lobbied . . . and then gave conflicting responses when questioned.”

Pardon me? From here that looks suspiciously like incompetence, defalcation, abuse of authority, conflict of interest and perjury.

In case Hutchinson hasn’t noticed, the Republican opposition is doing precisely what the opposition party has always done; namely, oppose. The answer is not to play the race card every time a nominee is rejected, but to nominate better-qualified people.

The fault in this case lies not with Jones--he is what he is--and not with racist Republicans, but with the administration for being so sloppy in screening nominees.

ALLEN E. KAHN

Playa del Rey

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I’m sorry, but regardless of Jones’ color (I frankly never knew his color until after he was rejected), he did not deserve to serve as leader of any branch of the services. To put in someone like Jones, who has such an apparent lack of memory, or worse yet, dishonest assessment of his military past, would not allow those in his chain of command to provide the respect he requires.

CRAIG MICHAEL UHL

San Diego