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The Democratic Contenders
By choosing North Carolina Senator John Edwards as his vice-presidential candidate, John Kerry has shown he has the sharp judgment needed to be our President [July 19]. Kerry's military experience combined with Edwards' background as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and of the joint House and Senate committee investigating 9/11 is just the right mix we need to protect our land, our people and our future. Kerry has some wonderful plans to improve this nation, and Edwards has the speaking ability to get those ideas across.
Melanie A. Rush
Port Chester, U.S.

I am extremely disillusioned by American politics, but my hopes have been resuscitated by Kerry's choice of Edwards as the vice-presidential candidate. Although I believe his selection was made for many of the wrong reasons, a man of Edwards' character, decency and competence could provide strength to a campaign characterized by a lack of imagination, conviction and direction. The selection of John Edwards as his running mate is John Kerry's first truly significant step in his uninspired run for the presidency.
David Bagnard
Garden Valley, U.S.

Edwards may be a natural politician, he may be the rising star of the Democratic Party and he just might become Vice President of the U.S. But now is not the time. His "two Americas" speech you quoted was masterful and moving, but it reminded me that Edwards is a trial lawyer by profession, and his words sounded as if he was talking to a courtroom jury. Edwards gives the impression of a man continually in a hurry, someone restless and not willing to be grateful for what he has already achieved. He wants much more, and he won't rest until he gets it. He wants people to elect him on faith, not experience. Anyone is better than Dick Cheney in the No. 2 spot, but we need more than just a great smile and a dashing hairstyle.
Mark O'Neill
Würzburg, Germany

The Bush-campaign attack machine claims that Edwards doesn't have the experience to be Vice President. But it was Cheney's vaunted experience in foreign affairs that helped push George W. Bush over the edge in his pre-emptive attack on Iraq. And today, thanks to Cheney's influence, the U.S. has a dismally low standing in the court of world opinion. I'll take a critical and judicious thinker like Edwards anytime over Cheney and his damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead approach.
Bob Madgic
Anderson, U.S.

Americans will regret it if they elect Kerry and Edwards in November. Those two are far too inexperienced to deal with the tough world we live in. They don't have the authority that Bush and Cheney have. What could Kerry do to improve the situation in Iraq except invite France, Germany and the other countries that have rejected the war to join the U.S.? If I were an American, I would cast my vote for Bush, because he is a confident leader who easily makes decisions.
John Maina Chege
Nairobi

Framing the Debate
In "The President's Real Enemy" [July 19], columnist Joe Klein argued that, Kerry's candidacy aside, the true challenge Bush faces in the coming election is the war in Iraq. Bush is well aware of it. In his stump speeches, he claims that we are better off without Saddam Hussein. But if we really wanted to rid the world of deadly villains, shouldn't we have concentrated on the perpetrators of genocide in Sudan? Or on North Korea, which is working to develop nuclear weapons?
Ed Steinhaus
Westminster, U.S.

Kudos to Klein for identifying the two opponents Bush is facing in the campaign: John Kerry and reality. Kerry's reasoning on the issues is thoughtful and responsible. He actually makes sense. Pundits appropriately deride Bush for his malapropisms and simplistic sound bites, but the media rarely provide time or space for Kerry's carefully thought-out views. Please stop underestimating Americans' attention span. We can and will listen to reason when someone bothers to present it to us. In fact, we're starving for it.
Peggy Harris
St. James City, U.S.

Free to Be Afraid
I wonder whether President Bush has read your article "Living with the Fear," about how a Baghdad family copes with daily terror, violence and suffering [July 19]. I would like the President to understand the kind of "freedom" the war has brought to Iraqis. You noted that "the rules of civil society have broken down"; I was devastated to read how tragically day-to-day life in Iraq has deteriorated since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Judy Weintraub
New York City

As Bush campaigns across the nation, he continues to proclaim, without apology, that despite flawed intelligence about Iraq, the world is safer and the Iraqi people are free because of his pre-emptive war. Contrary to Bush's unbridled optimism, everything is not coming up roses. It's more like skunk cabbage. People live in fear in their homes in Baghdad, electricity is available only intermittently, vaccines are in short supply and kidnapping for ransom is an everyday occurrence. Yes, Saddam has been captured and his people are liberated but, sadly, only for a violent free-for-all.
Celine E. Riedel
Avon Lake, U.S.

Despots, Old and New
Michael Byers' viewpoint "Dictators in the Dock" [July 19] discussed the war-crimes trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. Just as dangerous are the leaders of Cuba and Russia. I am undecided which one is (or will be) more dangerous to humanity, Fidel Castro or Vladimir Putin. Because of Castro's advanced age, Putin is more of a long-term problem. He is capable of blocking any political development in Russia that he does not like, and his irrational behavior should be considered a threat.
Alfredo Formiga
Carcavelos, Portugal

Michael Moore's War
Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 is not just the politics of entertainment or the entertainment of politics [July 19]. For those who have been assimilating information and connecting the dots since George W. Bush took office, Moore simply lays it all out—the whole picture, which is something that our main media have been too gutless to do. Nothing Moore points out is a surprise. Everything he presents in this film should make an American citizen angry. Those who are shocked by Moore's documentary have not been paying attention to current events and what they are signaling, loud and clear.
Liz Rose
Santa Cruz, U.S.

Moore's movie may be a mix of fact and fiction, but anything that opens up discussion on the invasion of Iraq is good for America.
John Miranda
Oro Valley, U.S.

Moore blithely shreds the truth, warps time, morphs the innocuous into the sinister, minimizes the monumental and supersizes the trivial, all the while playing on irrational fears. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a mirror image of the very truth-twisting tactics Moore decries, proving that you can fool some of the people some of the time by pushing all the right buttons. Moore so deftly exploits class envy, ignorance, emotionalism, gullibility and victimhood that Fahrenheit 9/11 might just as well have been called Marketing 101.
Rosalie Graham Szilagyi
Louisville, U.S.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a documentary film; it is history's longest and most malicious negative campaign ad. The filmmaker raises the art of innuendo and guilt by association to heights unimagined by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Richard A. Stacy
Denver

Why all the silliness in response to the long-overdue anti-Republican propaganda in Fahrenheit 9/11? Fox News unabashedly spews anti-Democratic invective daily, so why the deep concern about one movie? Right-wingers dish it out with impunity, but they are certainly whining about Moore's response. The world beyond U.S. borders recognizes the transparent absurdity of this redneck posturing. At least half of all Americans undoubtedly cringe at the loss of respect and dignity the U.S. suffers on the global stage because of the embarrassingly blind arrogance of its political right. At home Moore may be a thorn in Bush's side, but around the world the filmmaker's brand of honesty redeems American credibility.
Jim Martens
Vernon, Canada