Letters

Bill Clinton Explains Himself
"Clinton is the personification of all Americans: vigorous, ambitious, flawed, talented, vain, sensitive and persistent."
Preston Foster
Princeton, U.S.

I just finished reading President Bill Clinton's side of the story [June 28]. He's still his same old charming self and one of our greatest Presidents, in spite of his weaknesses. And who has none? Under Clinton, the U.S. economy was great. The deficit was eliminated. No devastating wars. No killings. I'd vote for him again if he could run—and I'm an old-time Republican.
Ellen Ruark
Southbury, U.S.

Good men do not have to explain themselves, just as good Presidents do not have to write books to shape their legacy or justify their deeds. A person's actions speak for themselves.
Jerry Garber
San Antonio, U.S.

How I miss Clinton's intelligent,thoughtful and truly compassionate leadership. He has the kind of genuine concern that pays more than lip service to the needs of the common citizen. I was struck by the fluidity of his responses and his understanding of complex geopolitical issues he faced as President. I am so used to the current Administration's terse, repetitive and convoluted statements—which don't respond to anything—that I had forgotten what real leadership sounds like.
Lynn Capehart
San Diego

What Joe Klein glosses over is that Clinton was probably the only U.S. President who held up a mirror to the nation so it could inspect its own morality and yet survive the shattered image. Clinton's legacy will be much more than an attack on the moneyed right. His work in the field of AIDS through his foundation is more useful than George W. Bush's limp efforts. My guess is that Clinton will have a memorial better than an eternal flame: the collective respect of those who know that through transgression, suffering and humility we reach our full human potential.
Marilyn Keegan
Cape Town

Clinton is the personification of all Americans: vigorous, ambitious, flawed, talented, vain, sensitive and persistent. His America is the real America, not the movie version. Yes, we will cry real tears for Bill Clinton at his funeral. He is our family; he is us.
Preston Foster
Princeton, U.S.

I very much liked Clinton's statement that "we should be trying to build alliances and acting with others whenever we can and acting alone only when we have to." Because the U.S. is a superpower, with almost no competition in sight, it may feel it is always right. But that doesn't mean the U.S. has to prove that everyone else is wrong. Only respect for others' views can bring the world nearer to peaceful solutions.
Girish Mehta
Baroda, India

Bill Clinton has only himself to blame for his tarnished legacy. He was an intelligent President, but he wasn't wise. This has cost him the respect of many Americans. The moral of this story is: Tell the truth, no matter what!
Boll Von Boll
Toronto

Courting Kim Jong Il
So what if the U.S. is not amused as the two Koreas try to resolve their decades-long standoff with minimum military tension? TIME's story [June 21] seemed to be focused more on U.S. concerns in the region than on the ultimate benefits that North and South Korea can bring about. Apparently part of the U.S.'s strategy is to create clouds of fear that any country it brands a rogue nation, such as North Korea, could strike at any time.
Lowell Allan Estepa
Puerto Princesa, the Philippines

The attitude of Asians toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has changed because he has tried to do a lot for the region. Now it is time for the Bush Administration to change too and do something practical. North Korea wants diplomatic recognition and a noninvasion treaty. On your cover you show a proud Kim who is smiling, but in fact he still feels threatened.
Cheol-Ho Jang
Yongin, South Korea

A Princess in Misery
The notebook item "Princess Diaries" [June 21] said that Japan's Crown Princess Masako is "utterly miserable," possibly because she is not allowed to take advantage of her career experience. When Masako married Crown Prince Naruhito, I was so happy. I admired him for having waited for Masako for six years. It must have been true love. The imperial marriage was a good model for Japanese young people. I wish the Imperial Household Agency [the ultra-traditional overseer of the activities of Japan's royal family] would change, so that the Harvard-educated princess, who worked in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, could live her life to the fullest.
Yoko Ninomiya
Hiroshima

Culpability or Shame?
You wrote about how Bush administration officials looked into reshaping America's stance on torture [June 21]. Torture is torture. Period. Honor is honor. Period. There are no shades of gray. If the U.S. wishes to hold itself up as the light of freedom and civil rights, it must maintain moral principles in all situations. Punishment of the soldiers directly involved in the Abu Ghraib abuse is pure hypocrisy if we do not also bring to justice everyone in the military chain of command, as high up as necessary. The U.S.'s standing in the world community requires this.
Michaelene Pendleton
Moab, U.S.

