Obama abroad.

• Author: Hunt, Dan
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the editor

Ted Widmer's entire essay is based on the narrowest definition that I have ever seen of what made JFK JFK. ("Ask Not!," online, January 2008). A resume checklist would have been less myopic, since Widmer's argument is limited to the "Foreign Travel" section.

Your readers, by contrast, may be interested in the parallels between how these two presidential candidates inspired youth toward civic participation and what this says about the times they were campaigning in. Your readers might want to understand the extent to which both candidates articulated a fresh vision for the nation. The lines of potential comparison are numerous, but Mr. Widmer has forgone them all for a blow-by-blow comparison of passport stamps.

Even with that narrow analysis, his conclusions aren't remotely compelling. Having lived abroad for an extended period of time, I can testify that the wisdom gleaned from international experiences doesn't come from a wide-but-shallow sample of different countries. Instead, perspective comes from prolonged...