Qualifications and Qualities on Both Tickets

I was always taught that education matters. Indeed, each political party (and every parent) has stressed the importance of a good education and the virtues of higher education. Yet, somehow, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's academic background is sufficient for the second-highest job in the land.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer ["Palin's Problem," op-ed, Sept. 5] wrote that Republican nominee John McCain picked Ms. Palin to be a "game-changer" who would fill the campaign with magic. And I wanted Sarah Palin to be a hidden gem, too. But she attended six colleges in six years before receiving her undergraduate journalism degree from the University of Idaho. One of those schools was the obscure North Idaho College. No graduate degrees on her résumé.

Former president Bill Clinton, on the other hand, attended Georgetown University, received a Rhodes Scholarship to University College at Oxford and earned a law degree from Yale. Hillary Rodham Clinton graduated from Wellesley and then Yale Law School. Democratic nominee Barack Obama went to Columbia University and Harvard Law School; his running mate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., also has a law degree. Republican Mitt Romney was valedictorian at Brigham Young University and received a joint law degree and MBA from Harvard.

In a country with more than 300 million people, with plenty of accomplished men and women, why would we settle for Ms. Palin's mediocre credentials? Most companies would place her résumé in the reject pile for far lesser jobs.

LISA ORENSTEIN

Baltimore

The Sept. 8 news story "Palin to Give Interview to ABC This Week" included this sentence about Sarah Palin: "Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, said on 'Fox News Sunday' that she would not put herself before a 'cycle of piranhas called the news media' until reporters started to treat her 'with some level of respect and deference.' "

Deference?

Since when must news reporters treat politicians with deference? Certainly the media should be expected to treat politicians fairly and politely, but deference, which Webster defines as "respect and esteem due a superior or an elder; also: affected or ingratiating regard for another's wishes" has no place in a public campaign in which candidates should be evaluated on the basis of their competence, their experience, their policies or their philosophy -- and not given special consideration because of their gender, their race, their age or how many children they have. The media have the right, no, the responsibility, to ask hard questions of anyone seeking public office. Media deference shields a candidate from providing the vital information that the public needs to make an informed decision.

CORRIE SCHWEIGLER

Washington

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