Unanswered Questions
After months of work, the 9/11 commission has found no evidence that Iraq was involved in the 2001 attacks on the U.S. [June 28]. Shortly after that news, President Bush said, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam [Hussein] and al-Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda." I am so tired of mindless, circular and arrogant reasoning from this President. It doesn't convince me of anything and leaves me with an empty feeling about the leadership of this country.
Tom Bensky
San Luis Obispo, U.S.

Now that all the hoopla is over regarding how the 9/11 hijackers did their dirty deed, one might hope the discussion would turn to why they did it. Americans and the rest of the world deserve a public debate on that issue. Besides going to war, spending billions and making more enemies, is there anything we can do to prevent its happening again?
Robert S. Moore
Huntsville, U.S.

How His Faith Is Received
Your story "The Faith Factor," on religion and the Oval Office [June 21], included a quotation by me. Contrary to the implication and context of your reference, my remark had nothing to do with President Bush personally. Instead, I was referring to the way he invokes God and Jesus, and good and evil, in policymaking speeches, apparently intending their impact to "bypass the mind and go straight to the bloodstream" of his listeners.
Elaine Pagels
Professor of Religion Princeton University Princeton, U.S.

Parting with Pounds
After reading Josh Tyrangiel's essay "Getting Pounded," about the high cost of living in London [June 28], I couldn't help running around my office telling everyone that I wasn't just another non-Brit who thinks London is a complete and utter rip-off. Tyrangiel depicted my husband's and my sentiments exactly. May I reassure Tyrangiel that eventually it will get easier to part with his pounds. After a few years, he'll justify spending £40 on a Diesel T shirt by telling himself he's worked so darned hard that he deserves a treat, even if it comes at a high price! After five years here, I still convert back to the South African rand, balk at the cost but then hand over my cash. What else can you do?
Jackie Cranke
Collier Row, England

Exit Strategy
President Bush has carried out a war in Iraq that has brought more harm than good to the U.S. economy and the world as a whole [June 28]. Now that sovereignty has been handed back to the Iraqis, the only thing for Americans to do is leave the country immediately, before something more terrible than Sept. 11 happens.
Anene Eziafa
Anambra, Nigeria

The Last Train
Hugh Sidey described the journey of Nancy Reagan and her family as they flew to Ronald Reagan's grave site in California [THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY, June 21]. After the sudden death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt took a similar journey as a special train carried F.D.R.'s coffin from Warm Springs, Georgia, where he died, to Washington and then to Hyde Park, New York. The train drew hundreds of thousands of mourners all along its route, many openly weeping as the cars moved by. Here is part of our report on the first leg of that journey [April 23, 1945]:

"The special train waiting to carry [Eleanor Roosevelt] north was at the little wooden station. Soldiers lifted the flag-draped casket into the last car where other soldiers, sailors and marines would stand guard over it. The band played on & on; the drums echoed hollowly in the hot valley. Leaning on [an aide's] arm ... she steadily went aboard. The train moved slowly out of Warm Springs. At Atlanta, steel-helmeted soldiers lined the station platform, crowds filled windows overlooking the smoky terminal ... The train rumbled on, past fields where farmers tied their mules and stood at the fences with their hats off—into Greenville, South Carolina, where thousands packed the station area—into Charlotte, North Carolina ... where she heard Negroes singing spirituals. The train rolled on through the dark hills of Virginia, into the nation's capital at last."

Setting the Record Straight
Not the Inventor
• Our MILESTONE on the death of Hollywood technical wizard Edmund DiGiulio referred to him incorrectly as the inventor of the Steadicam [June 21]. Although DiGiulio developed the Steadicam and popularized its use, it was invented by Garrett Brown.

Provincial glitch
• In our story on dissident Wang Dan, "The Exile and the Entrepreneur" [June 7], we incorrectly characterized Jinan as a province. In fact, Jinan is the capital city of Shandong province.