Inbox

A Presidential Portrait Too Soon
Barack Obama has been on your cover almost every issue of late [Jan. 26]. The dramatic picture of him gazing into the distance has him looking almost perfect and untouchable. It is not that I am against Obama; I support him. But you compare him and his "burden" to other Presidents when the comparison should not even be made yet. People cheered George W. Bush when he was elected President, but now he is hated by more than two-thirds of America. Obama is a great man, but we should wait to see whether all he is going to do will actually get done.
Graeme Harten,
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.

The Trillion-Dollar Question
Michael Grunwald's story contains the most gems per paragraph of anything I have ever read [Jan. 26]. His analyses of the problems, the opportunities, the pitfalls and the inevitable lining up at the feeding trough are all spot-on. I especially liked the admonition to give the money to the people who can't afford to save it. That money will go straight to the free market — even though my wife and I will most likely save anything we get.
Paul Bliss,
San Diego

I'm beginning to wonder if anyone reads basic economics anymore. It has been widely understood for centuries that government does not create wealth; it merely redistributes it. The stimulus plan can be summarized as follows: we are going to borrow a trillion dollars from foreigners and spend it on a mile-long list of pork-barrel projects that we don't immediately need (or else we would have found another way to pay for them) and hope this gets us out of the recession. Stimulus won't solve the fundamental economic problems of this country: decades of low savings coupled with ravenous consumption, fueled by cheap credit, all of which we are now paying the piper for.
Nathan Mintz,
Redondo Beach, Calif., U.S.

A Global Leader
While everyone is describing Obama as our first black President, Andrew Young's comments in your article on civil rights leaders' perspectives were closer to the truth [Jan. 26]. Young says, "He isn't just black; he's an Afro-Asian-Latin European. That means he's a global citizen and an all-American boy ... The fact that his father and grandfather on one side were black doesn't make him any more of a black President than his grandfather on the other side being white would make him a white President." Thank you, Mr. Young, for getting it right.
Ross Robson,
Port Ludlow, Wash., U.S.

To suggest that Obama has not had the experience of "humiliation and racism" is presumptuous and insulting. Andrew Young has obviously not read Obama's memoir, Dreams of My Father, which details Obama's lifelong struggle with identity, race and racism. It is true that Obama defies easy labeling, but to say he bears no scars is myopic. Obama overcame his adversity to rise above it and bring our nation with him. God bless him and his family.
Nancy Green,
Fawn Grove, Pa., U.S.

Voice of a Black God
Michael Kinsley's essay "God is Black" made a strong argument that the presence and voices of James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman have influenced how America hears the voice of truth and authority [Jan. 26]. But there were others who set the stage. We cannot ignore the influence of Southern-raised black televangelists. And even more so, James Weldon Johnson's famous poem "The Creation," which is written in the black idiom:
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely —
I'll make me a world.
Paul Moore,
North San Juan, Calif., U.S.

It's not that Freeman and Jones sound black — they sound American. The current VOGs are a celebration not of America embracing the black man but of America shedding its racial pretense (which is more than I can say for Kinsley's essay).
Mark Still,
Philadelphia