View of Obama is distorted

Re “Obama’s misuse of history,” Opinion, Jan. 26

I am disturbed that Sean Wilentz would make such invidious comparisons between the careers of Sen. Barack Obama and the two former presidents with whom he is being compared: Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

Wilentz would have us understand that Obama essentially has no record of achievement that could compare to these two giants.

He cites Kennedy’s book, “Why England Slept,” ignoring Obama’s two bestsellers, written out of his own passion and experience.

He informs us that Lincoln had already established his reputation as an orator, ignoring Obama’s electrifying speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention.

He praises Lincoln’s opposition to the unjust war against Mexico, failing to note Obama’s parallel opposition to the war in Iraq.

A scholar ought not to disguise such partisan rants as historical analyses.

Donald Cosentino

Los Angeles

Despite efforts to the contrary, Wilentz’s summary of Lincoln’s experience tends to make Obama’s case.

Wilentz says Lincoln was a great lawyer, spirited abolitionist and mediocre politician before becoming president.

There are hundreds of great, spirited, experienced lawyers. What actually distinguished Lincoln is that he advocated transformative ideas at a transformative time and unified the country in the face of the Civil War.

“Change” and “unity” are Obama’s two great themes.

And if experience -- not judgment -- was the central criterion for office, Lyndon Johnson (of whom Hillary Rodham Clinton asserts that she is the political heir) and Richard Nixon would rank among our very greatest presidents.

Shawn L. Young

Austin, Texas

As Wilentz states in his article, it is not Obama but “his many avid supporters in the media and the academy” who make the claims that Wilentz then seeks to discredit as being Obama’s own.

He furthers the distortion by tying Republican invocation of Ronald Reagan’s name to Obama’s comments about Reagan’s ability to capture the American electorate.

Like or dislike the man, Reagan was elected twice by decisive margins and resurrected a moribund conservative movement, bringing many “Reagan Democrats” along.

To win the nomination and gain the presidency, Bill Clinton moved the Democratic Party to a more conservative footing, helping relegate “liberal Democrat” to dirty-word status.

Our country needs to end paralyzing partisan bickering and rise above personal political ambition. That’s the way history is made.

Tom Hicks

Bethesda, Md.

Our country’s educational system is failing, energy and global warming concerns abound, our financial house is disorderly, an unjust war is ongoing, yet a Princeton professor’s opinion of the Obama campaign’s supposed misquote of history is press-worthy.

Historical gamesmanship and spousal drama are off-point.

Bad history may be no way to make history, but trivial pursuit is a further step backward.

Charles Kennedy

Simi Valley