Your editorial (Our View, Dec. 5) attempts feebly to disparage President George H.W. Bush as nothing more than “one of a very few” to have “held our most powerful office.” Yet a number of readers, including me, would share responses like the letter by Chris Queally in the same edition, “We’ll not see his like again, I am afraid.”

You find few significant accomplishments and somewhat more negative aspects during his presidency. Queally, on the other hand, focuses more on personal qualities, in particular qualities that I and others respect as values. You do not engage this topic, preferring to dismiss his self-effacing modesty as reflecting “his patrician upbringing.”

This allusion to sexism and privilege sweeps aside discussion of personal merit and the values President Bush represented. We can only hope his example will offer continuing guidance to this nation he served so ably and devotedly.

William Sayres

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