Opinion: Hillary Clinton was calm after the email story broke — how very presidential of her

To the editor: According to Times reporter Chris Megerian, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton took the news that the FBI was looking at emails that may be relevant to its investigation “like a champ.” She also withheld her reaction until later, when she could begin to process the news along with her aides. (“I broke the news to the Clinton campaign about the new FBI emails probe. Here’s what happened next,” Oct. 29)

No immediate Twitter outburst. No immediate public reaction. In other words, Clinton was cool as a cucumber.

Juxtapose that with Republican Donald Trump’s reactions to negative news. He has immediately jumped to the wrong conclusions or made ill-conceived comments with no forethought to how his reaction would be publicly seen.

Whose fingers would we prefer to have on America’s nuclear football? The answer to that question next week will determine whether we continue to be a world leader or fall to the level of foul-mouthed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

What does it say about us when this election is even this close?

Mike Aguilar, Costa Mesa

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To the editor: What’s truly troubling is not that FBI Director James Comey made his announcement so close to the election, but Trump’s response. .

As The Times has reported, the emails “were not to or from Clinton, and ... contained information that appeared to be more of what agents had already uncovered” before Comey had closed the investigation. Yet, Trump irresponsibly proclaimed that these emails established his opponent’s “criminal scheme.”

Like his earlier statement that as president he would direct his attorney general to have a special prosecutor investigate Clinton and his repeated threats to jail his opponent, this response shows that a Trump presidency would pose a clear and present danger to the rule of law.

Ernest A. Canning, Thousand Oaks

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To the editor: If this election were a plot line on “House of Cards,” the critics would have written this: “The drama is engaging, but the events are so preposterous that it is impossible for viewers to suspend enough belief to enjoy the show. One star.”

Henry Claeys, Rancho Palos Verdes

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