Let the record show ...

IN his otherwise excellent Regarding Media column on the Bush administration’s extraordinary request for records of the phone numbers called by virtually every American [“Public Has to Make the Call,” May 13], Tim Rutten rather optimistically says, “With midterm elections looming, voters will have a fuller opportunity to decide whether to support candidates who endorse the administration’s use of kidnapping, torture, secret incarceration and warrantless domestic spying or those who object to it.”

Alas, that’s true only if the Democratic Party chooses to make an issue of it and actually give voters the option of expressing their opposition to Bush’s agenda through their votes.

The experience of the 2002 and 2004 campaigns suggests quite the opposite.

Instead of standing on principle and defending the U.S. Constitution against Bush’s attempt to establish a quasi-dictatorial presidency based on “kidnapping, torture, secret incarceration and warrantless domestic spying,” the Democrats are all too likely to read the same poll results Rutten quoted, decide that going against a 2-to-1 majority supporting Bush’s position is a no-win position, and wimp out.

MARK GABRISH CONLAN

San Diego

TIM RUTTEN gains comfort from the fact that a majority of Americans support a “free press,” i.e. the reporting of classified surveillance programs. Now, ask those same Americans whether government employees should violate their secrecy oaths and betray sensitive intelligence matters in order to damage the president in a time of war. I dare say the response would be different.

BILL IRELAND

Ontario

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THE 63% who think it’s OK for the administration to have launched a secretive spy check on our telephone calls are probably the same sampling who would have become enraged if “American Idol” was canceled. What a commentary on how the media have stoked their ignorance. You can all be proud.

MARION LEWISH

San Diego