For the children

The article about Tom Gilhool fails to tell fully how far he would go to help children ("A lawyer rests to sit in the sun," May 15).

In 1987, I was a low-ranking official in the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Gilhool, then the education secretary, promoted me to a high administrative and policy job. Under his direction, I helped Gov. Casey's senior officials plan the commonwealth's strategy to improve the health of children. After Gilhool left his state position, he sued the commonwealth for not doing enough to improve children's health care and named me as a defendant.

The lesson here is that Gilhool will use any means at his disposal to improve the lives of children. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children who are better educated and significantly healthier because Gilhool fought for them in any way he could find, whether as education secretary or as a public-interest litigator.

Gary Ledebur
Gulph Mills
CWBinzley@aol.com

Edwards' support

If the endorsement of Barack Obama signifies that he is closest to John Edwards' positions, that is a frightening prospect ("Edwards backs Obama," May 15).

Edwards was the most liberal candidate in the race, the individual who believes there are "two Americas" because society has not given enough to those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. He endorses confiscatory rates of taxation on "rich" individuals and companies, income redistribution, and income equality, and is anti-big business.

The extent to which Obama can be tied to Edwards' failed liberalism will help to determine his electability. If the two are joined at the hip, Americans will be far more likely to place John McCain in the White House.

Oren M. Spiegler
Upper Saint Clair

Hamas and Obama

Tony Auth was way off the mark in suggesting that John McCain was slinging mud for noting that Barack Obama is the favored candidate of Hamas (Inquirer, May 14).

In April, Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said: "We don't mind - actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, [a] great man with great principle, and he has the vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community, but not with domination and arrogance." Obama strategist David Axelrod called the Kennedy comparison "flattering."

How is pointing out an accurate, direct quote slinging mud? There are clear and demonstrable differences between McCain and Obama on how to deal with difficult foreign policy issues. Shining a light on those differences is not slinging mud. It is affording the voting public an opportunity to make an informed decision.

Steven L. Friedman
Myles H. Tanenbaum

Co-chairmen
Greater Philadelphia Chapter
of the Republican Jewish Coalition
Scott M. Feigelstein

Director
Republican Jewish Coalition
of Pennsylvania and South Jersey

The next war

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that rather than planning for the next war - what he calls "Next War-itis" - we should build a military that can "defeat the current enemies: smaller, terrorist groups and militias waging irregular warfare" ("Gates: Focus on today's military," May 14). Sounds reasonable in light of Iraq and Afghanistan. Somehow, though, he can't escape his own case of Next War-itis. He is ready to engage our country in another war with any adversary - unnamed but clearly Iran, part of the axis of evil - who, if it "committed an act of aggression . . . in the Persian Gulf," would be met with "ample air and naval power" to defeat it. Is there no end to Next War-itis?

Sidney Moss
Elkins Park
mosss@arcadia.edu

Payback

What good will five years in prison do for Jocelyn S. Kirsch and Edward K. Anderton beyond encouraging them to be more careful next time (" 'Poster children' for ID theft," May 13)? No, make them pay back what they stole, including compensation for all the noneconomic havoc they have caused. Once they have legitimate jobs, make them pay 75 percent of their after-tax income to the victims until it has been repaid five- or tenfold.

Sam Goldwasser
Bala Cynwyd
sam@ece.drexel.edu