THE ISSUE: Whether presidential candidates today have character, as their predecessors did.
***
In looking for a president with the character of Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan, Ralph Peters asks, “Will we ever again have a president who didn’t go to an Ivy League school, who knows what it’s like to struggle — as so many Americans struggle every day — and who’s tasted defeat, but got back in the ring with his dukes up?” (“Why Our ‘Post-Modern Presidents’ Fail,” PostOpinion, March 13).
The answer is “yes.” Her name is Sarah Palin.
Peter Skurkiss
Stow, Ohio
***
Does Peters really believe that Reagan had a tougher time becoming an actor in Hollywood than Barack Obama had becoming a lawyer at Harvard?
Tell me again about obstacles and who came up the hard way.
John Preuss
Manhattan
***
I am a regular reader of Peters, even if he does resort to the occasional Brit-bashing. Americans can be such delicate flowers and should be allowed to vent the occasional frustration.
However, give us some credit: Bill Clinton never got an Oxford degree, and he says it’s one of his greatest regrets.
Michael Vaughan
Preston, UK
***
The presidential candidate Peters describes is Sarah Palin: She went to the University of Idaho, and Todd Palin was a commercial fisherman.
Joe McNiesh
Staten Island
***
Peters’ contention that great presidents are forged in the crucible of adversity is most persuasive, especially with respect to Truman.
Although Truman lacked the panache and the pedigree of an Ivy League graduate, he had an incisive native intelligence. A voracious reader, he remained a lifelong student of history.
Truman possessed Machiavelli’s “virtu,” a sense of statecraft that has eluded our more timorous presidential wunderkinds.
Truman largely shaped the world we know today. Salty of tongue and indomitably cocksure, he made controversial decisions that forever altered the course of human events.
Rosario Iaconis
Mineola