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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, Va., U.S.

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, Mich., U.S.

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, N.C., U.S.

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, Ill., U.S.

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

What the World Needs Now
I appreciated Michael Kinsley's essay on the desirable leadership quality that is toxic to mention because of its allegedly élitist overtones: intelligence [Oct. 27]. I have long felt that U.S. presidential candidates, much like graduate students, 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 that might lead to serious, perhaps deadly decisions — and that is not always the case.
Marcetta Darensbourg,
College Station, Texas, U.S.

Kinsley is correct to say we need leaders brave enough to practice astringency, telling people what they don't want to hear. But his example of a leader who was great because he was astringent — Winston Churchill — never won an election through astringency. Throughout 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 general elections until after the war. And when one was finally held, in 1945, the British people promptly voted Churchill out of office. We need not only great leaders but also a public great enough to accept their leadership.
M.L. Cross,
Stephenville, Texas, U.S.

Kinsley's advice to tell people "what they don't want to hear" is a recipe for disaster for any U.S. presidential candidate seeking to win votes in our rapid-fire, media-spun era of talking-points demagoguery. Adlai Stevenson, the last presidential candidate who sincerely tried to talk sense to the American people, suffered two defeats following Kinsley's advice, and the 1950s' American electorate was smarter than those immersed in today's lowest-common-denominator, Joe the Plumber world of sham politics. Our only hope is that the better candidate, Obama, can cajole people into assuring his victory and then, in office, administer the proper economic medicine. The heavy dosage needed, however, can not be fully prescribed during the campaign.
C.W. Griffin,
Phoenix, Ariz., U.S.

Know Your Economic ABCs
The only thing more confusing than the byzantine course Justin Fox traverses in asserting that McCain was right about the economy's fundamentals being strong is his claim that Palin was "on to something" when she elaborated [Oct. 27]. Even a cursory look at high school math and science scores makes our workforce's challenges more than clear — a point Fox ignores while lauding the productivity of our still shrinking manufacturing base. That's a little like cheering the season-ending win by a losing team.
Anthony Noel,
Greenville, N.C., U.S.

Stop Falling All Over High Heels
"Heeling Power" gives various explanations for why women choose to wear stiletto heels but ignores serious and feminist analyses of the sources of this so-called choice [Oct. 13]. The style can be viewed as analogous to the old Chinese tradition of foot-binding in its restrictions on comfort, mobility and even safety in the name of a socially constructed "femininity." I will never wear them. Does pole-dancing also signal this convergence of feminine beauty and authority?
Cerise Morris,
Montreal