From the "I wish I'd said that" files

A letter and a column in yesterday's New York Times struck me as particularly noteworthy. First, the letter:

To the Editor:

Re "Three Decades After Roe, a War We Can All Support," by William Saletan (Op-Ed, Jan. 22):
It is vital that the endless debate over abortion end quickly. The damage done to the United States in the last 33 years is far worse than people seem to realize.
In the United States, this one question dominates elections and Supreme Court nominations.
You elect people with the power to start wars, interpret the Constitution, use nuclear weapons and change Social Security based on their views on abortion.
Corrupt is O.K., not very bright is O.K., willing to destroy the environment is O.K., but no way will you vote for someone who disagrees with you on abortion!
Which brings two problems:
First, by putting so much focus on this one issue, you let politicians get away with murder on everything else.
Second, you necessarily elect people whose intellectual capacity enables them to look at a very complex issue like abortion and see it in simplistic black-and-white terms. The results are there for all to see.
Denis O'Sullivan
Brussels, Jan. 23, 2006

Well put, Mr. O'Sullivan! Next, a few choice excerpts from this column by Bob Herbert, titled "A President Who Can Do No Right":

Reality has been dealt a stunning blow by Mr. Bush. The administration's high-handedness with the Katrina investigators comes at the same time as disclosures showing that the White House was warned in the hours just before the hurricane hit New Orleans that it might well cause catastrophic flooding and the breaching of the city's levees.

That was early on the morning of last Aug. 29. On Sept. 1, with the city all but completely underwater, the president went on television and blithely declared, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

This guy is something . . . His breathtaking arrogance is exceeded only by his incompetence. And that's the real problem. That's where you'll find the mind-boggling destructiveness of this regime, in its incompetence. . . .

He seems to truly believe that he can do no wrong.

The fiasco in Iraq and the president's response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe were Mr. Bush's two most spectacular foul-ups. There have been many others. The president's new Medicare prescription drug program has been a monumental embarrassment, leaving some of the most vulnerable members of our society without essential medication. Prominent members of the president's own party are balking at the heavy hand of his No Child Left Behind law, which was supposed to radically upgrade the quality of public education.

The Constitution? Civil liberties? Don't ask.

Just keep in mind, whatever your political beliefs, that incompetence in high places can have devastating consequences.

I feel no need to add to that. It's too good for me to try to add anything!