To the Editor:
Re “Politicians Behaving Well” (column, June 10):
Why does David Brooks feel the need to refer back to Edmund Burke and Anthony Trollope to find an exemplary politician? We have one in the White House.
President Obama has been excoriated by both the left and the right with the most extreme and unrealistic invective used against any president in my lifetime, yet has never responded in kind. He has treated his opponents with respect, even when their opposition was beyond disrespectful.
He has taken the time to reflect and seek the counsel of the wise and learned, even when he was being accused of inaction, yet has acted decisively when necessary. And he has taken the opportunity to instruct us in our highest concerns, even when the throng was calling for soaring rhetoric.
In short, he has personified precisely the standards of political excellence Burke set forth. If only the American electorate cared.
DAVID BERMAN
New York, June 10, 2011
Editors’ Note: With this letter, we continue a new feature in which we invite readers to respond to an interesting letter. (The first topics were America’s energy future, and its eating habits.) We plan to publish a sampling of responses online over the weekend, and the original writer will be given a chance to reply. E-mail: letters@nytimes.com
Note from KBJ: There is so much dishonesty in this letter that I don't know where to begin. First, there is no comparison between how Barack Obama is treated and how George W. Bush was treated. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being abominable treatment, Obama gets a 4 and Bush a 10. Bush, a gentleman, never responded to his hateful critics. Second, Obama has not treated his opponents with respect. He has belittled them, ignored their wishes (think ObamaCare), hidden his actions from them (so much for "transparency"), misrepresented their criticisms and concerns (he is the master of the Straw-Person Fallacy), and, worse, encouraged his minions to attack them. He is a thug. Only one United States president can compete with Obama for the title of Worst President Ever, and that is his fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter. The letter writer inhabits an alternate reality.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 