MAIL CALL: KERRY-EDWARDS: 'JUST WHAT THE COUNTRY

Misguided Entry Into War?

President Bush seems to be in denial about the results of the 500-page bipartisan Senate report, described by Michael Isikoff, and its conclusion that virtually every major claim his administration used to justify the invasion of Iraq was either wrong or exaggerated ( " 'The Dots Never Existed'," July 19). He believes the war was justified to make America safer. If Bush does not learn from his mistake and repeats it or, worse, if Americans embrace the idea of putting another people at wrongful risk of injury or death to "secure" our way of life, then history may well judge Bush's presidency the worst that ever was.
M. J. Lamson
Cary, N.C.

George W. Bush was wrong, try as he might to blame "faulty intelligence" for the invasion of Iraq. The CIA official's words "Let's keep in mind that this war's going to happen regardless..." in the Senate intelligence report are glaringly incriminating. Bush can maintain a thousand times that we were right to invade Iraq and still not bring back the more than 900 American soldiers who have died as a result of his war of choice. Bush was wrong, tragically wrong.
Del Cardillo
Santa Barbara, Calif.

Single Mom, Many Worries

As a teacher in a lower-income area of Sacramento, I see many mothers raising their children alone ("Raising a Son--With Men on the Fringes," my turn, July 19). I also see many grandmothers who have taken on the task of raising their grandchildren. One statement of Robyn Marks's struck me as all-important: "I still realize that at the end of the day, everything Jason is, everything he trusts about who and what he can become, will come from me." If every parent, single or not, realized and acted on that premise, our nation's children would have a hopeful and productive future. Parenting is an awesome, never-ending, daunting responsibility, no matter what your color or economic status. It doesn't take just love to be a good parent; it takes time, selflessness and expectations. Every child deserves to have someone who believes in him or her, someone who is willing and able to sacrifice to be proactive in the life of that child. It seems to me that Marks is up to the task.
Anne Taylor
Fair oaks, Calif.

As someone who was raised by his mother alone from the age of 5, I read with great empathy and interest Robyn Marks's my turn. I was impressed and heartened by Marks's careful and apparently selfless planning regarding her son's current and future trials. But her son's story probably won't be like mine. I went to public school, where I was able to experience various cultures represented by my many friends and classmates. The money my mother saved from not sending me to private school allowed her to have a job that didn't require her to leave me for days. The "Generation-X child[ren] of hip-hop" have nothing on the smoking-drinking-partying, Rat Pack-inspired lifestyle of my parents' generation, a lifestyle my mother chose to end with my father's death at 39. At that point she went to work in a job that got her home as I was leaving school so that I would not be left in after-school care. "General bling" was that spark of recognition won at school from academic achievement, not jewelry (which she didn't flaunt and I didn't want). Like Marks, my mom was bolstered by her faith, but she knew her real work was to be at all my various concerts and sporting events, as well as to peek in on me every night as I slept.
Paul Witt
Culver City, Calif.