Madam, - Whether or not I am happy with the outcome of the US election, it is clear that the American people have chosen their President, and this time by popular vote.
As someone who was hoping Senator John Kerry would win, I had always assumed that once President Bush was shown to the American people for what he was, they would reject him.
The fact that they have not means that we here in Ireland who opposed Bush have failed to grasp something central to the American political psyche.
Perhaps it is the fact that we have not been attacked on our home soil, perhaps it is a fear of Islam (unfounded as that may be). Whatever it is, we must face the fact that President Bush is who we've got for the next four years.
To continue to put down President Bush is clearly now an insult to the American population as a whole.
Hopefully, over the next four years, having seen the closeness of the election, President Bush will temper some of his more dangerous foreign policies, and strengthen his resolve to improve the lot of the average American worker.
And hopefully we can push for a safer world for us all, but not at too high a price.- Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL BARRY,
Hacketstown,
Co Carlow.
Madam, - If Mark Steyn's column is good for nothing else, it shows the political views of those Americans who rarely peek their heads outside its borders and have no consideration for anyone but the good old US of A.
If Bush and his fundamentalist Christian followers are the "American Way", I am embarrassed to say that I am an American.
I shake my head in disbelief at the results of Tuesday's election.
It is all too clear that many of the people who voted for President Bush did so because they were coerced by fear of terrorists from the outside world, which is perpetuated by right-wing media networks whose presenters project similar views to Mr Steyn's.
However, in the US, these views actually have an impact.
How 59,054,087 Americans could fail to see the parallels between President Bush's administration and al-Qaeda is beyond me.
Just like al-Qaeda, President Bush's administration is made up of fundamentalist zealots who have the power to bring free nations to their knees through their networks of terror and wealth. Al-Qaeda may be a threat to the Western world, but by re-electing George Bush, America has chosen to fan the flames at the hearth. - Yours, etc.,
SARAH NEESON,
Sandymount Road,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.
Madam, - I am writing as an American citizen who did not vote for George W. Bush. I wish to apologise for the actions taken by this President in the past and in the future.
It is our fault that the entire world will continue to suffer his imperialistic war-mongering ideas.
The success of any democracy is dependent on the activism of its citizens. Our voices were not loud enough to stop this petty regime from starting a new kind of terrorism.
We are guilty of apathy and blind patriotism, of fearing outsiders and being bilked by a tyrant with a toothy smile.
We replaced one dictator in Iraq with our leader's idea of a government; a crime that should be listed among those outlawed in the Geneva Convention.
This was once the country to be admired as the great melting pot that accepted all cultures and religions in to the gates.
Now, Muslims are questioned at random as civil rights disappear, millions are out of work as jobs leave our soil and affordable healthcare is diminishing.
Mr Bush does not agree with the popular minds of the US. I urge you not to view his behaviour as representative of Americans as a whole.
He is a man born to privilege and personal freedom that he now willingly denies to those he is elected to serve. There has been no attempt by this administration to truly improve the lives of the average American.
I fear for the future of my family not because of terrorists but of what conditions my children will be forced to endure under Bush's continued attack on personal rights and the economy. If I could safely leave the US for the duration of his presidential term, I would. - Yours, etc.,
CHRISTINE BOYD,
Phoenix,
Arizona,
USA.
Madam, - The belief that George Bush "stole" the 2000 election stems not from the peculiarities of a system that awarded him the presidency despite losing the popular vote, as Liam Weeks might have us believe (Letters, Nov 4th), but from documented and well-investigated instances of voter suppression and electoral register fraud in Florida, in addition to the dubious decision of a partisan Supreme Court.
The fact that Al Gore won the popular vote merely exacerbated the sense of injustice. - Yours, etc.,
DAVIN O'DWYER,
Tuam,
Co Galway.
Madam, - Here in the EU we objected recently to high office for a man who professed the belief that abortion and gay marriages are essentially evil.
Over in the US such an outlook could have won him the Presidency. - Yours, etc.,
B.J. KELLY,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.