Some Primary Concerns

Re “Gephardt Defends Backing Iraq War,” Jan. 14: Democratic candidate Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri recently said, in defense of his position in supporting President Bush in Iraq, that he took Bush “on good faith” (Jan. 14). Any Democrat who could ever have taken George W. Bush on good faith has to be extraordinarily naive, a quality in a president that I would find highly undesirable.

Mayer Gerson

Northridge

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Re “Pentagon Defeat Fired Up Clark for White House Fight,” Jan. 15: Wesley Clark must be both historically illiterate and a very slow learner. Apparently, his bottom line on Iraq was that Saddam Hussein needed to go and that the humanitarian benefits alone justified his removal, but he would have waited for our European “allies” to authorize NATO involvement.

History and his own personal dealings with Europeans should have made it clear that Europeans do not take action until the bombs are dropping around their own heads.

How long did it take the Europeans to get involved in Bosnia? How many civilian deaths did it take? They never moved into Rwanda, and they went into Kosovo and Kuwait only after the United States took the lead. I don’t think I want to elect a president who is going to tie our foreign policy to European judgment and resolve.

Jeff McCombs

La Palma

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I believe Clark towers far above any of the other candidates in every personal and professional attribute. In fact, I can’t think of any president in American history whose executive qualifications begin to even approach Clark’s. We will sorely need his apolitical talents to heal our domestic and international sickness.

Unfortunately, our national intelligence, on average, is about that of a 13-year-old. That almost guarantees Bush’s continuance in office. (I have been a registered Republican since I first started to vote. Now, at 88, I’ve become an independent voter.)

Lou Neumark

Tarzana

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Re “Iowa Is a Fine Place to Take the Candidates for a Test Drive,” Commentary, Jan. 14: If Charles Cook cannot think of a better way to choose the nominees of the two major political parties of the most powerful nation on Earth than leading with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, then he suffers from a remarkable lack of imagination. What is the relevance of shaking hands with voters to the complexities of governing a vast nation? That only one nominee out of the last 10 did not win either Iowa or New Hampshire hardly proves that these events “work.” We will never know, for instance, if the Democrats in 1988 or the Republicans in 1996 might have come up with a more viable nominee had their candidates not been forced first to pander to the narrow interests of two states so unrepresentative of the rest of the nation.

One need only think of ethanol subsidies (Iowa) or the Northeast Dairy Compact (New Hampshire) as examples of special-interest policies that presidential candidates can’t resist when facing a contested nomination. All states have special interests, but that’s why we elect Congress members and state governments. We elect presidents to look after the national interest. It is a profound failure of America’s democratic imagination that we still do not have direct national primaries, or even a direct national general election for president.

Matthew Shugart

Bonsall, Calif.