Madam, - Michael Tatham (March 1st) believes that Toby Joyce (February 22nd) was unfair to label George W Bush the "worst US president ever". He appears to believe that a US president would require "divine capabilities" to help end the Aids epidemic in Africa, to halt genocide in Darfur, to move the Middle East closer to peace, to provide leadership on climate change and to rally the world around a new vision for human rights and collective action.
Rather than "divine capabilities", all the US president needed was the will to do these things. President Bush could have worked to reduce the cost of drugs to Africa; he could have pressed the UN to intervene in Darfur or at least put together a coalition to do so (remember Kosovo); he could have applied more pressure on the Israelis rather than placating a domestic Jewish lobby; he could have stated a little sooner that the US was "addicted to oil" and stopped pandering to his rich oil buddies (think of Al Gore's leadership on this issue); and rather than violating human rights and Geneva Conventions, he might have undermined the efforts of terrorists by not sinking to their levels.
I argue the case in the past tense because there is little the president can do with his remaining 21 months in office. He is a lame duck, just as he was before 9/11. - Yours, etc,
TOM WARD, Monastery Road, Dublin 22.