Worth your kid?

• Author: Polner, Murray
• Position: Letters

Last November, a New York Times poll found that Americans believed our latest war was "worth the cost" even if "several thousand American troops" were killed. Still, I wondered whether the pollsters should have asked if it would still be "worth the cost" if the respondent's own son or daughter was killed? Posed this way; I doubt the same 61 percent would have answered "yes."

Charles Moskos's (a "former draftee") and Paul Glastris's absurd article brought that dubious polling question to mind with their simplistic solution for our country's post-September 11...